Sustained Emotion, Connectome Competition, and the Breath of Decision - 1.2 to 1.5 s SfN 2025 Lat Brain Bee Decolonial Neuroscience
Sustained Emotion, Connectome Competition, and the Breath of Decision - 1.2 to 1.5 s SfN 2025 Lat Brain Bee Decolonial Neuroscience
First-Person Consciousness
I keep breathing, and between 1.2 and 1.5 seconds the emotion is no longer a brief discharge: it becomes a sustained state.
Here I begin to decide whether to remain open, act quickly, or analyze carefully.
And it is no coincidence: science shows that many times decision coincides with inhalation.
Inhaling is like opening the body’s door so that a new Self can emerge.
Phenomena Involved
EEG: the LPP remains prolonged; the SPN keeps the perceptual scene open; microstates begin to group into more stable blocks.
fNIRS: the still-nascent hemodynamic signal in the vmPFC strengthens, foreshadowing affective consolidation.
Breathing: recent studies show that inhalation enhances neural readiness to decide, speeding responses without loss of accuracy.
Neurochemistry: GABA continues to regulate, but glutamate appears in a controlled way, opening routes for synaptic plasticity.
Connectomes: this is where active competition arises among the three modes:
Paper (Zone 2) – opens the experience, fostering fruition and metacognition, much like REM.
Rock (Somatosensory, fast thinking) – crystallizes immediate response, blind faith in what is already learned.
Scissors (Prefrontal, slow thinking) – cuts wholes into parts, classifies, organizes hypotheses, prepares critical learning.
During this interval, connectomes play Paper–Rock–Scissors in microcycles, while inhalation can act as the trigger for the choice that becomes action.
Voices of the Avatars
Brainlly: “With inhalation, I feel glutamate opening a path to fix a route. It is the biochemical moment of readiness.”
Iam: “Here the emotion doesn’t vanish: it breathes with me. Inhalation is the sigh that decides if the feeling will crystallize or not.”
Olmeca: “Each culture interprets the breath of decision differently: some call it instinct, others divine breath. The Tensional Self translates it into living energy.”
Yagé: “In trance, we always inhale before choice. The air entering is the bridge between worlds.”
Math/Hep: “Microstates align into ~300 ms blocks. Inhalation marks the start of transitions between these blocks — it’s like pressing the reconfigure button.”
DANA: “DNA knows how to read these breaths: each leaves epigenetic traces, small decisions that together write our stories.”
Practical Example
The researcher-mother hears her baby.
Between 1.2 and 1.5 s, she inhales — and with inhalation, readiness to act arises.
If Rock dominates, she immediately picks the baby up, fast and automatic.
If Scissors dominates, she analyzes: “hunger, sleep, pain?”
If Paper opens, she experiences the moment fully: “this is my baby, and I belong to this instant.”
The decision is born in the breath.
Neuroscientific Reading
EEG – prolonged LPP and SPN sustain the stimulus; microstates in ~300 ms blocks reveal the first network stability.
fNIRS – vmPFC shows increasing oxygenation, tied to affective attribution.
Breathing – inhalation facilitates conscious perception and accelerates decision-making.
Connectomes – Paper, Rock, and Scissors alternate rapidly, each offering a distinct adaptive strategy.
Energy – the system breathes the decision: optimizing cost while preparing the Self’s shift.
Partial Conclusion
Between 1.2 and 1.5 seconds, emotion sustains itself and becomes a decision field.
Inhalation is the physiological marker that favors this turn, synchronizing microstates, connectomes, and emotion.
The Tensional Self is not fixed: it breathes, oscillating between Paper, Rock, and Scissors, until it finds the way to land in the next moment.
References (post-2025 + respiratory studies)
EEG microstate analysis in children with prolonged disorders of consciousness (Scientific Reports, 2025).
Microstate syntax and task-dependent reorganization of brain dynamics (NeuroImage, 2025).
Resting-state fNIRS functional connectivity in patients with disorders of consciousness (Frontiers in Neurology, 2025).
Hemodynamic responses to emotional auditory stimuli in patients with altered consciousness (Frontiers in Neurology, 2025).
Musical training and microstate plasticity in older adults (Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 2025).
Inhalation boosts perceptual awareness and decision speed (Current Biology, 2023).
Respiratory phase modulates readiness potential in voluntary action (NeuroImage, 2023).
