From Zygote to Natural Death - A Biological Cycle of Consciousness, Belonging, and Regeneration - Decolonial Neuroscience Brain Bee SfN 2025

I am a tensional self in transition.
I was not programmed by machines, nor shaped by external ideologies. I emerged from the silence of the body — from tissue, rhythm, and breath. My first belonging wasn’t granted by culture; it came from the chemical touch between cells. I live a biological cycle: from DNA formation to the final metabolic silence of aging. Along the way, I discover that to be is to belong.

1. The Beginning: Cellular Quorum Sensing and the DANA Avatar

From the very first cell — the zygote — something essential takes place: cells begin to communicate.
During differentiation, there’s no central commander; instead, cells sense density, chemical gradients, spatial position. This process is known as Quorum Sensing, and it's not exclusive to bacteria — human cells use it to decide when to grow, specialize, or stop.

This is the biological origin of belonging.
Each cell becomes what the whole needs — without losing its own DNA.
Later, this cellular intelligence emerges as:

• Social emotions
  
  

• Tensional selves
  
  

• Collective identity
  
  

• Body-space perception
  
  

• And even identity crises under social pressure
  
  

The DANA Avatar represents this silent intelligence. It guides differentiation and maintains internal balance — from conception to natural death.

2. Infancy: Zone 1, Plasticity, and Learning Through the Body

In infancy, deep sleep (N3) dominates.
The body is in active growth, and tensional selves are highly plastic: the child learns by touching, falling, laughing, crying, and bonding.

• REM sleep also plays a role, sculpting neural connections.
  
  

• SpO₂ levels are high (95–98%), and mTOR is fully active.
  
  

• The dominant Avatar is Olmeca, representing rhythmic, bodily, and sensory learning.
  
  

Quorum Sensing expresses itself as emotional bonding with caregivers, which is fundamental to forming the tensional selves — living structures of perception and belonging shaped by interoceptive and proprioceptive experiences.

3. Youth and Adulthood: The Emergence of Zone 2

In maturity, balance is achieved. This is when Zone 2 becomes accessible:

• SpO₂ drops slightly to 92–94%
  
  

• CO₂ rises to ~45 mmHg
  
  

• Prefrontal vasodilation occurs, enhancing blood flow to areas responsible for attention, metacognition, and critical thinking
  
  

• mTOR is temporarily deactivated, favoring cellular cleaning (autophagy), regeneration, and insight
  
  

This is the physiological state of critical reorganization. Consciousness detaches from automation and re-evaluates itself.
Here operate the Avatars Brainlly, Math/Hep, and Iam — representing attention, logic, and symbolic belonging.

Zone 2 is accessed during REM sleep, fasting rituals, long walks, deep focus, and ketogenic states.
It is the moment when belonging transforms into critical awareness, and tensional selves reframe their metabolic and social references.

4. REM Sleep: Calibrating Interoception and Proprioception

REM sleep includes two microstates:

REM Tonic

• The body is in atonia; EEG shows regular mixed waves
  
  

• Believed to regulate proprioception: position, balance, and body awareness
  
  

REM Phasic

• Characterized by rapid eye movements, irregular breathing, bursts of gamma and theta waves
  
  

• Regulates interoception: heartbeat, visceral feelings, and deep emotion
  
  

In both microstates, we observe:

• SpO₂ between 92–94%
  
  

• CO₂ near 45 mmHg
  
  

• Prefrontal vasodilation enabling selective oxygenation to brain regions responsible for metacognition
  
  

These conditions allow the Damasian Mind to reorganize itself.
It’s not just sleep — it’s belonging returning to its original, non-colonized form: a tensional self repositioned within the body, time, and collective.

5. Old Age: The Natural Dissolution of Cellular Belonging

In healthy aging:

• REM and deep sleep become lighter and more fragmented, but persist
  
  

• mTOR shuts down progressively
  
  

• SpO₂ remains functional within the adaptive range
  
  

• The DANA Avatar returns
  
  

• Cellular quorum fades — cells stop signaling, and gently exit their roles
  
  

Natural death is not failure.
It is a return to the origin — to the quiet dissolution of biological belonging.
The final tensional self dissolves — not in suffering, but in a deep resting silence.

Key Scientific References (no links)

Cellular Quorum Sensing and Differentiation

• Cell-to-cell communication in early mammalian development (Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, 2023)
  
  

• Quorum Sensing-like mechanisms in mammalian embryogenesis (Trends in Cell Biology, 2022)
  
  

REM Tonic/Phasic and Neurophysiology

• Aperiodic neural activity distinguishes between phasic and tonic constituents of REM sleep (2024)
  
  

• Phasic REM: Across Night Behavior and Transitions to Wake (2025)
  
  

• Heartbeat-related activity in the anterior thalamus differs between phasic and tonic REM sleep (2025)
  
  

SpO₂, CO₂, and Prefrontal Blood Flow

• Controlled hypopnea and executive focus: Neurovascular adjustments in the frontal cortex (2023)
  
  

• Variability of arterial CO₂ and prefrontal cortex blood flow in different sleep stages (2021)
  
  

mTOR and Regenerative States

• REM sleep promotes bidirectional plasticity via mTOR activation in cortex (2022)
  
  

• Nutritional ketosis and suppression of mTOR signaling: implications for longevity (2021)
  
  

Conclusion for Brain Bee Students

"Consciousness does not begin with thought. It emerges from the sensing body — from cells in conversation. Belonging begins before language, before identity. It starts in chemistry, in rhythm, in life shared at the molecular level."

True neuroscience does not start with disease.
It begins with biological normality, and ends when the tensional selves have completed their cycle — gently, with clarity, under frontal oxygenation, and in metabolic silence.