Neuroscience has made considerable progress over the last decades in revealing neuronal mechanisms on different levels of brain activity including genetic, molecular, cellular, regional and network levels. However, despite all this progress, no particular model of the brain has commanded consensus. A model of the brain should attribute clear features to the brain, such as its degree of participation in its own processing of stimuli. While primarily a theoretical issue, models of the brain may create major reverberations within neuroscientific investigation and philosophical work on the mind-brain problem. Both philosophers and neuroscientists often presuppose a passive model of the brain wherein the brain passively receives and processes external stimuli. However, recent empirical data do not support a passive view of the brain. Accordingly, I will advocate for an active model of the brain. The empirical support for an active model of brain comes from findings concerning its resting state or spontaneous activity. Empirical data shows that the brain’s stimulus-induced activity results from the integration of spontaneous activity and external stimuli. However, the brain’s activity can vary with respect to the extent of integration of resting state activity and external stimuli. This leads me to suggest what I describe as a spectrum model of the brain. The spectrum model claims that stimulus-induced activity is based on a spectrum or continuum of different possible relationships or balances between spontaneous activity and external stimuli.
Testing the horizontal-vertical stereo anisotropy with the power-spectrum model of visual masking
