scholarly journals Radical embodied cognitive neuroscience: addressing “grand challenges” of the mind sciences

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis H. Favela
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
The Mind

Human nature without a soul?

2004 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
MALCOLM JEEVES
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Neural Substrates ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The Past ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
The Mind ◽  
To Receive

Rapid developments in neuroscience over the past four decades continue to receive wide media attention. Each new reported advance points to ever tightening links between mind and brain. For many centuries, what is today called ‘mind-talk’ was familiar as ‘soul-talk’. Since, for some, the possession of a soul is what makes us human, the challenges of cognitive neuroscience directly address this. This paper affords the non-specialist a brief overview of some of the scientific evidence pointing to the ever tightening of the mind-brain links and explores its wider implications for our understanding of human nature. In particular it brings together the findings from so-called bottom-up research, in which we observe changes in behaviour and cognition resulting from experimental interventions in neural processes, with top-down research where we track changes in neural substrates accompanying habitual modes of cognition or behaviour. Further reflection alerts one to how the dualist views widely held by New Agers, some humanists and many religious people, contrast with the views of academic philosophers, theologians and biblical scholars, who agree in emphasizing the unity of the person.

Why the Mind Wanders

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlin Mills ◽  
Arianne Herrera-Bennett ◽  
Myrthe Faber ◽  
Kalina Christoff
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Default Mode ◽  
Memory Efficiency ◽  
Random Fashion ◽  
Phenomenological Account ◽  
Episodic Memories ◽  
The Mind

This chapter offers a functional account of why the mind—when free from the demands of a task or the constraints of heightened emotions—tends to wander from one topic to another, in a ceaseless and seemingly random fashion. We propose the default variability hypothesis, which builds on William James’s phenomenological account of thought as a form of mental locomotion, as well as on recent advances in cognitive neuroscience and computational modeling. Specifically, the default variability hypothesis proposes that the default mode of mental content production yields the frequent arising of new mental states that have heightened variability of content over time. This heightened variability in the default mode of mental content production may be an adaptive mechanism that (1) enhances episodic memory efficiency through de-correlating individual episodic memories from one another via temporally spaced reactivations, and (2) facilitates semantic knowledge optimization by providing optimal conditions for interleaved learning.

Brain phylogeny, ontogeny and dysfunction: integrating evolutionary, developmental and clinical perspectives in cognitive neuroscience

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 149-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Hannan
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Brain Dysfunction ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Functional Variants ◽  
On Line ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Diverse Groups

Objective:One of the most popular approaches in cognitive neuroscience has been to study the normal adult human brain. However, there are likely to be limits to the knowledge that can be obtained from such studies. If we assume that no single approach can ever provide us with knowledge of causative processes whereby the mind emerges from the brain, then we need to consider how to combine more disparate approaches. I aim to illustrate here how the parallel study of brain phylogeny, ontogeny and dysfunction may bring us towards an integrative understanding of fundamental aspects of cognitive neuroscience.Methods:A review of published literature in these research areas was carried out and representative articles selected.Results:Comparative approaches, utilizing the extraordinary behavioural abilities as well as the structural and functional variants that evolution has thrown up across diverse groups of species, can inform the core neural systems that may be necessary and sufficient to support specific cognitive processes. Similarly, detailed studies of human brain development, focusing on structural and functional maturation correlated with temporal mapping of cognitive processes as they come ‘on-line’, may provide unique mechanistic insights. Finally, the study of brain dysfunction in neurological and psychiatric disorders such as Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia and depression, may have the beneficial side-effect of greatly enhancing our understanding of healthy brain function.Conclusion:Each approach has its own epistemological advantages and disadvantages, but combined they may lead to more sophisticated, and empirically testable, models. In this review, I outline evidence for their utility, illustrate the approaches using specific examples and suggest how new advances in fields such as genomics, neurophysiology and neuroimaging may provide unprecedented opportunities in cognitive neuroscience.

Précis ofAfter Phrenology: Neural Reuse and the Interactive Brain

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael L. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Brain Function ◽  
Neural Element ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Behavioral Repertoire ◽  
Neural Reuse ◽  
Multiple Uses ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Mind

AbstractNeural reuse is a form of neuroplasticity whereby neural elements originally developed for one purpose are put to multiple uses. A diverse behavioral repertoire is achieved by means of the creation of multiple, nested, and overlapping neural coalitions, in which each neural element is a member of multiple different coalitions and cooperates with a different set of partners at different times. Neural reuse has profound implications for how we think about our continuity with other species, for how we understand the similarities and differences between psychological processes, and for how best to pursue a unified science of the mind.After Phrenology: Neural Reuse and the Interactive Brain(2014; henceforthAfter Phrenologyin this Précis) surveys the terrain and advocates for a series of reforms in psychology and cognitive neuroscience. The book argues that, among other things, we should capture brain function in a multidimensional manner, develop a new, action-oriented vocabulary for psychology, and recognize that higher-order cognitive processes are built from complex configurations of already evolved circuitry.

The Mind, the Brain, and the Moving Body

2021 ◽  
pp. 208-212
Author(s):  
Bettina Bläsing ◽  
Beatriz Calvo-Merino
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Aesthetic Perception ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Art Form ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Arts Community

Dance has become a topic of increasing interest for empirical research in cognitive neuroscience and psychology. The study reviewed in this chapter aimed to reach a multifaceted community of scholars and practitioners interested in the blending between neuroscience and dance as an art form. It includes a revision on dancers’ physical expertise and skilled motor execution, studies on dancers’ timing and online synchronization abilities, and learning and memory processes, as well as a consideration of expert dancers as skilled dance observers. Following the authors’ comment on the article, they acknowledge major developments since its publication, in particular regarding recent lines of research on emotional components of dance, creativity, aesthetic perception, improvisation, entrainment, empathy, and well-being. Finally, the authors emphasize the impact of empirical research in dance beyond cognitive neuroscience and psychology and consider the potential of multidisciplinary expert teams that include the performing arts community to contribute to discourses in the arts and the sciences.

scholarly journals For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything

2004 ◽  
Vol 359 (1451) ◽  
pp. 1775-1785 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Zeki ◽  
O. R. Goodenough ◽  
Joshua Greene ◽  
Jonathan Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Moral Intuitions ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

The rapidly growing field of cognitive neuroscience holds the promise of explaining the operations of the mind in terms of the physical operations of the brain. Some suggest that our emerging understanding of the physical causes of human (mis)behaviour will have a transformative effect on the law. Others argue that new neuroscience will provide only new details and that existing legal doctrine can accommodate whatever new information neuroscience will provide. We argue that neuroscience will probably have a transformative effect on the law, despite the fact that existing legal doctrine can, in principle, accommodate whatever neuroscience will tell us. New neuroscience will change the law, not by undermining its current assumptions, but by transforming people's moral intuitions about free will and responsibility. This change in moral outlook will result not from the discovery of crucial new facts or clever new arguments, but from a new appreciation of old arguments, bolstered by vivid new illustrations provided by cognitive neuroscience. We foresee, and recommend, a shift away from punishment aimed at retribution in favour of a more progressive, consequentialist approach to the criminal law.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document