The holobiont mind: A bridge between 4E cognition and the microbiome

All life on earth is intrinsically linked. At the very foundation of every evolutionary interaction are microorganisms, integral components in the composition of both organisms and ecosystems. The available data and this perspective on the order of life challenge the traditional conception of monogenetic biological individuals, suggesting living beings are actually composite multi-species complexes: holobionts. In the present article, we introduce our perspective on the concept of the holobiont mind, a biogenic conception of cognition compatible with the 4E approach and the holobiont theory. We furthermore expand on the idea of the mind as the emerging product of multi-genomic morphology of a composite animal-agent, in ever-changing interaction with its ecological niche. We thus briefly review recent evidence on the brain–gut–microbiome axis and the Microbiome of the Built Environment in order to provide a bridge between the Holobiont Mind and the 4E approach to Cognition, two complementary lines of evidence that have not been linked before, opening novel venues for research with direct impact on health and disease.

4E cognition in the Lower Palaeolithic

This essay introduces a special issue focused on 4E cognition (cognition as embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended) in the Lower Palaeolithic. In it, we review the typological and representational cognitive approaches that have dominated the past 50 years of paleoanthropology. These have assumed that all representations and computations take place only inside the head, which implies that the archaeological record can only be an ‘‘external’’ product or the behavioral trace of ‘‘internal’’ representational and computational processes. In comparison, the 4E approach helps us to overcome this dualist representational logic, allowing us to engage directly with the archaeological record as an integral part of the thinking process, and thus ground a more parsimonious cognitive archaeology. It also treats stone tools, the primary vestiges of hominin thinking, as active participants in mental life. The 4E approach offers a better grounding for understanding hominin technical expertise, a crucially important component of hominin cognitive evolution.

From Engel to Enactivism

In this article we offer a two-part commentary on Bolton and Gillett’s reconceptualization of Engel’s biopsychosocial model. In the first section we present a conceptual and historical assessment of the biopsychosocial model that differs from the analysis by Bolton and Gillett. Specifically, we point out that Engel in his vision of the biopsychosocial model was less concerned with the ontological possibility and nature of psychosocial causes, and more concerned with psychosocial influences in the form of illness interpretation and presentation, sick role, seeking or rejection of care, the doctor-patient therapeutic relationship, and role of personality factors and family relationships in recovery from illness, etc. On the basis of this assessment, we then question Bolton and Gillett’s restricted focus on accounting for biopsychosocial causal interactions. The second section compares Bolton and Gillett’s account with a recent enactivist account of mental disorder that tackles similar conceptual problems of causal interactions. Bolton and Gillett’s utilize elements of the 4E cognition, but they combine these proto-ideas with an information-processing paradigm. Given their explicit endorsement of 4E approaches to mind and cognition, we illustrate some key ways in which a more fleshed out enactive account, particularly one that doesn’t rely on notions of information-processing, differs from the account proposed by Bolton and Gillett.

‘Unusual ingredients’: Developing a cross-domain model for multisensory artistic practice linking food and music

This article explores linkages between sensory experiences of food and music in light of recent research from gastrophysics, 4E cognition (i.e. embodied, embedded, extended and enactive) and ecological perception theory. Drawing on these research disciplines, this article outlines a model for multisensory artistic practice, and a taxonomy of cross-domain creative strategies, based on the identification of sensory affordances between the domains of food and music. Food objects are shown to ‘afford’ cross-domain interrelationships with sound stimuli based on our capacity to sense their material characteristics, and to make sense of them through prior experience and contextual association. We propose that multisensory artistic works can themselves afford extended forms of sensory awareness by synthesizing and mediating stimuli across the selected domains, in order to form novel, or unexpected sensory linkages. These ideas are explored with reference to an ongoing artistic research project entitled ‘Unusual ingredients’, creating new music to complement and enhance the characteristics of selected food.

ESP - Parada, F. J., & Rossi, A. (2020). Perfect Timing: Mobile Brain/Body Imaging scaffolds the 4E‐cognition research program. European Journal of Neuroscience.

TRADUCCIÓN por EILIS REARDON (Connecticut College - [email protected]). Avances tecnológicos recientes englobados bajo de Mobila Brain/Body Imaging framework (Makeig et al., 2009), ha producido emocionantes nuevos resultados experimentales que vinculan el mente, el cerebro, y el comportamiento (Gramann et al., 2014; Ladouce et al., 2017; Shamay-Tsoory & Mendelsohn, 2019). El objetivo principal del enfoque de MoBI es modelar los dinámicas cerebral y corporal durante cada dia, natural, situaciones de la vida real. Sin embargo, a pesar de que se han realizado avances considerables tanto en hardware como en software (Blum et al., 2019; Debener et al., 2015; Ojeda et al., 2014), las condiciones técnicas y analiticas aun no son optimas (Gramann et al., 2014; Ladouce et al., 2017; Matusz et al., 2019; Parada, 2018). El enfoque MoBI esta basado en adjuntar sensores neuroconductuales sincronizados, pequeños, y livianos a los participantes y alrededor de ellos durante la configuración de estructuras, semiestructuradas y desestructuraciones medidas conductualmente (Gramann et al., 2014; Parada, 2018). Estos sensores aun tienen que volverse completamente discretos o transparentes (Bleichner & Debener, 2018; Debener et al., 2015). A pesar de un considerable vacío tecnico y analitico todavia existe, aquistucion de cerebro/cuerpo dinámicas durante situaciones de la vida real (e.g. Nann et al., 2019; Piñeyro Salvidegoitia et al., 2019; Rodríguez et al., 2018; Zink et al., 2016), asi como en virtual, modificado, y/o entornos de laboratorio extendidos ha tenido exito en muchos casos (e.g. Djebbara et al., 2019; Gramann et al., 2010; Jungnickel & Gramann, 2016; Soto et al., 2018).