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The history of the sciences of the human brain and mind has been characterized from the beginning by two parallel traditions. The prevailing theory that still influences the way current neuroimaging techniques interpret brain function, can be traced back to classical localizational theories, which in turn go back to early phrenological theories. Th...
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The first chapter in neurology was composed in the prescience era. Chiseled with flint stones, grisly in nature, it was a narrative where men
trephined human skull to treat such maladies as head injury, epilepsy, and disturbed mind. The ungodly practice survived from the late Stone
Age until the renaissance. The first written reference to brain i...
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... It is built on the primitive layer of the reptilian brain focused mainly on the brainstem/basal ganglia, the limbic brain from mammals as the second layer, and the final layer of the neocortex focused more on language and abstraction. [21][22][23] The VN cuts across these three layers as it is relevant in the brainstem, limbic system, and neocortex. The limbic brain is responsible for the physiological reactions to stress but could be regulated by the higher neocortex. ...
The vagus nerve (VN) plays an important role in the modulation of the autonomic nervous system, inflammatory system, and interoception, therefore connecting the cardiovascular and gastrointestinal systems to the central nervous system. Dysregulation of the VN is implicated in several psychiatric disorders. The recent availability of safe and non-invasive transcutaneous VN stimulation (tVNS) techniques opens new opportunities to evaluate the role of the VN in psychiatric disorders. We briefly review the basic anatomy and physiology of the VN, extensively discuss various theories linking VN dysfunction to health and illness, give details of the probable neurochemical underpinnings of VN activity, delineate its dysfunction in psychiatric disorders and put forward the current state and future directions of VNS, specifically focusing on tVNS.
... Early work demonstrated that removal of the neocortex at birth in Syrian hamsters did not disrupt the expression of social play (Murphy et al., 1981). This finding and others led to the conceptualization of the triune brain, which emphasized that species-typical behavior widely observed across the animal kingdom should be regulated by conserved, subcortical, limbic neural circuits (MacLean, 1990), although the triune brain concept has many detractors and was comparatively naive (Burghardt, 2020; Butler and Hodos, 2005;Cory, 2002;Reiner, 1990;Wiest, 2012). This initial finding in hamsters was replicated in rats by showing that the social play behavior of decorticated rats was virtually indistinguishable from their non-lesioned, healthy play partners (Panksepp et al., 1994;Pellis et al., 1992). ...
Syrian hamsters show complex social play behavior and provide a valuable animal model for delineating the neurobiological mechanisms and functions of social play. In this review, we compare social play behavior of hamsters and rats and underlying neurobiological mechanisms. Juvenile rats play by competing for opportunities to pin one another and attack their partner's neck. A broad set of cortical, limbic, and striatal regions regulate the display of social play in rats. In hamsters, social play is characterized by attacks to the head in early puberty, which gradually transitions to the flanks in late puberty. The transition from juvenile social play to adult hamster aggression corresponds with engagement of neural ensembles controlling aggression. Play deprivation in rats and hamsters alters dendritic morphology in mPFC neurons and impairs flexible, context-dependent behavior in adulthood, which suggests these animals may have converged on a similar function for social play. Overall, dissecting the neurobiology of social play in hamsters and rats can provide a valuable comparative approach for evaluating the function of social play.
... Having multiple layers with functional heterogeneity can also allow for robust control even if the individual layers exhibit suboptimality [3]. In biological and behavioral terms, layered architectures can regulate a variety of functions, including sleep and arousal [4], speed-accuracy tradeoffs [3], and hierarchical mental processes [5]. Meta-brain models [6] offer not only a means to better understand this functional significance, but also to leverage these types of morphogenetic structures for agentive learning and adaptive behavior. ...
What role does phenotypic complexity play in the systems-level function of an embodied agent? The organismal phenotype is a topologically complex structure that interacts with a genotype, developmental physics, and an informational environment. Using this observation as inspiration, we utilize a type of embodied agent that exhibits layered representational capacity: meta-brain models. Meta-brains are used to demonstrate how phenotypes process information and exhibit self-regulation from development to maturity. We focus on two candidate structures that potentially explain this capacity: folding and layering. As layering and folding can be observed in a host of biological contexts, they form the basis for our representational investigations. First, an innate starting point (genomic encoding) is described. The generative output of this encoding is a differentiation tree, which results in a layered phenotypic representation. Then we specify a formal meta-brain model of the gut, which exhibits folding and layering in development in addition to different degrees of representation of processed information. This organ topology is retained in maturity, with the potential for additional folding and representational drift in response to inflammation. Next, we consider topological remapping using the developmental Braitenberg Vehicle (dBV) as a toy model. During topological remapping, it is shown that folding of a layered neural network can introduce a number of distortions to the original model, some with functional implications. The paper concludes with a discussion on how the meta-brains method can assist us in the investigation of enactivism, holism, and cognitive processing in the context of biological simulation.
... Having multiple layers with functional heterogeneity can also allow for robust control even if the individual layers exhibit suboptimality [4,5]. In biological and behavioral terms, layered architectures can regulate a variety of functions, including sleep and arousal [6], speed-accuracy tradeoffs [5], and hierarchical mental processes [7]. Meta-brain models [8] offer not only a means to better understand this functional significance, but also to leverage these types of morphogenetic structures for agentive learning and adaptive behavior. ...
What role does phenotypic complexity play in the systems-level function of an embodied agent? The organismal phenotype is a topologically complex structure that interacts with a genotype, developmental physics, and an informational environment. Using this observation as inspiration, we utilize a type of embodied agent that exhibits layered representational capacity: meta-brain models. Meta-brains are used to demonstrate how phenotypes process information
and exhibit self-regulation from development to maturity. We focus on two candidate structures that potentially explain this capacity: folding and layering. As layering and folding can be observed in a host of biological contexts, they form the basis for our representational
investigations. First, an innate starting point (genomic encoding) is described. The generative output of this encoding is a differentiation tree, which results in a layered phenotypic representation. Then we specify a formal meta-brain model of the gut, which exhibits folding and layering in development in addition to different degrees of representation of processed information. This organ topology is retained in maturity, with the potential for additional folding
and representational drift in response to inflammation. Next, we consider topological remapping using the developmental Braitenberg Vehicle (dBV) as a toy model. During topological remapping, it is shown that folding of a layered neural network can introduce a number of distortions to the original model, some with functional implications. The paper concludes with a discussion on how the meta-brains method can assist us in the investigation of enactivism,
holism, and cognitive processing in the context of biological simulation.
... Having multiple layers with functional heterogeneity can also allow for robust control even if the individual layers exhibit suboptimality [4,5]. In biological and behavioral terms, layered architectures can regulate a variety of functions, including sleep and arousal [6], speed-accuracy tradeoffs [5], and hierarchical mental processes [7]. Meta-brain models [8] offer not only a means to better understand this functional significance, but also to leverage these types of morphogenetic structures for agentive learning and adaptive behavior. ...
What role does phenotypic complexity play in the systems-level function of an embodied agent? The organismal phenotype is a topologically complex structure that interacts with a genotype, developmental physics, and an informational environment. Using this observation as inspiration, we utilize a type of embodied agent that exhibits layered representational capacity: meta-brain models. Meta-brains are used to demonstrate how phenotypes process information and exhibit self-regulation from development to maturity. We focus on two candidate structures that potentially explain this capacity: folding and layering. As layering and folding can be observed in a host of biological contexts, they form the basis for our representational investigations. First, an innate starting point (genomic encoding) is described. The generative output of this encoding is a differentiation tree, which results in a layered phenotypic representation. Then we specify a formal meta-brain model of the gut, which exhibits folding and layering in development in addition to different degrees of representation of processed information. This organ topology is retained in maturity, with the potential for additional folding and representational drift in response to inflammation. Next, we consider topological remapping using the developmental Braitenberg Vehicle (dBV) as a toy model. During topological remapping, it is shown that folding of a layered neural network can introduce a number of distortions to the original model, some with functional implications. The paper concludes with a discussion on how the meta-brains method can assist us in the investigation of enactivism, holism, and cognitive processing in the context of biological simulation.
... Beginning with the nineteenth century philosopher, Herbert Spencer [1], and the neurologist, John Hughlings Jackson [2,3], there is an extensive literature that views the nervous system as a layered architecture (for reviews, see [4][5][6][7][8][9][10]). The notion of layering implies a vertical decomposition of control similar to the concept of hierarchical organization, but without an insistence on a unidirectional (top-down) flow of control. ...
The functional organization of the mammalian brain can be considered to form a layered control architecture, but how this complex system has emerged through evolution and is constructed during development remains a puzzle. Here we consider brain organization through the framework of constraint closure, viewed as a general characteristic of living systems, that they are composed of multiple sub-systems that constrain each other at different timescales. We do so by developing a new formalism for constraint closure, inspired by a previous model showing how within-lifetime dynamics can constrain between-lifetime dynamics, and we demonstrate how this interaction can be generalized to multi-layered systems. Through this model, we consider brain organization in the context of two major examples of constraint closure—physiological regulation and visual orienting. Our analysis draws attention to the capacity of layered brain architectures to scaffold themselves across multiple timescales, including the ability of cortical processes to constrain the evolution of sub-cortical processes, and of the latter to constrain the space in which cortical systems self-organize and refine themselves.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Systems neuroscience through the lens of evolutionary theory’.
... They may thus offer insight into the intimate connection of, for instance, brain and self. The English neurologist Hughling Jackson early on proposed a three-layer hierarchy of the brain with lower, middle, and higher centers that were assumed to be associated with different regions and psychological functions (see Wiest, 2012 for an overview). More recently, MacLean (1990) and Panksepp (1998Panksepp ( , 2012 conceived the brain's subcortical-cortical organization in terms of a radial-concentric pattern and associated its different layers different levels of emotions (like primary, secondary, and tertiary emotions). ...
... Together, this amounts to a nested hierarchy of self where the lower layer somewhat re-surfaces within the next upper layer and so forth (see also Wiest, 2012). While Freud's rigid three-layer partition was criticized later by others, the multifacedness of self with its sense of subjectivity permeating across bodily, affective, and cognitive layers remains a key feature in both neuroscience and psychoanalysis. ...
What kind of neuroscience does psychoanalysis require? At his time, Freud in his “Project for a Scientific Psychology” searched for a model of the brain that could relate to incorporate the psyche’s topography and dynamic. Current neuropsychoanalysis builds on specific functions as investigated in Affective and Cognitive (and Social) Neuroscience including embodied approaches. The brain’s various functions are often converged with prediction as operationalized in predictive coding (PC) and free energy principle (FEP) which, recently, have been conceived as core for a “New Project for Scientific Psychology.” We propose to search for a yet more comprehensive and holistic neuroscience that focuses primarily on its topography and dynamic analogous to Freud’s model of the psyche. This leads us to what we describe as “Spatiotemporal Neuroscience” that focuses on the spatial topography and temporal dynamic of the brain’s neural activity including how they shape affective, cognitive, and social functions including PC and FEP (first part). That is illustrated by the temporally and spatially nested neural hierarchy of the self in the brain’s neural activity (second and third part). This sets the ground for developing our proposed “Project for a Spatiotemporal Neuroscience,” which complements and extends both Freud’s and Solms’ projects (fourth part) and also carries major practical implications as it lays the ground for a novel form of neuroscientifically informed psychotherapy, namely, “Spatiotemporal Psychotherapy.” In conclusion, “Spatiotemporal Neuroscience” provides an intimate link of brain and psyche by showing topography and dynamic as their shared features, that is, “common currency.”
... Finally, the cerebellum, the red nucleus, the basal ganglia, and the spinal cord collaborate with the frontal lobe for an efficient finalization of the movement (Takakusaki, 2017). This hierarchical representation of motor functions -which detect the highest level in the cortical structures -seems to be an inadequate explanation of the extreme complexity of the emerging of new motor sequences (Wiest, 2012). The same procedures for error correction proceed top down: from a higher to a lower order, while the single movements that lead to the goal-directed action are structured in routine and subroutine sequences (Botvinick, Niv and Barto, 2009). ...
The brain formulates hypotheses and prefigures consequences of actions. In its long adaptive challenge, the human brain has not only tuned its systems for a quick remodelling of actions but has also shaped the entire musculoskeletal architecture, redefining its internal models of the body. So far, prevailing theories have shown that movement is first prefigured (premotor cortex) and then implemented (motor cortex), but what happens prior to motor improvisation, which allows us to make choices and predictions on the basis of partial information? So far, little importance has been given to the enormous variety of subcortical activities, in particular those of the basal ganglia. This fundamental subcortical component produces, by means of implicit procedures, continuous novelties that enable the prefrontal cortex to transform huge amounts of information into creative behaviours. In this regard, the basal ganglia interact with the frontal cortex and the limbic system, exercising a key function in planning, selecting appropriate actions, and in motor decision making processes. The purpose of this paper is to clarify how improvisation is connected to executive control and to the integrated activity of cortical/subcortical areas underlying the flow of ideas and expressive spontaneity, thus enquiring into how our brain is not only a complex reactive system but also a predictive system
... Four classes were identified in the previous section from a review of the literature: learning (White, 1973;Kazanas and Chawhan, 1975;Gatti-Petito et al., 2013), intelligence (Roberts, 1976;Schwark, 2015;Goksu and Gulcu, 2016;Nkhoma et al., 2017), autonomy (Dorais et al., 1999;Goodrich et al., 2001;Wiest, 2012), and communication (Bateman et al., 1990;Jäger and Rogers, 2012). We have chosen to base the learning subclasses on Gagne's Hierarchical Theory of Learning (Soulsby, 2006), a common hierarchy for learning. ...
Cognitive assistants such as IBM Watson and Siri are at the forefront of social and technological innovation and have the potential to solve many unique problems. However, the lack of standardization and classification within the field impedes critical analysis of existing cognitive assistants and may further inhibit their growth into more useful applications. This paper discusses the development of an ontology, its classes, and subclasses that may serve as a foundation for defining and differentiating CAs. Specifically, the four suggested classes include: learning, intelligence, autonomy, and communication. Various assistants are described and categorized using the proposed system. Our novel ontological framework is the first step towards a classification system for this burgeoning field.
... anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and subcortical or limbic mood generating areas such as the amygdala (AMYG) and ventral striatum (VS). This hypothesis is derived from the Jacksonian view of neural architecture which models the brain in terms of hierarchical structures with the higher structures influencing the activity of the lower structures (Wiest 2012). ...
Brain imaging studies of functional connectivity in bipolar disorder.
