Open AccessRefocusing neuroscience: moving away from mental categories and towards complex behaviours
Author(s) -
Luiz Pessoa,
Loreta Medina,
Ester Desfilis
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
philosophical transactions - royal society. biological sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.753
H-Index - 272
eISSN - 1471-2970
pISSN - 0962-8436
DOI - 10.1098/rstb.2020.0534
Subject(s) - vertebrate , cognitive science , neuroscience , perception , affordance , flexibility (engineering) , neuroanatomy , cognition , systems neuroscience , cognitive neuroscience , psychology , computer science , cognitive psychology , biology , biochemistry , statistics , myelin , mathematics , gene , oligodendrocyte , central nervous system
Mental terms—such as perception, cognition, action, emotion, as well as attention, memory, decision-making—are epistemically sterile. We support our thesis based on extensive comparative neuroanatomy knowledge of the organization of the vertebrate brain. Evolutionary pressures have moulded the central nervous system to promote survival. Careful characterization of the vertebrate brain shows that its architecture supports an enormous amount of communication and integration of signals, especially in birds and mammals. The general architecture supports a degree of ‘computational flexibility’ that enables animals to cope successfully with complex and ever-changing environments. Here, we suggest that the vertebrate neuroarchitecture does not respect the boundaries of standard mental terms, and propose that neuroscience should aim to unravel the dynamic coupling between large-scale brain circuits and complex, naturalistic behaviours. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Systems neuroscience through the lens of evolutionary theory’.