Putting reins on the brain. How the body and environment use it.

A radical embodied cognitive neuroscience (RECN) that treats the central nervous system as a nonlinear dynamical system must reconcile with existing neurodynamic approaches. The paper reviews how the brain and behavior are linked through circular causality and criticizes three current methods for linking dynamics to brain function. It proposes that studying brain self-organization without considering ecological embedding is insufficient. The authors argue the central nervous system has two roles: being easily enslaved by behavioral patterns that guide an animal through its environment, and flexibly switching among patterns via a metastable circuit breaker. Motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease, explained as excessive stability of this circuit breaker, support the idea.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Radical embodied cognitive neuroscience (RECN) will probably rely on dynamical systems theory (DST) and complex systems theory for methods and formalism. Yet, there have been plenty of non-radical neurodynamicists out there for quite some time. How much of their work fits with radical embodied cognitive science, what do they need RECN for, and what are the inconsistencies between RECN and established neurodynamics that would have to be resolved? This paper is both theoretical hypothesis and review. First, it provides a brief overview of the typical, purely structural considerations why the central nervous systems (CNS) should be treated as a nonlinear dynamical system and what this entails. The reader will learn about the circular causality enclosing brain and behavior and different attempts to formalize this circularity. Then, three different attempts at linking dynamics and theory of brain function are described in more detail and criticized. A fourth method based on ecological psychology could fix some of the issues that the others encounter. It is argued that studying self-organization of the brain without taking its ecological embedding into account is insufficient. Finally, based on existing theoretical work we propose two roles that the CNS has to be fulfilling in order to allow an animal to behave adequately in its niche. In its first role the CNS has to be enslaved easily by patterns of behavior that guide the animal through its environment. In the second role the brain has to flexibly switch among patterns, what can be called the metastable circuit breaker. The relevance of this idea is supported using certain motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). These symptoms can be explained as consequent to an excessive stability of the (metastable) circuit breaker.