Neuroscientific Explanations Research Articles

Care Is A Basic Human Right

Care Is A Basic Human Right

On the Nature of Explanations Offered by Network Science: A Perspective From and for Practicing Neuroscientists.

Network neuroscience represents the brain as a collection of regions and inter‐regional connections. Given its ability to formalize systems‐level models, network neuroscience has generated unique explanations of neural function and behavior. The mechanistic status of these explanations and how they can contribute to and fit within the field of neuroscience as a whole has received careful treatment from philosophers. However, these philosophical contributions have not yet reached many neuroscientists. Here we complement formal philosophical efforts by providing an applied perspective from and for neuroscientists. We discuss the mechanistic status of the explanations offered by network neuroscience and how they contribute to, enhance, and interdigitate with other types of explanations in neuroscience. In doing so, we rely on philosophical work concerning the role of causality, scale, and mechanisms in scientific explanations. In particular, we make the distinction between an explanation and the evidence supporting that explanation, and we argue for a scale‐free nature of mechanistic explanations. In the course of these discussions, we hope to provide a useful applied framework in which network neuroscience explanations can be exercised across scales and combined with other fields of neuroscience to gain deeper insights into the brain and behavior.

Why expect causation at all? A pessimistic parallel with neuroscience

In their target article, Lynch, Parke, and O’Malley argue against the quick application of causal, interventionist explanatory frameworks to microbiomes and their purported role in many disparate states, from obesity to anxiety. I think the authors have undersold the force of their argument. A careful consideration of the scope of their claims, made easier by a parallel drawn from the history of explanation in neuroscience, yields a productive pessimism: that causal explanations likely operate at the wrong level of analysis for dynamic, distributed, Quineian entities like the microbiome. That is, we shouldn’t expect causal explanations for microbiomes at all—and this includes the authors’ own “microbiome success story” of C. difficile. Neuroscience, with its own computationally challenging, dynamic entity—the brain—may provide lessons for how to approach something like predictive control over the microbiome.

Patterns in Cognitive Phenomena and Pluralism of Explanatory Styles.

Debate about cognitive science explanations has been formulated in terms of identifying the proper level(s) of explanation. Views range from reductionist, favoring only neuroscience explanations, to mechanist, favoring the integration of multiple levels, to pluralist, favoring the preservation of even the most general, high-level explanations, such as those provided by embodied or dynamical approaches. In this paper, we challenge this framing. We suggest that these are not different levels of explanation at all but, rather, different styles of explanation that capture different, cross-cutting patterns in cognitive phenomena. Which pattern is explanatory depends on both the cognitive phenomenon under investigation and the research interests occasioning the explanation. This reframing changes how we should answer the basic questions of which cognitive science approaches explain and how these explanations relate to one another. On this view, we should expect different approaches to offer independent explanations in terms of their different focal patterns and the value of those explanations to partly derive from the broad patterns they feature.

Can Religiosity Be Explained by ‘Brain Wiring’? An Analysis of US Adults’ Opinions

Studies examining how religion shapes individuals’ attitudes about science have focused heavily on a narrow range of topics, such as evolution. This study expands this literature by looking at how religion influences individuals’ attitudes towards the claim that neuroscience, or “brain wiring,” can explain differences in religiosity. Our analysis of nationally representative survey data shows, perhaps unsurprisingly, that religiosity is negatively associated with thinking that brain wiring can explain religion. Net of religiosity, though, individuals reporting religious experiences are actually more likely to agree that brain wiring can explain religiosity, as are individuals belonging to diverse religious traditions when compared to the unaffiliated. We also find that belief in the general explanatory power of science is a significant predictor of thinking that religiosity can be explained by brain wiring, while women and the more highly educated are less likely to think this is true. Taken together, these findings have implications for our understanding of the relationship between religion and science, and the extent to which neuroscientific explanations of religiosity are embraced by the general US public.

Het web-model

Abstract The web-model: A new model of explanation for neuroimaging studies What can neuroimaging tell us about the relation between our brain and our mind? A lot, or so I argue. But neuroscientists should update their model of explanation. Currently, many explanations are (implicitly) based on what I call the ‘mapping model’: a model of explanation which centers on mapping relations between cognition and the brain. I argue that these mappings give us very little information, and that instead, we should focus on finding causal relations. If we take a difference-making approach to causation, we can find manipulation patterns between neural and cognitive phenomena and start constructing satisfying explanations in neuroimaging studies: explanations based on what I call the web-model of explanation. This model of explanation not only contrasts with the mapping model, but is also different from Craver’s constitutive mechanistic model of explanation (2007), which takes the constitutive relation to be the main explanatory relation. Taking the difference-making idea of the importance of manipulation and control seriously, means that sometimes, causal relations are preferred over constitutive relations. If we follow the web-model of explanation, we can do justice to the central role that causation should play in neuroscientific explanations.

Socio-cognitive biases are associated to belief in neuromyths and cognitive enhancement: A pre-registered study

This study identified the psychological and cognitive factors that predispose people to believe in neuromyths (e.g., the belief that we only use 10% of our brain) and in cognitive enhancement (e.g., the belief that brain stimulation devices can enhance cognition). A new scale to measure belief in neuromyths and cognitive enhancement was developed and validated. Belief in neuromyths was related to a more intuitive (compared to an analytical) thinking style, a stronger need for cognitive closure, a simpler view of epistemic cognition, endorsement of a fixed mindset, and it was inversely related to scientific literacy. Belief in cognitive enhancement was specifically related to the endorsement of a growth mindset. No clear effect of the presence or absence of brain pictures on credibility ratings for neuroscientific explanations and intuitive thinking was found. These findings suggest that belief in neuromyths and cognitive enhancement is a multifaceted phenomenon and that interventions to foster public understanding of neuroscience could be aimed at affecting thinking styles.

Wiring optimization explanation in neuroscience: What is special about it?

This paper examines the explanatory distinctness of wiring optimization models in neuroscience. Wiring optimization models aim to represent the organizational features of neural and brain systems as optimal (or near-optimal) solutions to wiring optimization problems. My claim is that that wiring optimization models provide design explanations. In particular, they support ideal interventions on the decision variables of the relevant design problem and assess the impact of such interventions on the viability of the target system.

Management Education in teaching and learning a Foreign Language, in particular English language

Brain is the most important part of the body in order to achieve goals. It’s important to have clear goals to clarify mind duty and tasks. It’s a difficult life to go on when you have many problems to face, but you can succeed if you make clear intention in what you do.
 Everything is to face life and find coherence in what you are able to do. Try to make a strategy list to find the right way to give the right time to every point and activity in your life.
 So you can find the explanation in neuroscience and quantum physic about all phenomena happen around you. Brain areas involve many processes as learning, memorization, in order to achieve better knowledge and skills in getting a foreign language. So brain working is related to neuropsychological research in order to explain process of learning a foreign language.
 All brain processes are connected with the central nervous system mechanisms that make working all the cerebral mechanisms used.
 A professional teacher knows how it works in mind process when he teaches a foreign language as English or. French or German or Russian etc

Ecstatic Aura as Mystical Experience in Dostoevsky’s Epilepsy

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky is one of the best Russian novelists. It is also known that he had been suffering from epilepsy―one can find many descriptions of this particular condition in Dostoevsky’s novels. These writings are most probably based on his personal experience. There are numerous neurological hypotheses about the type of epilepsy with which Dostoevsky suffered, the most notorious feature of his type of epilepsy being the so-called “ecstatic aura.” In fact, the type of epilepsy Dostoevsky experienced is often termed “Dostoevsky’s epilepsy with ecstatic aura.” In the current article, I offer a review of the literature on Dostoevsky’s epilepsy. Subsequently, the notorious feature “ecstatic aura” is compared with mystical experience, and a conclusion is reached: the two states are in fact identical in the sense that mystical experience can occur during ecstatic aura. A neuroscientific explanation of the experience is presented as well. Finally, a philosophical analysis is performed.

La comunicación gestual. Teoría de la mente y neuronas espejo

Human beings communicate through language, and also through gestures. Linguistic communication has its origins, both phylogenetic and ontogenetic, in gestural communication. We analyze two theoretical frameworks to explain gestural communication: Theory of Mind and Mirror Neurons. We consider that both theories are placed at different explanatory levels, but they are not incompatible. Theory of Mind is within the framework of cognitive and evolutionary psychology, while Mirror Neurons provide neuroscientific explanations, at the neural level, networks and systems.

Two challenges for a boolean approach to constitutive inference

This paper discusses two challenges for a Boolean method for establishing constitutive regularity statements which, according to the regularity theory of mechanistic constitution, form the core of any mechanistic explanation in neuroscience. After presenting the regularity definition for the constitution relation and a methodology for constitutive inference, the paper discusses the problem of full variation of tested mechanistic factors and the problem of informational redundancy. A solution is offered for each problem. The first requires some adjustments to the original theory by introducing the technical notion of a set of types satisfying independent instantiability. The second one is resolved by demonstrating that the problem of informational redundancy is based on a confusion that fails to challenge the theory. It is concluded that the methodology of constitutive inference is consistent and plausible with respect to actual practice in neuroscience.

Forms of explanation and why they may matter

Explanations from neuroscience are threatening to replace those from psychology in the eyes and hands of journalists, university administrators, granting agencies, and research students. If replacement happens, much of psychology will exist only as part of the historical record. It, thus, may be useful to understand what forms of explanation are used by the two fields. Such an understanding may help us explain how each field can contribute to the other and why they are different. I review several templates of psychological and neuroscientific explanation, and criticize some others. I argue that psychology (and neuroscience) should continue to exist. Neuroscience is not better than psychology, and it cannot replace psychology.

La perception par des magistrats français de l’introduction de données neuroscientifiques dans les expertises psychiatriques pénales : effets sur l’évaluation de l’expertise et la situation pénale de la personne expertisée

ObjectiveTo analyze whether the judge's perception of the quality, and scientific basis of a psychiatric expert report of a criminal defendant can vary according to whether or not this evaluation includes neuroscientific data (a written description of a structural neuroimaging MRI scan) and their effects on the decisions made by judges. Experimental psychology has demonstrated a number of cognitive effects arising from exposure to neuroscientific explanations and/or neuroimaging data and which may bias judgments and lead to (mis)interpretations that can affect decisions. This research suggests that including neuroscience evidence in an expert report may impact they way the report is assessed by non-specialists, such as judges, whose work requires them to take into account such reports. MethodWe conducted a study on 41 French judges in order to determine whether their perceptions of the expert report (objectivity, reliability, scientific basis, quality, relevance, credibility, and persuasiveness) and their assessment of risk of recidivism, link between the disorder and offense and the influence of expert report on their decision-making, vary according to whether or not the evaluation includes neuroscientific data. The magistrates had to read a clinical case, summarizing an expertise, with or without neuroscientific data, and then answer various closed (criteria were evaluated using 7-point Likert-scales) and open-ended questions (asking respondents to indicate the reasons underlying their Likert-scale responses). Half of the magistrates received report containing neuroscientific data and the other half a similar report, without this type of data. Quantitative analyses were carried out to assess the effect of the sample's characteristics on the responses given and to compare the results between the two conditions (correlation analyses and Student T). Qualitative analyses, terminological and thematic, were also carried out. ResultsQuantitative and qualitative results show that the presence of neuroscience data in an expert report affects judges’ perceptions of the report and the magistrates’ perceptions of the link between disorder and offense. The judges considered the expert report including neuroscientific data to be more relevant, more objective, better quality, and more reliable than the report without such data. Furthermore, they found the expert's arguments to be more persuasive and that these arguments had a greater scientific basis when the report included neuroscientific data than when such data was absent. Moreover, this phenomenon was stronger in more experienced magistrates than in less experienced magistrates. The qualitative finding shows a greater ability to recognize shortcomings in expert reports when they do not contain neuroscience data. The Expert reports including neuroscience data are perceived as more scientific and objective. ConclusionThe presence of neuroscience data in an expert report affects judges’ perceptions of that report. These effects may be related to cognitive biases described in the literature, in particular the perceived scientific nature of neuroscience data. If judges are aware of their limits when it comes to assessing technical data, they appear relatively unaware that scientific data can induce cognitive biases and thereby affect their perceptions of expert reports.

Neuroscientific explanations and the stigma of mental disorder: a meta-analytic study

Genetic and other biological explanations appear to have mixed blessings for the stigma of mental disorder. Meta-analytic evidence shows that these “biogenetic” explanations reduce the blame attached to sufferers, but they also increase aversion, perceptions of dangerousness, and pessimism about recovery. These relationships may arise because biogenetic explanations recruit essentialist intuitions, which have known associations with prejudice and the endorsement of stereotypes. However, the adverse implications of biogenetic explanations as a set may not hold true for the subset of those explanations that invoke neurobiological causes. Neurobiological explanations might have less adverse implications for stigma than genetic explanations, for example, because they are arguably less essentialist. Although this possibility is important for evaluating the social implications of neuroscientific explanations of mental health problems, it has yet to be tested meta-analytically. We present meta-analyses of links between neurobiological explanations and multiple dimensions of stigma in 26 correlational and experimental studies. In correlational studies, neurobiological explanations were marginally associated with greater desire for social distance from people with mental health problems. In experimental studies, these explanations were associated with greater desire for social distance, greater perceived dangerousness, and greater prognostic pessimism. Neurobiological explanations were not linked to reduced blame in either set of studies. By implication, neurobiological explanations have the same adverse links to stigma as other forms of biogenetic explanation. These findings raise troubling implications about the public impact of psychiatric neuroscience research findings. Although such findings are not intrinsically stigmatizing, they may become so when viewed through the lens of neuroessentialism.

No Differential Effects of Neural and Psychological Explanations of Psychopathy on Moral Behavior.

Research in neurocriminology has explored the link between neural functions and structures and the psychopathic disposition. This online experiment aimed to assess the effect of communicating the neuroscience of psychopathy on the degree to which lay people exhibited attitudes characteristic of psychopathy in particular in terms of moral behavior. If psychopathy is blamed on the brain, people may feel less morally responsible for their own psychopathic tendencies. In the study, participants read false feedback about their own psychopathic traits supposedly inferred from their Facebook likes, described either in neurobiological or cognitive terms. Participants were randomly allocated to read that they either had above-average or below-average psychopathic traits. We found no support for the hypothesis that the neuroscientific explanation of psychopathy influences moral behavior. This casts doubt on the fear that communicating the neuroscience of psychopathy will promote psychopathic attitudes.

P39. The split hand syndrome in ALS and post-polio-syndrom

Introduction Electrodiagnostic evaluation for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) relies on extensive measurements. As one diagnostic clue, the split-hand-index (SHI) was proposed. It compares the compound muscle action potential (CMAP) of the abductor pollicis brevis (APB) muscle with the CMAP of the abductor digiti minimi (ADM) muscle. In ALS, asymmetric atrophy of APB and ADM results in the index being reduced compared to the healthy population. This holds true despite the fact, that there is the same segmental innervation C8 for both examined muscles, as was previously discussed. Several studies have shown a diagnostic value in differentiating ALS from other motorneuron-diseases by means of the SHI, claiming a specific form of neurodegeneration in ALS, which is less marked for example in lower motor neuron disease (LMND), spinal muscle atrophy (SMA) or Hirayama disease. In our study, we aimed to compare the SHI of ALS-patients with our cohort of patients with post-polio-syndrome (PPS) to find out, whether it has a discriminative value in these patients too and to add knowledge to the proposed neuroscientific explanations of asymmetric thenar/hypothenar-atrophy. Methods We conducted a retrospective analysis of our post-polio cohort since 1997. All patients were screened whether CMAPs of APB and ADM were collected. For comparison, we screened electrodiagnostic reports of all patients with a diagnosis of ALS for collected CMAPs of APB and ADM. We excluded patients with neuropathy of the median nerve (NMN) by means of a prolonged distal motoric latency (>4,4 ms). Finally we randomly chose the same number of patients from our reports in that time period with normal results (NR), by excluding diagnosis of NMN, acute polyneuropathies and radiculo- and plexopathies of the arm. We calculated the SHI by dividing the CMAP of APB by the CMAP of ADM. Results We found a significant difference (p = 0,01) of the SHI between ALS patients (0,97 ± 0,84) and the NR-group (1,26 ± 0,72). The SHI of the PPS-group (0,91 ± 0,55) was not significantly different compared to the NR group (p = 0,08), but showed a trend. Comparing the ALS-group with the PPS-patients, we found no statistically relevant difference (p = 0,83). Discussion As expected, we could reproduce a significant decrease of the SHI in ALS patients. However our results showed no statistically relevant difference between ALS-patients and PPS-patients when comparing the SHI. There is a broader distribution of values in the PPS-group, including cases of very high grade asymmetric atrophy of APB and ADM. A low SHI therefore is of no help in differentiating PPS from ALS-patients. As a limitation of our study it is important to acknowledge the retrospective study type and a possible selection bias of patients who suffer from an already clinically visible asymmetry, possible increasing electrodiagnostic evaluation numbers of the hand.

Rethinking Nature: Phenomenology and a Non-reductionist Cognitive Science

Resistance to the idea that phenomenology can be relevant to cognitive scientific explanation has faced two objections advanced, respectively, from both sides of the issue: from the scientific perspective it has been suggested that phenomenology, understood as an account of first-person experience, is ultimately reducible to cognitive neuroscientific explanation; and from a phenomenological perspective it has been argued that phenomenology cannot be naturalized. In this context it makes sense to consider that the notion of scientific reduction is linked to a classic scientific conception of nature. I argue that if properly understood, the proposal to rethink the concept of nature itself, in enactivist phenomenological approaches, undermines the reductionist program and redefines what it means for phenomenology to be naturalized.

Multi-level Explanations in Neuroscience I: From Genes to Subjective Experiences

Multi-level Explanations in Neuroscience I: From Genes to Subjective Experiences

Multi-level Explanations in Neuroscience II: EEG Spectral Fingerprints and Tensor Decompositions for Understanding Brain Activity --- Initial Results

Multi-level Explanations in Neuroscience II: EEG Spectral Fingerprints and Tensor Decompositions for Understanding Brain Activity --- Initial Results