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© 2023 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Simple Summary

Pessoa postulates that bran anatomy associated with the processing and expression of emotion-laden content, such as the amygdala and limbic cortices, is resource capacity-limited. Thus, brains require multichannel or parallel structure-function connectivity to effectively perceive, motivate, integrate, represent, recall, and execute cognitive-emotional relationships. Pessoa employs 2D graph network theory to support his views on distributed brain organization and operation, concluding that brains evolve through dual-process competition and cooperation to form highly embedded computational architectures with little structure–function compartmentalization. Low-dimensional graph theory has become a popular mathematical tool to model, simulate, and visualize evolving complex, sometimes intractable, brain networks. Graph theory offers advantages to study and understand various biological and technological network behaviors and, for Pessoa, it permits a framework that accounts for structure–function features thus far poorly explained by perhaps “traditional” perspectives, which advocate for the mapping of structure–function relationships onto well-localized brain areas. Pessoa nonetheless fails to fully appreciate the significance of weak-to-strong structure-function correlations for brain dynamics and why those correlations, caused by differential control parameters such as Hebbian and antiHebbian neuronal plasticity, are best assessed using neural field theories. Neural fields demonstrate that embedded brain networks optimally evolve between exotic computational phases and continuum limits with the accompaniment of some network partitioning, rather than unconstrained embeddedness, when rendering healthy cognitive-emotional functionality.

Abstract

In The cognitive-emotional brain, Pessoa overlooks continuum effects on nonlinear brain network connectivity by eschewing neural field theories and physiologically derived constructs representative of neuronal plasticity. The absence of this content, which is so very important for understanding the dynamic structure-function embedding and partitioning of brains, diminishes the rich competitive and cooperative nature of neural networks and trivializes Pessoa’s arguments, and similar arguments by other authors, on the phylogenetic and operational significance of an optimally integrated brain filled with variable-strength neural connections. Riemannian neuromanifolds, containing limit-imposing metaplastic Hebbian- and antiHebbian-type control variables, simulate scalable network behavior that is difficult to capture from the simpler graph-theoretic analysis preferred by Pessoa and other neuroscientists. Field theories suggest the partitioning and performance benefits of embedded cognitive-emotional networks that optimally evolve between exotic classical and quantum computational phases, where matrix singularities and condensations produce degenerate structure-function homogeneities unrealistic of healthy brains. Some network partitioning, as opposed to unconstrained embeddedness, is thus required for effective execution of cognitive-emotional network functions and, in our new era of neuroscience, should be considered a critical aspect of proper brain organization and operation.

Details

Title
Neural Field Continuum Limits and the Structure–Function Partitioning of Cognitive–Emotional Brain Networks
Author
Clark, Kevin B 1 

 Cures Within Reach, Chicago, IL 60602, USA; [email protected]; Felidae Conservation Fund, Mill Valley, CA 94941, USA; Campus and Domain Champions Program, Multi-Tier Assistance, Training, and Computational Help (MATCH) Track, National Science Foundation’s Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services and Support (ACCESS), https://access-ci.org/; Expert Network, Penn Center for Innovation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA; Network for Life Detection (NfoLD), NASA Astrobiology Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA 94035, USA; Multi-Omics and Systems Biology & Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Analysis Working Groups, NASA GeneLab, NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA 94035, USA; Frontier Development Lab, NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA 94035, USA & SETI Institute, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA; Peace Innovation Institute, The Hague 2511, Netherlands & Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305, USA; Shared Interest Group for Natural and Artificial Intelligence (sigNAI), Max Planck Alumni Association, 14057 Berlin, Germany; Biometrics and Nanotechnology Councils, Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), New York, NY 10016, USA 
First page
352
Publication year
2023
Publication date
2023
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
20797737
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2791586586
Copyright
© 2023 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.