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  1. The Grossberg Code: Universal Neural Network Signatures of Perceptual Experience.Birgitta Dresp-Langley - 2023 - Information 14 (2):e82 1-17..
    Two universal functional principles of Grossberg’s Adaptive Resonance Theory [19] decipher the brain code of all biological learning and adaptive intelligence. Low-level representations of multisensory stimuli in their immediate environmental context are formed on the basis of bottom-up activation and under the control of top-down matching rules that integrate high-level long-term traces of contextual configuration. These universal coding principles lead to the establishment of lasting brain signatures of perceptual experience in all living species, from aplysiae to primates. They are re-visited (...)
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  2. Mapping Explanatory Language in Neuroscience.Daniel Kostić & Willem Halffman - 2023 - Synthese 202 (112):1-27.
    The philosophical literature on scientific explanation in neuroscience has been dominated by the idea of mechanisms. The mechanist philosophers often claim that neuroscience is in the business of finding mechanisms. This view has been challenged in numerous ways by showing that there are other successful and widespread explanatory strategies in neuroscience. However, the empirical evidence for all these claims was hitherto lacking. Empirical evidence about the pervasiveness and uses of various explanatory strategies in neuroscience is particularly needed because examples and (...)
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  3. The Use and Plagiarism of Descartes’s Traité de l’homme by Henricus Regius: A Reassessment.Andrea Strazzoni - 2023 - Perspectives on Science 31 (5):627-683.
    In this article I discuss a particular aspect of the Dutch reception of the ideas of René Descartes, namely the use of his Traité de l’homme by Henricus Regius. I analyze the use that Regius made of the theory of the movement of muscles, passions, hunger, and more generally of the neurophysiology expounded by Descartes in his book (not printed until 1662–1664). In my analysis, I reconstruct the internal evolution of Regius’s neurophysiology, I illustrate its sources beyond Descartes (i.e., Jean (...)
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  4. History of Behavioral Neurology (2nd edition).Sergio Barberis & Cory Wright - 2022 - In Sergio Della Sala (ed.), Encyclopedia of Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol. 1. Elsevier. pp. 1–13.
    This chapter provides a brief overview of the history of behavioral neurology, dividing it roughly into six eras. In the ancient and classical eras, emphasis is placed on two transitions: firstly, from descriptions of head trauma and attempted neurosurgical treatments to the exploratory dissections during the Hellenistic period and the replacement of cardiocentrism; and secondly, to the more systematic investigations of Galenus and the rise of pneumatic ventricular theory. In the medieval through post-Renaissance eras, the scholastic consolidation of knowledge and (...)
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  5. Novel Tool Development and the Dynamics of Control: The Rodent Touchscreen Operant Chamber as a Case Study.Jacqueline Anne Sullivan - 2022 - Philosophy of Science 89 (5):1-19.
    In the quest to discover the neural bases of cognition, rigorous behavioral tools are equally as important as sophisticated tools for neural intervention. This paper evaluates several episodes in the development of a novel behavioral tool for rodent cognitive testing, the rodent touchscreen operant chamber. Using conceptual tools on offer in the philosophical literature on exploratory experimentation and control, I illuminate how optimization of this behavioral tool and an understanding of the causal knowledge it may be used to generate historically (...)
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  6. The Predictive Turn in Neuroscience.Daniel A. Weiskopf - 2022 - Philosophy of Science 89 (5):1213-1222.
    Neuroscientists have in recent years turned to building models that aim to generate predictions rather than explanations. This “predictive turn” has swept across domains including law, marketing, and neuropsychiatry. Yet the norms of prediction remain undertheorized relative to those of explanation. I examine two styles of predictive modeling and show how they exemplify the normative dynamics at work in prediction. I propose an account of how predictive models, conceived of as technological devices for aiding decision-making, can come to be adequate (...)
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  7. New Frontiers in Translational Research: Touchscreens, Open Science, and the Mouse Translational Research Accelerator Platform (MouseTRAP).Jacqueline Anne Sullivan - 2021 - Genes, Brain and Behavior 20 (1):e12705.
    Many neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases and other brain disorders are accompanied by impairments in high-level cognitive functions including memory, attention, motivation, and decision-making. Despite several decades of extensive research, neuroscience is little closer to discovering new treatments. Key impediments include the absence of validated and robust cognitive assessment tools for facilitating translation from animal models to humans. In this review, we describe a state-of-the-art platform poised to overcome these impediments and improve the success of translational research, the Mouse Translational Research (...)
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  8. Goltz against cerebral localization: Methodology and experimental practices.J. P. Gamboa - 2020 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 84:101304.
    In the late 19th century, physiologists such as David Ferrier, Eduard Hitzig, and Hermann Munk argued that cerebral brain functions are localized in discrete structures. By the early 20th century, this became the dominant position. However, another prominent physiologist, Friedrich Goltz, rejected theories of cerebral localization and argued against these physiologists until his death in 1902. I argue in this paper that previous historical accounts have failed to comprehend why Goltz rejected cerebral localization. I show that Goltz adhered to a (...)
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  9. Wiring optimization explanation in neuroscience: What is Special about it?Sergio Daniel Barberis - 2019 - Theoria : An International Journal for Theory, History and Fundations of Science 1 (34):89-110.
    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.
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  10. Cajal’s Law of Dynamic Polarization: Mechanism and Design.Sergio Daniel Barberis - 2018 - Philosophies 3 (2):11-0.
    Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the primary architect of the neuron doctrine and the law of dynamic polarization, is considered to be the founder of modern neuroscience. At the same time, many philosophers, historians, and neuroscientists agree that modern neuroscience embodies a mechanistic perspective on the explanation of the nervous system. In this paper, I review the extant mechanistic interpretation of Cajal’s contribution to modern neuroscience. Then, I argue that the extant mechanistic interpretation fails to capture the explanatory import of Cajal’s (...)
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  11. Interdependent Concepts and their Independent Uses: Mental Imagery and Hallucinations.Eden T. Smith - 2018 - Perspectives on Science 26 (3):360-399.
    The scientific concepts of mental imagery and hallucinations are each used independently of the other; uses that simultaneously evoke and obscure their historical connections. In this paper, I aim to illustrate the relevance of examining one of these historical connections for studying the current uses of these two concepts in neuroimaging experiments. To this end, I will highlight interdependent associations within the histories of each of the concepts that continue to contribute to their independent uses.That mental imagery and hallucinations are (...)
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  12. The structured uses of concepts as tools: Comparing fMRI experiments that investigate either mental imagery or hallucinations.Eden T. Smith - 2018 - Dissertation, University of Melbourne
    Sensations can occur in the absence of perception and yet be experienced ‘as if’ seen, heard, tasted, or otherwise perceived. Two concepts used to investigate types of these sensory-like mental phenomena (SLMP) are mental imagery and hallucinations. Mental imagery is used as a concept for investigating those SLMP that merely resemble perception in some way. Meanwhile, the concept of hallucinations is used to investigate those SLMP that are, in some sense, compellingly like perception. This may be a difference of degree. (...)
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  13. Is Empiricism Empirically False? Lessons from Early Nervous Systems.Marcin Miłkowski - 2017 - Biosemiotics 10 (2):229-245.
    Recent work on skin-brain thesis suggests the possibility of empirical evidence that empiricism is false. It implies that early animals need no traditional sensory receptors to be engaged in cognitive activity. The neural structure required to coordinate extensive sheets of contractile tissue for motility provides the starting point for a new multicellular organized form of sensing. Moving a body by muscle contraction provides the basis for a multicellular organization that is sensitive to external surface structure at the scale of the (...)
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  14. Long-Term Potentiation: One Kind or Many?Jacqueline Sullivan - 2017 - In Marcus P. Adams, Zvi Biener, Uljana Feest & Jacqueline Anne Sullivan (eds.), Eppur Si Muove: Doing History and Philosophy of Science with Peter Machamer: A Collection of Essays in Honor of Peter Machamer. Springer.
    Do neurobiologists aim to discover natural kinds? I address this question in this chapter via a critical analysis of classification practices operative across the 43-year history of research on long-term potentiation. I suggest that this 43-year history supports the idea that the structure of scientific practice surrounding LTP research has remained an obstacle to the discovery of natural kinds as philosophers of science have traditionally conceived them.
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  15. Materialism and ‘the soft substance of the brain’: Diderot and plasticity.Charles T. Wolfe - 2017 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25 (5):963-982.
    ABSTRACTMaterialism is the view that everything that is real is material or is the product of material processes. It tends to take either a ‘cosmological’ form, as a claim about the ultimate nature of the world, or a more specific ‘psychological’ form, detailing how mental processes are brain processes. I focus on the second, psychological or cerebral form of materialism. In the mid-to-late eighteenth century, the French materialist philosopher Denis Diderot was one of the first to notice that any self-respecting (...)
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  16. HIT and brain reward function: a case of mistaken identity (theory).Cory Wright, Matteo Colombo & Alexander Beard - 2017 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 64:28–40.
    This paper employs a case study from the history of neuroscience—brain reward function—to scrutinize the inductive argument for the so-called ‘Heuristic Identity Theory’ (HIT). The case fails to support HIT, illustrating why other case studies previously thought to provide empirical support for HIT also fold under scrutiny. After distinguishing two different ways of understanding the types of identity claims presupposed by HIT and considering other conceptual problems, we conclude that HIT is not an alternative to the traditional identity theory so (...)
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  17. The life of the cortical column: opening the domain of functional architecture of the cortex.Haueis Philipp - 2016 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 38 (3):1-27.
    The concept of the cortical column refers to vertical cell bands with similar response properties, which were initially observed by Vernon Mountcastle’s mapping of single cell recordings in the cat somatic cortex. It has subsequently guided over 50 years of neuroscientific research, in which fundamental questions about the modularity of the cortex and basic principles of sensory information processing were empirically investigated. Nevertheless, the status of the column remains controversial today, as skeptical commentators proclaim that the vertical cell bands are (...)
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  18. Long-Term Potentiation: One Kind or Many?Jacqueline Sullivan - 2016 - In Eppur Si Muove: Doing History and Philosophy of Science with Peter Machamer, A Collection of Essays in Honor of Peter Machamer. Springer Verlag. pp. 127-140.
    Do neurobiologists aim to discover natural kinds? I address this question in this chapter via a critical analysis of classification practices operative across the 43-year history of research on long-term potentiation (LTP). I argue that this 43-year history supports the idea that the structure of scientific practice surrounding LTP research has remained an obstacle to the discovery of natural kinds.
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  19. The Birth of Information in the Brain: Edgar Adrian and the Vacuum Tube.Justin Garson - 2015 - Science in Context 28 (1):31-52.
    As historian Henning Schmidgen notes, the scientific study of the nervous system would have been “unthinkable” without the industrialization of communication in the 1830s. Historians have investigated extensively the way nerve physiologists have borrowed concepts and tools from the field of communications, particularly regarding the nineteenth-century work of figures like Helmholtz and in the American Cold War Era. The following focuses specifically on the interwar research of the Cambridge physiologist Edgar Douglas Adrian, and on the technology that led to his (...)
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  20. Emil du Bois-Reymond on "The Seat of the Soul".Gabriel Finkelstein - 2014 - Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 23 (1):45-55.
    The German pioneer of electrophysiology, Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818–1896), is generally assumed to have remained silent on the subject of the brain. However, the archive of his papers in Berlin contains manuscript notes to a lecture on “The Seat of the Soul” that he delivered to popular audiences in 1884 and 1885. These notes demonstrate that cerebral localization and brain function in general had been concerns of his for quite some time, and that he did not shy away from these (...)
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  21. Ludwig Edinger: The vertebrate series and comparative neuroanatomy.Paul E. Patton - 2014 - Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 24 (1):26-57.
    At the end of the nineteenth century, Ludwig Edinger completed the first comparative survey of the microscopic anatomy of vertebrate brains. He is regarded as the founder of the field of comparative neuroanatomy. Modern commentators have misunderstood him to have espoused an anti-Darwinian linear view of brain evolution, harkening to the metaphysics of the scala naturae. This understanding arises, in part, from an increasingly contested view of nineteenth-century morphology in Germany. Edinger did espouse a progressionist, though not strictly linear, view (...)
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  22. Alexander Forbes, Walter Cannon, and Science-Based Literature.Justin Garson - 2013 - In A. Stiles, S. Finger & F. Boller (eds.), Progress in Brain Research Vol. 205: Literature, Neurology, and Neuroscience: Historical and Literary Connections. Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp. 241-256.
    The Harvard physiologists Alexander Forbes (1882-1965) and Walter Bradford Cannon (1871-1945) had an enormous impact on the physiology and neuroscience of the twentieth century. In addition to their voluminous scientific output, they also used literature to reflect on the nature of science itself and its social significance. Forbes wrote a novel, The Radio Gunner, a literary memoir, Quest for a Northern Air Route, and several short stories. Cannon, in addition to several books of popular science, wrote a literary memoir in (...)
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  23. Review of Carl Zimmer, Soul made Flesh: the discovery of the brain. [REVIEW]John Sutton - 2006 - Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 42:298-299.
    In telling the story of Thomas Willis and the collective investigations of body and brain in 17th-century England with tremendous energy and enthusiasm, journalist Carl Zimmer has written one of the best recent books of popular history of science. The full range of readers will be rewarded by Zimmer’s synthetic scholarship and his evident pleasure in the language of the primary texts. While he owes much to the work of Robert Frank and Robert Martensen in particular, Zimmer has negotiated a (...)
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  24. Eine fulminante Lehnstuhlkritik der Neurowissenschaften.Geert Keil - 2005 - Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 53 (6):951-955.
    Review of Max Bennett's and Peter Hacker's book PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF NEUROSCIENCE, Oxford University Press 2003.
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  25. Eine fulminante Lehnstuhlkritik der Neurowissenschaften. Uber: Max R. Bennett/Peter M. S. Hacker: Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. [REVIEW]Geert Keil - 2005 - Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie (6):951.
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  26. Michel Meulders, Helmholtz, des lumières aux neurosciences, Paris: Editions Odile Jacob, 2001. [REVIEW]Gabriel Finkelstein - 2002 - Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 11 (3):317-319.
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  27. Review of Michel jouvet, the paradox of sleep: The story of dreaming; and Patricia Cox Miller, dreams in late antiquity. [REVIEW]John Sutton - 2001 - Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 10:355-358.
    This review describes central difficulties in the interdisciplinary study of dreaming, summarizes Jouvet's account of his role in the history of modern dream science, queries his positive speculations on the semantics of dreaming, and suggests work for historians of neuroscience.
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