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Levenstein D, Alvarez VA, Amarasingham A, Azab H, Chen ZS, Gerkin RC, Hasenstaub A, Iyer R, Jolivet RB, Marzen S, Monaco JD, Prinz AA, Quraishi S, Santamaria F, Shivkumar S, Singh MF, Traub R, Nadim F, Rotstein HG, Redish AD. On the Role of Theory and Modeling in Neuroscience. J Neurosci 2023; 43:1074-1088. [PMID: 36796842 PMCID: PMC9962842 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1179-22.2022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/16/2022] [Revised: 12/14/2022] [Accepted: 12/18/2022] [Indexed: 02/18/2023] Open
Abstract
In recent years, the field of neuroscience has gone through rapid experimental advances and a significant increase in the use of quantitative and computational methods. This growth has created a need for clearer analyses of the theory and modeling approaches used in the field. This issue is particularly complex in neuroscience because the field studies phenomena that cross a wide range of scales and often require consideration at varying degrees of abstraction, from precise biophysical interactions to the computations they implement. We argue that a pragmatic perspective of science, in which descriptive, mechanistic, and normative models and theories each play a distinct role in defining and bridging levels of abstraction, will facilitate neuroscientific practice. This analysis leads to methodological suggestions, including selecting a level of abstraction that is appropriate for a given problem, identifying transfer functions to connect models and data, and the use of models themselves as a form of experiment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Levenstein
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Veronica A Alvarez
- Laboratory on Neurobiology of Compulsive Behaviors, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892
| | - Asohan Amarasingham
- Departments of Mathematics and Biology, City College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, New York 10032
| | - Habiba Azab
- Department of Neuroscience, Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
| | - Zhe S Chen
- Department of Psychiatry, Neuroscience & Physiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, 10016
| | - Richard C Gerkin
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85281
| | - Andrea Hasenstaub
- Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94115
| | | | - Renaud B Jolivet
- Maastricht Centre for Systems Biology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
| | - Sarah Marzen
- W. M. Keck Science Department, Pitzer, Scripps, and Claremont McKenna Colleges, Claremont, California 91711
| | - Joseph D Monaco
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21218
| | - Astrid A Prinz
- Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322
| | - Salma Quraishi
- Neuroscience, Developmental and Regnerative Biology Department, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78249
| | - Fidel Santamaria
- Neuroscience, Developmental and Regnerative Biology Department, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78249
| | - Sabyasachi Shivkumar
- Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627
| | - Matthew F Singh
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri 63112
| | - Roger Traub
- IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, AI Foundations, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598
| | - Farzan Nadim
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94115
| | - Horacio G Rotstein
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94115
| | - A David Redish
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
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Above and beyond the concrete: The diverse representational substrates of the predictive brain. Behav Brain Sci 2019; 43:e121. [PMID: 31317839 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x19002000] [Citation(s) in RCA: 49] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
In recent years, scientists have increasingly taken to investigate the predictive nature of cognition. We argue that prediction relies on abstraction, and thus theories of predictive cognition need an explicit theory of abstract representation. We propose such a theory of the abstract representational capacities that allow humans to transcend the "here-and-now." Consistent with the predictive cognition literature, we suggest that the representational substrates of the mind are built as a hierarchy, ranging from the concrete to the abstract; however, we argue that there are qualitative differences between elements along this hierarchy, generating meaningful, often unacknowledged, diversity. Echoing views from philosophy, we suggest that the representational hierarchy can be parsed into: modality-specific representations, instantiated on perceptual similarity; multimodal representations, instantiated primarily on the discovery of spatiotemporal contiguity; and categorical representations, instantiated primarily on social interaction. These elements serve as the building blocks of complex structures discussed in cognitive psychology (e.g., episodes, scripts) and are the inputs for mental representations that behave like functions, typically discussed in linguistics (i.e., predicators). We support our argument for representational diversity by explaining how the elements in our ontology are all required to account for humans' predictive cognition (e.g., in subserving logic-based prediction; in optimizing the trade-off between accurate and detailed predictions) and by examining how the neuroscientific evidence coheres with our account. In doing so, we provide a testable model of the neural bases of conceptual cognition and highlight several important implications to research on self-projection, reinforcement learning, and predictive-processing models of psychopathology.
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Ecker Y, Gilead M. Goal-Directed Allostasis: The Unique Challenge of Keeping Things as They Are and Strategies to Overcome It. PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2018; 13:618-633. [PMID: 30040911 DOI: 10.1177/1745691618769847] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
We introduce the concept of goal-directed allostasis (GDA), the mental process that underlies individuals' deliberate and proactive attempts to maintain the current state of affairs. GDA is distinct from goal-directed progress (GDP), the mental process that underlies the pursuit of change in the current state of affairs. We argue that GDA plays a crucial role in human life but that it has been largely overlooked in psychological research. We discuss the unique cognitive and motivational challenges that arise during GDA and suggest strategies to overcome these challenges. Finally, we outline how acknowledging the distinction between GDA and GDP might contribute to the study and treatment of mental illness and highlight several directions for future research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yael Ecker
- Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
| | - Michael Gilead
- Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
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Myachykov A, Scheepers C, Fischer MH, Kessler K. TEST: a tropic, embodied, and situated theory of cognition. Top Cogn Sci 2013; 6:442-60. [PMID: 23616259 DOI: 10.1111/tops.12024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 47] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2012] [Revised: 01/16/2013] [Accepted: 01/24/2013] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
TEST is a novel taxonomy of knowledge representations based on three distinct hierarchically organized representational features: Tropism, Embodiment, and Situatedness. Tropic representational features reflect constraints of the physical world on the agent's ability to form, reactivate, and enrich embodied (i.e., resulting from the agent's bodily constraints) conceptual representations embedded in situated contexts. The proposed hierarchy entails that representations can, in principle, have tropic features without necessarily having situated and/or embodied features. On the other hand, representations that are situated and/or embodied are likely to be simultaneously tropic. Hence, although we propose tropism as the most general term, the hierarchical relationship between embodiment and situatedness is more on a par, such that the dominance of one component over the other relies on the distinction between offline storage versus online generation as well as on representation-specific properties.
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