Doing cognitive neuroscience: a third way

Authors: Egan, Frances; Matthews, Robert

Source: Synthese, Volume 153, Number 3, December 2006 , pp. 377-391(15)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

The “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches have been thought to exhaust the possibilities for doing cognitive neuroscience. We argue that neither approach is likely to succeed in providing a theory that enables us to understand how cognition is achieved in biological creatures like ourselves. We consider a promising third way of doing cognitive neuroscience, what might be called the “neural dynamic systems” approach, that construes cognitive neuroscience as an autonomous explanatory endeavor, aiming to characterize in its own terms the states and processes responsible for brain-based cognition. We sketch the basic motivation for the approach, describe a particular version of the approach, so-called `Dynamic Causal Modeling' (DCM), and consider a concrete example of DCM. This third way, we argue, has the potential to avoid the problems that afflict the other two approaches.

Keywords: Neuroscientific cognitive modelling; Top-down approach to neuroscience; Bottom-up approach to neuroscience; Neural dynamic systems; Dynamic causal modeling; Neural structural-functional relations; Neural connectivity

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-006-9098-9

Affiliations: 1: Email: fegan@rci.rutgers.edu

Publication date: 2006-12-01