Trends in Cognitive Sciences最新文献

Cognition and behavior are emergent properties of brain systems that seek to maximize complex and adaptive behaviors while minimizing energy utilization. Different species reconcile this trade-off in different ways, but in humans the outcome is biased towards complex behaviors and hence relatively high energy use. However, even in energy-intensive brains, numerous parsimonious processes operate to optimize energy use. We review how this balance manifests in both homeostatic processes and task-associated cognition. We also consider the perturbations and disruptions of metabolism in neurocognitive diseases.

People worldwide tend to believe that their societies are more meritocratic than they actually are. We propose the belief in meritocracy is widespread because it is rooted in simple, seemingly obvious causal-explanatory intuitions. Our proposal suggests solutions for debunking the myth of meritocracy and increasing support for equity-oriented policies.

Cognitive neuroscience has converged on a definition of working memory (WM) as a capacity-limited system that maintains highly accessible representations via stimulus-specific neural patterns. We argue that this standard definition may be incomplete. We highlight the fundamental need to recognize specific instances or tokens and to bind those tokens to the surrounding context. We propose that contextual binding is supported by spatiotemporal 'pointers' and that pointers are the source of neural signals that track the number of stored items, independent of their content. These content-independent pointers may provide a productive perspective for understanding item-based capacity limits in WM and the role of WM as a gateway for long-term storage.

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) reshapes and challenges psychological ownership of created content. This article examines how GenAI disrupts original content creators' and GenAI users' sense of ownership and control and illustrates how both can perceive the illusion, dilution, and potential loss of control and ownership of content in the GenAI era.

Chronic pain (CP) not only causes physical discomfort but also significantly affects cognition. This review first summarizes emerging findings that reveal complex associations between CP and cognitive impairments, and then presents neuroimaging evidence showing aging-related brain alterations in CP and proposes a framework where accelerated brain aging links CP to cognitive impairments. This framework explains how CP-related multi-level factors, which either contribute to the onset of CP or arise as a result of CP, influence brain aging in linear and nonlinear ways, leading to cognitive impairments and increased dementia risk. Leveraging interpretable machine learning and molecular brain atlases, this framework enables the development of cognitive risk assessment indicators and elucidates the biological mechanisms underlying cognitive impairments in CP.

Various neuroscientific theories maintain that brain oscillations are important for neuronal computation, but opposing views claim that these macroscale dynamics are 'exhaust fumes' of more relevant processes. Here, we approach the question of whether oscillations are functional or epiphenomenal by distinguishing between measurements and processes, and by reviewing whether causal or inferentially useful links exist between field potentials, electric fields, and neurobiological events. We introduce a vocabulary for the role of brain signals and their underlying processes, demarcating oscillations as a distinct entity where both processes and measurements can exhibit periodicity. Leveraging this distinction, we suggest that electric fields, oscillating or not, are causally and computationally relevant, and that field potential signals can carry information even without causality.

Despite decades of research, we lack objective diagnostic or prognostic biomarkers of mental health problems. A key reason for this limited progress is a reliance on the traditional case-control paradigm, which assumes that each disorder has a single cause that can be uncovered by comparing average phenotypic values of patient and control samples. Here, we discuss the problematic assumptions on which this paradigm is based and highlight recent efforts that seek to characterize, rather than minimize, the inherent clinical and biological variability that underpins psychiatric populations. Embracing such variability is necessary to understand pathophysiological mechanisms and develop more targeted and effective treatments.

'Cellular psychology' is a new field of inquiry that studies dendritic mechanisms for adapting mental events to the current context, thus increasing their coherence, flexibility, effectiveness, and comprehensibility. Apical dendrites of neocortical pyramidal cells have a crucial role in cognition - those dendrites receive input from diverse sources, including feedback, and can amplify the cell's feedforward transmission if relevant in that context. Specialized subsets of inhibitory interneurons regulate this cooperative context-sensitive processing by increasing or decreasing amplification. Apical input has different effects on cellular output depending on whether we are awake, deeply asleep, or dreaming. Furthermore, wakeful thought and imagery may depend on apical input. High-resolution neuroimaging in humans supports and complements evidence on these cellular mechanisms from other mammals.