What is Neurophilosophy? Characteristics and topics of reflection

Philosophy is the original discipline of study, the one that, for thousands of years, has been dedicated to addressing transcendental questions about reality itself.

One of its most modern branches is neurophilosophy which, unlike others, has a biological basis, as we will explore below.

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Definition of Neurophilosophy

This is a subdiscipline of philosophy that connects philosophy with neuroscience (the study of the nervous system). In fact, it is also known as the philosophy of neuroscience. And it is that it is an interdisciplinary study of the two.

In other words, it is the study of the connections between the mind and the brain. It proposes that all the psychology of the human being must be explained by the organic structure of the brain, for which reason It is necessary to study the functioning of this organ to understand in depth the essence of our thoughts.

Study methods

The main problem that arises when delving into this discipline is that

both mind and brain can only be studied indirectly. We are going to see some of the most used methods in this way below.

1. Functional magnetic resonance imaging

Is about a well-known medical technique for imaging brain activity in specific regions. The machine needed to perform them is the same as conventional magnetic resonance imaging, although there are some differences in the programs used to process the images. In general, no previous injection of contrast is needed, although for some specific techniques within fMRI it should be applied.

A synthesized explanation of the operation of this technique would be the following. The individual enters the resonance machine, and must be completely still except for the specific part of the body that we ask him to move, for example, his fingers. In this way, by obtaining images of the brain during rest and movement, we will be able to clearly observe which areas reflect greater activity when performing a specific task.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging is especially useful for neuroscience in general and neurophilosophy in particular because allows us to establish the areas of the brain dedicated to essential functions (for example, language). Another of the great advantages of fMRI is that it shows us in a visible and objective way the effect of a medication, which goes far beyond the information that the patient himself can verbalize to us from his experience subjective.

Not only neurophilosophy drinks from this technique. Other cross-sectional studies of neuroscience, such as neuromarketing or neuroeconomics as well use this method to be able to observe the brain regions where we make character decisions financial.

A variant used recently would be resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging., that is, where the individual is not performing any specific task, there is simply the natural flow of his thoughts. In this way, it is possible to study the activity patterns that occur on the surface of the brain in this apparent state of rest, and thus identify the elementary architecture that occurs in these brain activation processes during a neutral state in the person studied.

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critics

Neuroscientists like Michael Anderson do not entirely agree on the weight given to this technique to obtain information about how we think., since they maintain that in the visual records obtained we are losing a lot of data, and that it is necessary to take into account both the activation that is given for the task as the activation that occurs for the control, and with the studied technique we could not see the areas activated during the control that are also involved in the task.

Others reject the technique outright because they maintain that the brain acts as a whole, and that cognition involves joint operation of a large part of the brain structures, and therefore cannot be reduced to a region in concrete. They ask that the effect observed by functional magnetic resonance imaging not be confused with the specific function of said area of ​​the brain.

2. cognitive neuropsychology

Through this branch of Psychology, valuable records are also obtained that feed the theoretical foundations of neurophilosophy. In this case the procedure is study people who have suffered a brain injury and specify which of their psychological functions have been altered, so that we can establish a connection between the damaged brain part and the altered or prevented behaviors.

Neuropsychology has famous studies with which we can see more clearly the concepts we are talking about.

Phineas Gage

The case of Phineas Gage is one of the oldest (it occurred in 1848), but also one of the most relevant for brain studies. This individual was a worker who, during a working day, suffered an accident in which an explosion sent out an iron bar, with such bad luck that it pierced his skull, entering below her left cheekbone and exiting at the top.

Obviously, after such severe damage, the most logical thing is that Phineas would have died instantly. But that was not what happened, far from it. In fact, after the accident, he was able to walk, talk and think completely normally. So he didn't suffer any aftereffects after seeing his brain literally impaled by a metal bar?

Yes, there were sequels, but they were of a different kind. What Phineas Gage saw affected was his personality, the very essence of his being. Apparently, prior to this event, Mr. Gage was an educated, friendly man, with generally good sociability. After the serious damage suffered in his frontal lobe, he began to depend much more on his most primal impulses., easily losing patience, being inconsistent in his tasks, disrespecting his peers and being totally unable to hold a job.

In other words: he ceased to be who he was to become a different person.

Paul Broca and Tan

The famous doctor Broca discovered the brain area that today bears his name by studying the patient Tan, so called because he was unable to pronounce any other words.

After documenting in detail the characteristics of the aphasia that Tan and other patients with similar symptoms were able to relate it to the brain damage that he observed when performing the autopsies and thus conclude that he necessarily had What's up a relationship between the atrophied area and altered language functions.

Other studies

Although the list is long, we can summarize by indicating that many other verifications have been made in the laboratory to be able to associate brain regions with specific functions.

For example, with wounded soldiers in World War I it was discovered that the occipital lobe controlled vision, and therefore damage to that region could even blind the subject.

On the other hand, the famous patient HM had a region of the temporal lobes removed, since it was believed that in this way he would improve his epilepsy. The result, instead, was an anterograde amnesia that, although it was a terrible misfortune for the patient, made it possible to establish a direct connection between the excised area and the function of creating new memories.

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3. computational neuroscience

It is an interdisciplinary science that encompasses many different fields and its objective is to create computational models that realistically simulate the neural functioning of our brain. That is, to obtain a virtual image that adequately represents the distribution and activity of neural networks.

However, many representatives of neurophilosophy have rejected the use of this discipline and the utility of mathematical models obtained to explain the functioning of the mind.

In summary

We have made a theoretical tour of neurophilosophy and its sources. It is an interesting discipline with a long way to go, but we have been able to verify how difficult it is to be able to associate a thought or belief, as well as its underlying mechanisms, with a specific neuronal region of our brain.

Therefore, much remains to be done in this field., and who knows if advances in computational neuroscience and its mathematical models, more and more complex, and even the fast-paced The search for true artificial intelligence will lead to a leap in our understanding of the philosophy that unites mind and brain.

Once we make such progress, we may have the tools to resolve issues of absolute transcendence, which have been in our thinking since ancient times, such as the free will.

Bibliographic references:

• Davis, W.J. (1980). Neurophilosophical Reflections on Central Nervous Pattern Generators. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
• Hebb, D. (2002). The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory. Psychology Press.
• Rodriguez, A. (2002). Neurophilosophy as a meeting point between philosophy and neurosciences. Contrasts. International Journal of Philosophy.
• Anderson, M. L. (2007). The Massive Redeployment Hypothesis and Functional Topography of the Brain. Philosophical Psychology Vol20.
• AND. Proal, M. Alvarez-Segura, M. de la Iglesia-Vaya, L. Martí-Bonmatí, F.X. Castellanos, S.R. (2011). Functional brain activity in the resting state: networks in connection. Neurology Journal. beam.