Academic literature on the topic 'Functional integration in neuroscience'

Aim. The paper aims to study the differentiation and integration of scientific disciplines in the natural sciences and humanities research areas of neuroscience based on a review of Russian scientific works and to propose a structural and functional model of neuroscience as an interdisciplinary system of knowledge about brain features that ensure human activity in various professional spheres. Methods. A theoretical analysis of scientific publications on the topic over the last ten years has been used along with such methods as comparison, generalization, and modelling. Results. The paper presents various points of view on the subject field of separate disciplines within neuroscience, as well as on the relations between them. The interdisciplinarity of neuroscience is considered by a number of authors (philosophers) as a form of disciplinary colonization, epistemic expansion or intervention. Another group of authors considers neuroscience as a systemic level of science that unites multidisciplinary research activities related to the study of the brain. The third position is represented by authors who consider neuroscience as an extension of the problem field of neurobiology or as its synonym. A number of authors pay special attention to the popularity of neuroscience among politicians, military structures, pharmacological companies and other professionals with their disciplinary totality: neurophilosophy, neuropsychology, neuroinformatics, neurogenetics, neurobiology, neurosociology, neuropedagogy, etc. The paper demonstrates that there is no unified point of view on psychophysiology as a part of neuroscience, which also has interdisciplinary connections with many sciences that study individual psychological characteristics and behavior. Conclusion. Based on the analysis of the discussion, the authors emphasize the need to logically build the structural and functional relationships of individual disciplines within a unified neuroscience and determine its subject field on the basis of a systemic evolutionary approach.

The perception of other people is instrumental in guiding social interactions. For example, the appearance of the human body cues a wide range of inferences regarding sex, age, health, and personality, as well as emotional state and intentions, which influence social behavior. To date, most neuroscience research on body perception has aimed to characterize the functional contribution of segregated patches of cortex in the ventral visual stream. In light of the growing prominence of network architectures in neuroscience, the current article reviews neuroimaging studies that measure functional integration between different brain regions during body perception. The review demonstrates that body perception is not restricted to processing in the ventral visual stream but instead reflects a functional alliance between the ventral visual stream and extended neural systems associated with action perception, executive functions, and theory of mind. Overall, these findings demonstrate how body percepts are constructed through interactions in distributed brain networks and underscore that functional segregation and integration should be considered together when formulating neurocognitive theories of body perception. Insight from such an updated model of body perception generalizes to inform the organizational structure of social perception and cognition more generally and also informs disorders of body image, such as anorexia nervosa, which may rely on atypical integration of body-related information.

Autonomist accounts of cognitive science suggest that cognitive model building and theory construction (can or should) proceed independently of findings in neuroscience. Common functionalist justifications of autonomy rely on there being relatively few constraints between neural structure and cognitive function. In contrast, an integrative mechanistic perspective stresses the mutual constraining of structure and function. In this article, I show how Model-Based Cognitive Neuroscience (MBCN) epitomizes the integrative mechanistic perspective and concentrates the most revolutionary elements of the cognitive neuroscience revolution. I also show how the prominent subset account of functional realization supports the integrative mechanistic perspective I take on MBCN and use it to clarify the intralevel and interlevel components of integration.

Despite the enormous growth in the number of facts and regularities observed in neuroscience, the current state of the field does not allow their integration in coherent theoretical frameworks. Neuroinformatics is a new research field devoted to development of neuroscience data bases together with computational models and analytical tools for sharing, integration and analysis of experimental data and the advancement of theories of nervous system function. From 1996 the OECD countries promote fostering neuroinformatics by eliminating the barriers that prevent cooperation and by providing incentives to potential participants. This activity was formulated in the Report on Neuroinformatics from The Global Science Forum Neuroinformatics Working Group of the OECD (2002) as well as in several printed publications by the Neuroinformatics group (Amari et al. 2002, Eckersley et al. 2003). This article summarizes the ideas presented in the Report and stresses the importance of analytical and modeling approach to functional neurophysiology

Background:Neuroscience has been a growing revolutionary field of scientific knowledge. The increasing recognition of the importance of emotional processes and subjective experience in several aspects of human behaviour parallel the growing amount of research in the field of affective neuroscience. Affective neuroscience studies the brain mechanisms subjacent to emotional behaviour.Aim:To discuss the relevance of affective neuroscience research in social and biological sciences, namely within psychiatric and psychological researches.Methods:Review of the literature. MEDLINE and PubMed databases searches for peer-reviewed studies, published between 1994 and 2008, using combinations of the Medline Subject Heading terms affective neuroscience, emotions, affective sciences and psychiatry, psychology, biological sciences, social sciences.Results:Several studies addresses brain functions and how emotions relate to genetics, learning, primary motivations, stress response and human behaviour. Some actual areas of research within affective neuroscience include: emotional learning, affective behaviour, emotional empathy, psychosomatic medicine, functional and structural biomarkers, emotional disorders and stress response, among others.Discussion:In Psychiatry, affective neurosciences find application in understanding the neurobiology of mood disorders, the neural control of interpersonal and social behaviour and the emotional systems that underlie psychopathology. Affective neuroscience reflects the integration of knowledge across disciplines allowing a broader understanding of human functioning. The field of affective neuroscience is an exciting field of future psychiatric research and it provides an investigational framework for studying psychiatric morbidity.

<abstract> <p>The possibility of multimodality imaging with PET/MR and the availability of ultra-high field MRI has allowed to investigate novel aspects of neuropsychiatric conditions. One of the major barriers in current studies is the lack of an instrument that allows to accurately cover the temporal aspect under the same physiological conditions. The aim of this commentary is to provide our perspective on how the integration of EEG-PET-MR could be a solution to the current challenge in molecular imaging and seems to hold great promise in future pharmacological challenging-based studies, understanding different functional states of the brain, and could furthermore aid in the diagnostic and prognostic evaluations of neurocognitive disorders.</p> </abstract>