Organoids and specifically human cerebral organoids (HCOs) are one of the most relevant novelties in the field of biomedical research. Grown either from embryonic or induced pluripotent stem cells, HCOs can be used as in vitro three-dimensional models, mimicking the developmental process and organization of the developing human brain. Based on that, and despite their current limitations, it cannot be assumed that they will never at any stage of development manifest some rudimentary form of consciousness. In the absence of behavioral (...) indicators of consciousness, the theoretical neurobiology of consciousness being applied to unresponsive brain-injured patients can be considered with respect to HCOs. In clinical neurology, it is difficult to discern a capacity for consciousness in unresponsive brain-injured patients who provide no behavioral indicators of consciousness. In such scenarios, a validated neurobiological theory of consciousness, which tells us what the neural mechanisms of consciousness are, could be used to identify a capacity for consciousness. Like the unresponsive patients that provide a diagnostic difficulty for neurologists, HCOs provide no behavioral indicators of consciousness. Therefore, this article discusses how three prominent neurobiological theories of consciousness apply to human cerebral organoids. From the perspective of the Temporal Circuit Hypothesis, the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, and the Integrated Information Theory, we discuss what neuronal structures and functions might indicate that cerebral organoids have a neurobiological capacity to be conscious. (shrink)

The neurobiology and development of human morality in light of evolution -- More than genes : human inheritances and the moral sense -- The dynamic self : emotions and development -- Moral heritage 1 : engagement of the heart -- Moral heritage 2 : communal imagination -- Undercare and the stress response : early life gone wrong -- The morality that stress promotes : self protective ethics -- Shifting moral mindsets -- Culture and imagination: cooperation or competition? -- Paths (...) to moral wisdom -- Common-self wisdom: fostering a good life for self and others -- The road to human excellence and flourishing. (shrink)

Backgrounds: Transcranial direct current stimulation is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique for the treatment of several psychiatric disorders, e.g., mood disorders and schizophrenia. Therapeutic effects of tDCS are suggested to be produced by bi-directional changes in cortical activities, i.e., increased/decreased cortical excitability via anodal/cathodal stimulation. Although tDCS provides a promising approach for the treatment of psychiatric disorders, its neurobiological mechanisms remain to be explored.Objectives: To review recent findings from neurophysiological, chemical, and brain-network studies, and consider how tDCS ameliorates psychiatric conditions.Findings: (...) Enhancement of excitatory synaptic transmissions through anodal tDCS stimulation is likely to facilitate glutamate transmission and suppress gamma-aminobutyric acid transmission in the cortex. On the other hand, it positively or negatively modulates the activities of dopamine, serotonin, and acetylcholine transmissions in the central nervous system. These neural events by tDCS may change the balance between excitatory and inhibitory inputs. Specifically, multi-session tDCS is thought to promote/regulate information processing efficiency in the cerebral cortical circuit, which induces long-term potentiation by synthesizing various proteins.Conclusions: This review will help understand putative mechanisms underlying the clinical benefits of tDCS from the perspective of neurotransmitters, network dynamics, intracellular events, and related modalities of the brain function. (shrink)

‘Plant neurobiology’ has emerged in recent years as a multidisciplinary endeavor carried out mainly by steady collaboration within the plant sciences. The field proposes a particular approach to the study of plant intelligence by putting forward an integrated view of plant signaling and adaptive behavior. Its objective is to account for the way plants perceive and act in a purposeful manner. But it is not only the plant sciences that constitute plant neurobiology. Resources from philosophy and cognitive science (...) are central to such an interdisciplinary project, if plant neurobiology is to maintain its target well-focused. This manifesto outlines a road map for the establishment and development of a new subject—the Philosophy of Plant Neurobiology—, a new field of research emerging at the intersection of the philosophy of cognitive science and plant neurobiology. The discipline is herewith presented, introducing challenges and novel lines of engagement with the empirical investigation, and providing an explanatory framework and guiding principles that will hopefully ease the integration of research on the quest for plant intelligence. (shrink)

‘Plant neurobiology’ has emerged in recent years as a multidisciplinary endeavor carried out mainly by steady collaboration within the plant sciences. The field proposes a particular approach to the study of plant intelligence by putting forward an integrated view of plant signaling and adaptive behavior. Its objective is to account for the way plants perceive and act in a purposeful manner. But it is not only the plant sciences that constitute plant neurobiology. Resources from philosophy and cognitive science (...) are central to such an interdisciplinary project, if plant neurobiology is to maintain its target well-focused. This manifesto outlines a road map for the establishment and development of a new subject—the Philosophy of Plant Neurobiology—, a new field of research emerging at the intersection of the philosophy of cognitive science and plant neurobiology. The discipline is herewith presented, introducing challenges and novel lines of engagement with the empirical investigation, and providing an explanatory framework and guiding principles that will hopefully ease the integration of research on the quest for plant intelligence. (shrink)

Are there neurobiological reasons why we are willing to trust other people and why ‘trust’ and moral values such as ‘care’ play a quite pivotal role in our social lives and the judgements we make, including our social interactions and judgements made in the context of schooling? In pursuing this question, this paper largely agrees with claims made by Patricia Churchland in her 2011 book Braintrust. She believes that moral values are rooted in basic brain circuitry and chemistry, which have (...) been shaped over evolutionary time. However, these naturalistic claims raise important issues, including the standard philosophical objection that they fall victim to the naturalistic and/or deontic fallacies. This paper provides an overview of the neurobiology of trust and examines some of the main objections, in the belief that recognising the neurobiological substrate of care and trust can deepen our appreciation of the role these play in education. (shrink)

Neurons repeatedly exposed to similar perceptual experiences fire together and wire together to form ‘meaning kernels’ of concepts. Pulvermueller argues that abstract concepts may be devoid of meaning kernels, because the perceptual experiences that construct abstract concepts are subject to great variation and share few common features. Abstract concept are therefore grounded in the brain through features that belong to ‘meaning halos’, rather than to ‘meaning kernels’.

In this paper, we take a meta-theoretical stance and aim to compare and assess two conceptual frameworks that endeavor to explain phenomenal experience. In particular, we compare Feinberg & Mallatt’s Neurobiological Naturalism (NN) and Tononi’s and colleagues' Integrated Information Theory (IIT), given that the former pointed out some similarities between the two theories (Feinberg & Mallatt 2016c-d). To probe their similarity, we first give a general introduction to both frameworks. Next, we expound a ground plan for carrying out our analysis. (...) We move on to articulate a philosophical profile of NN and IIT, addressing their ontological commitments and epistemological foundations. Finally, we compare the two point-by-point, also discussing how they stand on the issue of artificial consciousness. (shrink)

The rise of neuroplasticity has led to new fields of study about the relation between social inequalities and neurobiology, including investigations into the “neuroscience of poverty.” The neural phenotype of poverty proposed in recent neuroscientific research emerges out of classed, gendered, and racialized inequalities that not only affect bodies in material ways but also shape scientific understandings of difference. An intersectional, sociomaterial approach is needed to grasp the implications of neuroscientific research that aims to both produce and repair neurobiological (...) difference. Following Benjamin’s critique of the “carceral imagination” of technoscience, this article considers how such research may fix in terms of helping, or in contrast, fix by classifying and reifying, vulnerable subjects. I address the potential for biosocial determinism in linking neural phenotypes and social problems. I use an intersectional approach to consider the presence and absence of race in this body of research and explore how some methodological and conceptual framings of the “brain on poverty” mark poor and minority children for intervention in concert with neoliberal approaches to poverty. (shrink)

While parents have long received guidance on how to raise children, a relatively new element of this involves explicit references to infant brain development, drawing on brain scans and neuroscientific knowledge. Sometimes called ‘brain-based parenting’, this has been criticised from within sociological and policy circles alike. However, the engagement of parents themselves with neuroscientific concepts is far less researched. Drawing on 22 interviews with parents/carers of children living in Scotland, this article examines how they account for their use of concepts (...) and understandings relating to neuroscience. Three normative tropes were salient: information about children’s processing speed, evidence about deprived Romanian orphans in the 1990s, and ideas relating to whether or not children should ‘self-settle’ when falling asleep. We interrogate how parents reflexively weigh and judge such understandings and ideas. In some cases, neuroscientific knowledge was enrolled by parents in ways that supported biologically reductionist models of childhood agency. This reductionism commonly had generative effects, enjoining new care practices and producing particular parent and infant subjectivities. Notably, parents do not uncritically adopt or accept neurobiological and/or psychological knowledge; rather, they reflect on whether and when it is applicable to and relevant for raising their children. Thus, our respondents draw on everyday epistemologies of parenting to negotiate brain-based understandings of infant development and behaviour, and invest meaning in these in ways that cannot be fully anticipated within straightforward celebrations or critiques of the content of parenting programmes drawing on neuropsychological ideas. (shrink)

Extraversion has two central characteristics: (1) interpersonalengagement, which consists of affiliation (enjoying and valuing close interpersonal bonds, being warm and affectionate) and agency (being socially dominant, enjoying leadership roles, being assertive, being exhibitionistic, and having a sense of potency in accomplishing goals) and (2) impulsivity, which emerges from the interaction of extraversion and a second, independent trait (constraint). Agency is a more general motivational disposition that includes dominance, ambition, mastery, efficacy, and achievement. Positive affect (a combination of positive feelings and (...) motivation) is closely associated with extraversion. Extraversion is accordingly based on positiveincentivemotivation. (shrink)

The study of morality is increasingly an interdisciplinary endeavor spanning the cognitive, social, and biological sciences. This article provides an overview and synthesis of recent work fields relevant to the scientific understanding of morality, with a focus on how moral judgment and behavior are rooted in the functioning, development, and evolution of the brain. It presents themes that have emerged from studies examining the cognitive processes involved in morality. It shows studies that directly investigate the neural substrates of morality using (...) modern brain imaging techniques. A number of brain regions and systems are identified that appear to be essential for normal moral behavior. The article focuses on two clinical conditions: lesions to the prefrontal cortex and psychopathy. Furthermore, it discusses neuroendocrinology and evolutionary neurobiology—that is relevant to understanding the development of morality and concerns evolutionary history and functions of two neuropeptides, oxytocin and vasopressin, in the mammalian brain and their effects on behavior. (shrink)

The neurobiological mechanisms associated with affiliation, that Depue & Collins argue are a central component of extraversion are not specified in their model. In addition, only the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in extraversion is discussed, although recent evidence suggests that activity associated with additional cortical regions may be related to this trait. Finally, the assumption that neurobiological mechanisms underlie or play a causal, and therefore, more fundamental role than psychological constructs in the trait is challenged.

Paul Churchland has recently argued that empirical evidence strongly suggests that perception is penetrable to the beliefs or theories held by individual perceivers (1988). While there has been much discussion of the sorts of psychological cases he presents, little has been said about his arguments from neurology. I offer a critical examination of his claim that certain efferents in the brain are evidence against perceptual encapsulation. I argue that his neurological evidence is inadequate to his philosophical goals, both by itself (...) and taken in concert with his psychological evidence. (shrink)

During the postpartum period, the paternal brain suffers extensive and complex neurobiological alterations, through the experience of father–infant interactions. Although the impact of such experience in the mother has been increasingly studied over the past years, less is known about the neurobiological correlates of fatherhood—that is, the alterations in the brain and other physiological systems associated with the experience of fatherhood. With the present study, we aimed to perform a scoping review of the available literature on the genetic, neuroendocrine, and (...) brain correlates of fatherhood and identify the main gaps in the current knowledge. PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science electronic databases were searched for eligible studies on paternal neuroplasticity during the postpartum period, over the past 15 years. Reference lists of relevant key studies and reviews were also hand-searched. The research team independently screened the identified studies based on the established inclusion criteria. Extracted data were analyzed using tables and descriptive synthesis. Among the 29 studies that met our inclusion criteria, the vast majority pertained to neuroendocrine correlates of fatherhood, followed by brain activity or connectivity, association studies of candidate genes, and brain structure correlates. Collectively, studies published during the past 15 years suggest the existence of significant endocrine and neurofunctional alterations as a result of fatherhood, as well as preliminary evidence of genetic variability accounting for individual differences during the postpartum period in fathers. No studies were so far published evaluating epigenetic mechanisms associated with the paternal brain, something that was also the focus of the current review. We highlight the need for further research that examines neuroplasticity during the experience of fatherhood and that considers both the interplay between hormones and simultaneous assessment of the different biomarkers ; data collection protocols and assessment times should also be refined. (shrink)

A cartoon description of the goals of cognitive science and neuroscience might read respectively “How the mind works” and “How the brain works.” In this caricature, there would seem to be little overlap in the vocabularies employed by each domain. The cartoon cognitive scientist could speak at length about decision making and short‐term memory in a relatively self‐consistent manner, without any need to make reference to the language of neuroscience. Likewise, the cartoon neuroscientist could provide an immense body of physical (...) detail about the function of neurons, synapses, and their component parts. She could even build models about how collections of neurons work together, or even how they might have developed. (shrink)

The projection of conscious content is a central feature of Max Velmans' theory of consciousness, implying that conscious experiences are built within a conversation of minds and worlds in which they form a 'reflexive' unity – as stated in his reflexive monism theory. What are the neurobiological structures and functions that underpin the experience of conscious contents being located in a spatio-temporal frame outside the nervous system that instantiates them? In this paper I offer informed speculation about these neurobiological structures (...) on the basis of the concept of projection within the psychophysical 'egocentric space', having the central nervous system at the origin of coordinates and the interface with the environment as the horizon. The reasoning is based on the work of several neuroscientists on feedback signals from the motor to sensory neuron systems, building a picture of how they support the projective process. I also call attention to the integrative role of glial cells in the generation of localized sensations and other conscious contents. (shrink)

Gold & Stoljar pose a dilemma for linguistics should neurobiology win out as the science of mind. The dilemma can be avoided by reestablishing linguistics as an autonomous discipline, rather than a branch of the science of mind. Independent considerations for doing this are presented.

Recent investigations have explored how large-scale systems in the brain operate in the processes of retrieving knowledge for words and concepts. Much of the crucial evidence derives from lesion studies, because word retrieval and concept retrieval can be clearly dissociated in brain-damaged individuals. We discuss these findings from the perspective of our neurobiological framework, which is cited in Pulvermüller's target article.

Our self-conception derives mostly from our own experience. We believe ourselves to be conscious, rational, social, ethical, language-using, political agents who possess free will. Yet we know we exist in a universe that consists of mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute physical particles. How can we resolve the conflict between these two visions? In _Freedom and Neurobiology_, the philosopher John Searle discusses the possibility of free will within the context of contemporary neurobiology. He begins by explaining the relationship between human (...) reality and the more fundamental reality as described by physics and chemistry. Then he proposes a neurobiological resolution to the problem by demonstrating how various conceptions of free will have different consequences for the neurobiology of consciousness. In the second half of the book, Searle applies his theory of social reality to the problem of political power, explaining the role of language in the formation of our political reality. The institutional structures that organize, empower, and regulate our lives-money, property, marriage, government-consist in the assignment and collective acceptance of certain statuses to objects and people. Whether it is the president of the United States, a twenty-dollar bill, or private property, these entities perform functions as determined by their status in our institutional reality. Searle focuses on the political powers that exist within these systems of status functions and the way in which language constitutes them. Searle argues that consciousness and rationality are crucial to our existence and that they are the result of the biological evolution of our species. He addresses the problem of free will within the context of a neurobiological conception of consciousness and rationality, and he addresses the problem of political power within the context of this analysis. A clear and concise contribution to the free-will debate and the study of cognition, _Freedom and Neurobiology_ is essential reading for students and scholars of the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Efforts to bridge emotion theory with neurobiology can be facilitated by dynamic systems (DS) modeling. DS principles stipulate higher-order wholes emerging from lower-order constituents through bidirectional causal processes cognition relations. I then present a psychological model based on this reconceptualization, identifying trigger, self-amplification, and self-stabilization phases of emotion-appraisal states, leading to consolidating traits. The article goes on to describe neural structures and functions involved in appraisal and emotion, as well as DS mechanisms of integration by which they interact. These (...) mechanisms include nested feedback interactions, global effects of neuromodulation, vertical integration, action-monitoring, and synaptic plasticity, and they are modeled in terms of both functional integration and temporal synchronization. I end by elaborating the psychological model of emotion–appraisal states with reference to neural processes. (shrink)

Our self-conception derives mostly from our own experience. We believe ourselves to be conscious, rational, social, ethical, language-using, political agents who possess free will. Yet we know we exist in a universe that consists of mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute physical particles. How can we resolve the conflict between these two visions? In _Freedom and Neurobiology_, the philosopher John Searle discusses the possibility of free will within the context of contemporary neurobiology. He begins by explaining the relationship between human (...) reality and the more fundamental reality as described by physics and chemistry. Then he proposes a neurobiological resolution to the problem by demonstrating how various conceptions of free will have different consequences for the neurobiology of consciousness. In the second half of the book, Searle applies his theory of social reality to the problem of political power, explaining the role of language in the formation of our political reality. The institutional structures that organize, empower, and regulate our lives-money, property, marriage, government-consist in the assignment and collective acceptance of certain statuses to objects and people. Whether it is the president of the United States, a twenty-dollar bill, or private property, these entities perform functions as determined by their status in our institutional reality. Searle focuses on the political powers that exist within these systems of status functions and the way in which language constitutes them. Searle argues that consciousness and rationality are crucial to our existence and that they are the result of the biological evolution of our species. He addresses the problem of free will within the context of a neurobiological conception of consciousness and rationality, and he addresses the problem of political power within the context of this analysis. A clear and concise contribution to the free-will debate and the study of cognition, _Freedom and Neurobiology_ is essential reading for students and scholars of the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

With a focus on receptive language, we examine the neurobiological evidence for the interdependence of receptive and expressive language processes. While we agree that there is compelling evidence for such interdependence, we suggest that Pickering & Garrod's (P&G's) account would be enhanced by considering more-specific situations in which their model does, and does not, apply.

Neurobiological models of language need a level of analysis that can account for the typical range of language phenomena. Because linguistically motivated models have been successful in explaining numerous language properties, it is premature to dismiss them as biologically irrelevant. Models attempting to unify neurobiology and linguistics need to be sensitive to both sources of evidence.

This paper outlines the functional capacities of a novel scheme for cognitive representation and computation, and it explores the possible implementation of this scheme in the massively parallel organization of the empirical brain. The suggestion is that the brain represents reality by means of positions in suitably constitutes phase spaces; and the brain performs computations on these representations by means of coordinate transformations from one phase space to another. This scheme may be implemented in the brain in two distinct forms: (...) (1) as a phase-space sandwich, which may explain certain laminar structures, such as cerebral cortex and the superior colliculus; and (2) as a neural matrix, which may explain other structures, such as the beautifully orthogonal architecture of the cerebellum. (shrink)

Therapeutic translations of the microbiome-gut-brain (MGB) axis are reconstructing the educational subject in a manner amenable to Foucauldian analysis. Yet, at the same time, under the sway of MGB research social scientists are taking a biosocial turn that threatens the integrity of Foucault’s historicizing philosophical project. Meeting that challenge head-on, this article argues that the MGB axis augments the neurobiological constitution of the educational subject by means of a dietetic mode of subjectivation. Absent a pedagogical element, there is a hollowness (...) to critical academics’ claims that holobiontic self-conceptions springing from the axis can elicit a resistant subjectivity. Though wild pedagogies might inform a resistant tactics of the self, contemporary self-technologies are – as Foucault has taught us – a pale shadow of the ancient Greek conception of dietetics as an holistic, embodied and ensouled practice. At the intersection between the disciplinary apparatuses of criminology and education, therefore, the MGB-driven biosocial turn unambiguously reinforces the social control function of schooling. (shrink)

In 1975, Colwyn Trevarthen first presented his groundbreaking explorations into the early origins of human intersubjectivity. His influential model dictates that, during intimate and playful spontaneous face-to-face protoconversations, the emotions of both the 2–3-month-old infant and mother are nonverbally communicated, perceived, mutually regulated, and intersubjectively shared. This primordial basic interpersonal interaction is expressed in synchronized rhythmic-turn-taking transactions that promote the intercoordination and awareness of positive brain states in both. In this work, I offer an interpersonal neurobiological model of Trevarthen’s intersubjective (...) protoconversations as rapid, reciprocal, bidirectional visual-facial, auditory-prosodic, and tactile-gestural right brain-to-right brain implicit nonverbal communications between the psychobiologically attuned mother and the developing infant. These co-constructed positive emotional interactions facilitate the experience-dependent maturation of the infant’s right brain, which is in an early critical period of growth. I then address the central role of interpersonal synchrony in intersubjectivity, expressed in a mutual alignment or coupling between the minds and bodies of the mother and infant in face-to-face protoconversations, as well as how these right brain-to-right brain emotional transmissions generate bioenergetic positively charged interbrain synchrony within the dyad. Following this, I offer recent brain laterality research on the essential functions of the right temporoparietal junction, a central node of the social brain, in face-to-face nonverbal communications. In the next section, I describe the ongoing development of the protoconversation over the 1st year and beyond, and the co-creation of a fundamental energy-dependent, growth-promoting social emotional matrix that facilitates the emergence of the highly adaptive human functions of mutual play and mutual love. In the final section, I discuss the clinical applications of this interpersonal neurobiological model of intersubjectivity, which has a long history in the psychotherapy literature. Toward that end, I offer very recent paradigm-shifting hyperscanning research that simultaneously measures both the patient and therapist during a psychotherapeutic interaction. Using the Trevarthen’s two-person intersubjective model, this research demonstrates changes in both brains of the therapeutic dyad and the critical role of nonverbal communications in an emotionally-focused psychotherapy session. These studies specifically document interbrain synchronization between the right temporoparietal junction of the patient and the right temporoparietal junction of the clinician, a right brain-to-right brain nonverbal communication system in the co-constructed therapeutic alliance. Lastly, I discuss the relationship between the affect communicating functions of the intersubjective motivational system and the affect regulating functions of the attachment motivational system. (shrink)

This paper employs an interventionist framework to elucidate some issues having to do with explanation in neurobiology and with the differences between mechanistic and non-mechanistic explanations.

While life in general can be explained by the mechanisms of physics, chemistry and biology, to many scientists and philosophers it appears that when it comes to explaining consciousness, there is what the philosopher Joseph Levine called an “explanatory gap” between the physical brain and subjective experiences. Here we deduce the living and neural features behind primary consciousness within a naturalistic biological framework, identify which animal taxa have these features (the vertebrates, arthropods, and cephalopod molluscs), then reconstruct when consciousness first (...) evolved and consider its adaptive value. We theorize that consciousness is based on all the complex system features of life, plus the even more complex features of elaborate brains. We argue that the main reason why the explanatory gap between the brain and experience has been so refractory to scientific explanation is that it arises from both life and from varied and diverse brains and brain regions, so bridging the gap requires a complex, multifactorial account that includes the great diversity of consciousness, its personal nature that stems from embodied life, and the special neural features that make consciousness unique in nature. (shrink)

With the aid of some Scotistic conceptual distinctions, I develop a way of meeting the apparent deterministic sway of neurobiology. I make a careful distinction between formal and material freedom. Formal freedom, the ability to will or not to will a certain state of affairs regardless of whether it can be effectuated, remains, even if our material freedom to effectuate it is hampered by neurobiological mechanisms. These conceptual findings are linked with contemporary empirical research on obsessive-compulsive disorder and the (...) possibility of volitional modulation of cerebral function. (shrink)

One component of our conscious self-awareness is the voice we hear inside our heads, a form of 'inner speech'. This voice of our conscious thoughts is an exact reflection of our personal voice, with our vocabulary, favourite phrases, and regional idioms. In this paper I present a neurobiological model for the mechanism behind these language-based conscious thoughts. Central to this model is the process of associative conditioning. Through repeated pairings of the neural processes of speech with those of auditory perception (...) of the words spoken, when the action of speech is triggered, but in this case vocalization is inhibited, the neural mechanisms underlying its perception are activated and create 'hearing' the unspoken words. Interestingly, the model predicts the form in which the 'inner voice' of the deaf who have no spoken language and communicate through Sign actually experience their thoughts. (shrink)

Our primary goal in this article is to discuss the cross-talk between biological and cultural factors that become manifested in the individual brain development, neural wiring, neurochemical homeostasis, and behavior. We will show that behavioral propensities are the product of both cultural and biological factors and an understanding of these interactive processes can provide deep insights into why people behave the way they do. This interdisciplinary perspective is offered in an effort to generate dialog and empirical work among scholars interested (...) in merging aspects of anthropology and neuroscience, and anticipates that biological and cultural anthropology converge. We discuss new theoretical developments, hypothesis-testing strategies, and cross-disciplinary methods of observation and data collection. We believe that the exigency of integrating anthropology and the neurosciences is indisputable and anthropology's role in an emerging interdisciplinary science of human behavior will be critical because its focus is, and has always been, on human biological and cultural systems. (shrink)

In psychiatry, pharmacological research has played a crucial role in the formulation, revision, and refinement of neurobiological theories of psychopathology. Besides being utilized as potential treatments for various mental disorders, pharmacological drugs play an important epistemic role as experimental instruments that help scientists uncover the neurobiological underpinnings of mental disorders (Tsou, 2012). Interventions with psychiatric patients using pharmacological drugs provide researchers with information about the neurobiological causes of mental disorders that cannot be obtained in other ways. This important source of (...) evidence for the biological causes of mental disorder is often overlooked in philosophical analyses of psychiatry, especially in skeptical analyses that debase the biological aspects of psychopathology (e.g., Szasz, 1960; Scheff, 1963; Laing, 1967). In discussing pharmacological interventions as a form of evidence for the physical basis of mental disorders, this paper aims to clarify the nature, reliability, and limitations of this evidence. In addition, it illustrates the central role that pharmacological findings in applied clinical contexts play in the acquisition of neurobiological knowledge in research contexts. (shrink)