Brain activity and cognition: a connection from thermodynamics and information theory.

The connection between brain and mind is an important scientific and philosophical question that we are still far from completely understanding. A crucial point to our work is noticing that thermodynamics provides a convenient framework to model brain activity, whereas cognition can be modeled in in...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Collell, Guillem, Fauquet, Jordi
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:España
Institución:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Repositorio:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
OAI Identifier:oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/24954
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/24954
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00818
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Estils cognitius
Cervell
Descripción
Sumario:The connection between brain and mind is an important scientific and philosophical question that we are still far from completely understanding. A crucial point to our work is noticing that thermodynamics provides a convenient framework to model brain activity, whereas cognition can be modeled in information-theoretical terms. In fact, several models have been proposed so far from both approaches. A second critical remark is the existence of deep theoretical connections between thermodynamics and information theory. In fact, some well-known authors claim that the laws of thermodynamics are nothing but principles in information theory. Unlike in physics or chemistry, a formalization of the relationship between information and energy is currently lacking in neuroscience. In this paper we propose a framework to connect physical brain and cognitive models by means of the theoretical connections between information theory and thermodynamics. Ultimately, this article aims at providing further insight on the formal relationship between cognition and neural activity.