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Concept
Neurophilosophy
Summary
Neurophilosophy or philosophy of neuroscience is the interdisciplinary study of neuroscience and philosophy that explores the relevance of neuroscientific studies to the arguments traditionally categorized as philosophy of mind. The philosophy of neuroscience attempts to clarify neuroscientific methods and results using the conceptual rigor and methods of philosophy of science.
Below is a list of specific issues important to philosophy of neuroscience:
"The indirectness of studies of mind and brain"
"Computational or representational analysis of brain processing"
"Relations between psychological and neuroscientific inquiries"
Modularity of mind
What constitutes adequate explanation in neuroscience?
"Location of cognitive function"
Many of the methods and techniques central to neuroscientific discovery rely on assumptions that can limit the interpretation of the data. Philosophers of neuroscience have discussed such assumptions in the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging, dissociation in cognitive neuropsychology, single unit recording, and computational neuroscience. Following are descriptions of many of the current controversies and debates about the methods employed in neuroscience.
Many fMRI studies rely heavily on the assumption of "localization of function" (same as functional specialization).
Localization of function means that many cognitive functions can be localized to specific brain regions. A good example of functional localization comes from studies of the motor cortex. There seem to be different groups of cells in the motor cortex responsible for controlling different groups of muscles.
Many philosophers of neuroscience criticize fMRI for relying too heavily on this assumption. Michael Anderson points out that subtraction-method fMRI misses a lot of brain information that is important to the cognitive processes. Subtraction fMRI only shows the differences between the task activation and the control activation, but many of the brain areas activated in the control are obviously important for the task as well.
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