The Rediscovery of Slowness: Exploring the Timing of Cognition

Abstract

Slowness of thought is not necessarily a handicap but could be a signature of optimal brain function. Emerging evidence shows that neuroanatomical and dynamical constraints of the human brain shape its functionality in optimal ways, characterized by slowness during task-based cognition in the context of spontaneous resting-state activity. This activity can be described mechanistically by whole-brain computational modeling that relates directly to optimality in the context of theories arguing for metastability in the brain. We discuss the role for optimal processing of information in the context of cognitive, task-related activity, and propose that combining multi-modal neuroimaging and explicit whole-brain models focused on the timing of functional dynamics can help to uncover fundamental rules of brain function in health and disease.

On Cuteness: Unlocking the Parental Brain and Beyond

“…Instead, like a Trojan horse, cuteness opens doors that might otherwise remain shut. In terms of mechanisms, we proposed that cuteness ignites activity in metastable brain networks, which provides a framework for sustaining the slowness inherent to prosocial behaviours [91]. Cuteness encourages caregiving and carefree playfulness.…”

“…Survival-relevant positive cuteness as well as negative stimuli, such as infants’ crying, have been shown to selectively bias our attention through rapid activity in the orbitofrontal cortex which is then followed by slower, sustained processing in wider brain networks associated with emotion appraisal [14, 15, 58]. Importantly, significant progress has been made in understanding the dynamics of functional brain networks [91], and in particular the state-dependent coupling that is fundamental to implementing flexible effective communication between different brain regions—without changing the fixed underlying structure of the brain [92]. …”

“…The use of whole-brain computational modelling combining structural connectomes with functional dynamics to explore and explain the emergence of resting-state and task-related networks mechanistically is starting to make significant progress in understanding the underlying brain networks for balancing fast and slow neural processing [91]. This computational modelling has started to use time-dependent activity to constrain e.g.…”

Adolescents growing up amidst intractable conflict attenuate brain response to pain of outgroup

“…Mechanisms that enable humans to understand the emotions and actions of others function through online crosstalk between bottomup and top-down processes, fast sensory-motor integration and slower sociocognitive predictions (23,28), with specific dynamics defining distinct end products. Top-down processes are shaped by prior learning, attentional demands, regulatory abilities, and social goals, and authors have suggested that brain oscillations provide a useful vantage-point to tap the balance of bottom-up automaticity and top-down-regulation in understanding social phenomena (21).…”

Itinerancy between attractor states in neural systems

“…Whole-brain data from fMRI or MEG [46,47], and large-scale simulations of the brain based on tractography studies [47,48], provide evidence for rapid transitions between a few discrete functional connectivity states in the resting state of humans. These transitions and the underlying discrete states would not be revealed by time-averaged data [47–49].…”