Using neurons to maintain autonomy: Learning from C. elegans

Bechtel, William; Bich, Leonardo

doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2023.105017

Biosystems

2023

DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2023.105017

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Using neurons to maintain autonomy: Learning from C. elegans

William Bechtel,

Leonardo Bich

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Cited by 2 publications

References 74 publications

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Phylogenetically distant animals sleep: why do sleep researchers care?

Bechtel

2023

Biol Philos

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Philosophers examining mechanistic explanations in biology have identified heuristic strategies scientists use in discovering mechanisms. This paper examines the heuristic strategy of investigating phylogenetically distant model organisms, using research on sleep in fruit flies as an example. At the time sleep was discovered in flies in 2000 next to nothing was known about mechanisms regulating sleep in flies and what they could reveal about those in us. One relatively straightforward line of research focused on homologous genes in flies and humans, using those in flies to understand what roles their homologs played in controlling sleep in us. But other research focused on a higher level of organization—the neural networks involved in homeostatic and circadian control of sleep. This raises a puzzle—given that fly and vertebrate brains are organized very differently, how could sleep regulation in flies serve as an informative model of vertebrate sleep? I argue that the basic design of mechanisms such as those regulating sleep can be conserved even as the composition of the mechanism changes and that researchers can hope to use the designs deciphered in flies as heuristic models for understanding sleep in humans.

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Phylogenetically distant animals sleep: why do sleep researchers care?

Bechtel

2023

Biol Philos

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Organisational teleology 2.0: Grounding biological purposiveness in regulatory control

Bich

2024

Ratio

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This paper critically revises the organisational account of teleology, which argues that living systems are first and foremost oriented towards a goal: maintaining their own conditions of existence. It points out some limitations of this account, mainly in the capability to account for the richness and complexity of biological systems and their purposeful behaviours. It identifies the reason of these limitations in the theoretical grounding of this account, specifically in the too narrow notion of closure of constraints, focused on self‐production. It proposes to ground an organisational account of biological teleology in the capability of living system not just to produce and replace their parts, but to control their own internal dynamics and behaviours in such a way as to maintain themselves. This theoretical framework has two advantages. It better captures the distinctive features of biological organisations and consequently the richness and active nature of their purposeful behaviours. By doing so, it makes it possible to apply this framework beyond minimal theoretical models to real biological cases.

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Using neurons to maintain autonomy: Learning from C. elegans

Cited by 2 publications

References 74 publications

Phylogenetically distant animals sleep: why do sleep researchers care?

Phylogenetically distant animals sleep: why do sleep researchers care?

Organisational teleology 2.0: Grounding biological purposiveness in regulatory control

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