[ Summary ] · Chapter 4.3 : Cognition

Information processing

[ NB : Provisional texts. Level of writing : 1/5 ]

only available in French and partly in English.

Presentation & Content

Study of the cerebral processes (reflexes, fear, memory, ...) and of the structural and functional characteristics of the nervous system which would permit the emergence of these processes.

Summary

The central nervous system is organised of neuroanatomical structures of increasing complexity. This particular anatomo-functional organisation would be at the origin of the emergence of neurophysiological processes (or "operations") of information processing (reflex, conditioning, fear, categorisation, ...). These processes would underlie the various forms of behaviors learning.

Plan of the chapter

A - Definition of a model of information processing integrating cognition and emotion

a - Information processing, neurophysiological level

b - Information processing, operational level

a - Definition of a model of information processing integrating cognition and emotion

The results obtained when defining the structural levels of organisation and the emergent functional properties make it possible to outline a model of the information processing, integrating in a unit system the processes currently defined as emotional or cognitive.

a - Neurophysiological Level

At the neurophysiological level, the data coming from neuroanatomy, electrophysiology, the cerebral imagery, the study of unitary neurons and psychophysics would make it possible to carry out a global modeling of neural dynamics.

• The central nervous system would be made up of a whole of structures, with heterogeneous cytoarchitectonic and neurochimic characteristics, generally strongly inter-connected.
  
  
• The electrophysiological activity of these structures would come from endogenous electrogenesis, from central patterns generators and from external or internal stimuli.
  
  
• The neural structures would have a relatively autonomous activity, self-regulated by their reciprocal inhibiting or activating afferences and modulated by the neurohumoral medium.
  
  
• The whole of these changeable autonomous activities would induce, at the global level of the SNC, a "pattern of differential activation" representing a "dynamic functional balance".

Figure 4.3-1 : Information processing : "pattern of differential activation" reduced

• The regulation of the activity of these structures would not depend on a centralising structure, but on the dynamic self-regulation induced by the functional interdependence of the various interacting structures.
  
  
• The processing of global information and its adapted effector answer would be carried out at the various levels of organisation by a whole of local process, carried out systemically by the appropriate structures.
  
  
• At each stage of the information processing, the SNC would present a "differential activation pattern" representing a "dynamic functional balance" characterised by the succession of "self-regulated states" each one producing an "integrated effector answer".

The activity of these structures, separately, inter-connected or organised in networks, would underlie the emergence of a level of higher treatment, that of the operations (fear, surprise, generalisation, categorisation, ...).

b - Operational level

[ NB : Currently, detailed and updated texts are only available in French ]

The data processing would be underlain by many neurobiological processes, or "operations", of increasing complexity and appearing gradually during the development.

One can give the processes of gustation, reinforcement, categorisation or consciousness as examples.

Figure 4.3-2 : nformation processing : "Operations" reduced

These neurobiological processes, or "operations", would result from electrophysiological activation, led separately or in networks, of various "wired" neural structures.

• For example, the orientation would be mainly underlain by the anatomo-functional specificity of the higher colliculi.

Figure 4.3-3 : Visual orientation reduced

• Fear would be mainly underlain by the anatomo-functional specificity of the amygdala.
  
  
• Attachment, which would be a polysensory memorisation of the object of attachment, would be underlain by the specificity of a network of limbic structures (amygdala, hypothalamus, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis), activated by an ocytocinergic neuromediation.
  
• Planning would be mainly underlain by the anatomo-functional specificity of the pre-frontal lobe.
  

These processes or "operations" of information processing would underlie the learning, adaptive to the environment, of the most complex human behaviors.