I have talked before about brain areas, pieces of brain real estate, restructuring as new teams, but I was mainly referring to situations where one part is damaged and another part of the brain is recruited to help. The theory of neural reuse tells us that team efforts may occur in the healthy brain, too. From "Exploring the Underpinnings of Cognition" ( a news release from Franklin & Marshall College):
Several years ago, [Michael] Anderson’s research was often rejected for publication in part, the professor says, because of its nonstandard approach. His work centered on neural reuse, a theory that explains cognitive function as the result of regions of the brain interacting in “multiple coalitions.” The idea runs against traditional thinking that regions of the brain are specialized for specific tasks.
“Individual regions of the brain are part of different teams,” said Anderson, who also authors a blog on Psychology Today. “Neural reuse is a different way of looking at cognitive function. I can have different roles, like being a father, husband, teacher and researcher. I think the brain is also like that. The regions of the brain aren’t specialized the way we think.”
In 2010, Anderson succeeded in publishing his research in the high-impact venue Behavioral and Brain Sciences. His paper argued that neural reuse offers a distinct take on the evolution and development of the brain, the degree of modularity of brain organization, and the degree of localization of cognitive function.
He believes neural reuse and embodied cognition—the realization that the brain is not the sole organ of cognition—are poised to become the dominant lenses through which we explore human cognition and behavior. ...
More on neural reuse:
- "Neural reuse: A fundamental organizational principle of the brain" (article by Anderson in Behavioral and Brain Sciences)
- Peer commentary on the article: "Neural Re-Use in the Social and Emotional Brain" (Behavioral and Brain Sciences)
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