Cerebellum and Cerebrum in Homeostatic Control and Cognition

A Systems Approach to an Integrated Psychology

Eric Parkins

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000481129
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Geschichte & Theorie in der Psychologie

Cerebellum and Cerebrum in Homeostatic Control and Cognition presents a ground-breaking hybrid-brain psychology, proposing that the cerebellum and cerebrum operate in a complementary manner as equal cognitive partners in learning based control.

The book synthesises contemporary neuroscience and psychology in terms of their common underlying control principle, homeostasis. Drawing on research and theory from neuroscience, psychology, AI and robotics, it provides a hybrid control systems interpretation of consciousness and self; unconscious mind; REM dream sleep; emotion; self-monitoring and self-control; memory, infantile amnesia; and, cognitive development. This is used to investigate different elements of cerebellum-cerebrum offline interaction; including attention and working memory, and explores cerebellar and cerebral contributions to various aspects of a number of disorders; including ADHD, ASD and schizophrenia.

Presenting original ideas around neuropsychological architecture, the book will be of great interest to academics, researchers, and post-graduate students in the fields of neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience and clinical psychology.

Chapter 1

Homeostasis, brain, and cognition

DOI: 10.4324/9781003024606-2

Homeostasis: innate/reflex regulation at brain stem level

At the lowest evolutionary level, the homeostatic process is completely automatic (Solms & Panksepp, 2012), with innate/reflex actions facilitated by regulatory systems within the spinal cord and brain stem (Bear et al., 2007; Purves et al., 2008). Brain stem reflex–level determination of disruption, or ‘error’, in relation to homeostatic need leads to automatic innate-level responses (e.g. sweating or shivering in thermal homeostasis) (Ainley et al., 2016; Schutter, 2016; Tsakiris & Critchley, 2016). In effect, the brain stem generates positively and negatively valenced states (values) that are determined by how changing external and internal conditions relate to the probability of survival and reproductive success (Solms & Panksepp, 2012). At this level, homoeostatic behaviours are tightly organised and allow for little flexibility and adaptation (Westphal & Bonnano, 2003).

Allostasis: learning-based regulation involving cortical brain

Surviving in complex environments requires the learning-based elaboration of reflex-level homeostatic processes (Pezzulo et al., 2015), and this includes the ability to predict/anticipate the body’s needs and to prepare to satisfy those needs before they arise (Barrett et al., 2016). The primary function of the brain is therefore to act as a learning-based regulator of reflex-level physiological homeostatic processes (Fan, 2014; Pezzulo et al., 2015; Seth & Friston, 2016). Learning-based elaboration is provided for by the evolution of neural cortical structures above brain stem reflex level. Functionally, these new brain structures are hierarchically above the older ones and are therefore able to exert control over them and/or their output (Downing, 2007; Wallis, 2004). The cortical structures facilitate cognitively based refinement and elaboration of the innate brain stem homeostatic responses, and their statistically predictive application.

In order to carry out learning-based control, the brain must contain a learning-based model (internal representation) of the world, one that contains sensorimotor information about the organism’s interaction with its environment (Pezzulo et al., 2015; Sun, 2000). The internal model is developed through the interactive relationship between sensory and motor expression (Roy & Llinas, 2008), and it must incorporate information concerning the consequences of the system’s responses (Barrett et al., 2016; Pezzulo et al., 2015; Schutter, 2016); that is, whether or not these learning-based responses are good or bad for survival in terms of the requirements of innate-level homeostasis (Solms & Panksepp, 2012; Tsakiris & Critchley, 2016). At the most basic level, this information is provided by the valenced states generated by the brain stem. In essence, this information concerns the behavioural consequences of environmentally related stimulus-response links (Carver & Scheier, 2008). Learning is therefore qualified by feedback in the form of behaviour-related stimulus-response reinforcement (Metzinger & Gallese, 2003; Ziemke, 2001). This basic-level stimulus-response perspective of learning clearly relates to behaviourist psychology, which considers that learned behaviour is dependent on the organism’s experience within the environment in terms of the frequency of occurrence of stimulus-response-reinforcement sequences (Skinner, 1938).

At its simplest, the behaviourist model of brain/mind may be depicted as a stimulus-response circuit of interaction of the organism with its environment, as shown in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 Brain/mind viewed in terms of its input/stimulus-output/response relationship with the environment

Equilibration: learning-based regulation and cognitive development

Piaget recognised that learning-based cognitive processes are an extension of reflex-level autoregulation, and that the primary function of cognition is its contribution to the control of equilibrium between the organism and its environment (Piaget, 1967, 1974). He used the term equilibration to describe the role of cognition as a learning-based extension of reflexive regulation, and also to describe the process that governs cognitive development (Piaget, 1936, 1947, 1958, 1967, 1974, 1975, 1977). Regarding the latter, he stressed that to facilitate biological equilibrium, there must be correspondence between cognitive schemata (internal representations), and the external stimulus (real-world) information; that is, there must be equilibration within cognitive development (Piaget, 1974, 1977). Lack of cognitive equilibrium, due to the presence of representational/cognitive ‘error’, is the driving force for continual progressive construction of schemata and cognitive development (Piaget, 1967, 1975). According to Piaget, from a developmental perspective, the initial equilibratory compensations are of a ‘coarse’ nature, but they become ‘finer’ and eventually result in exact equilibrium in logico-mathematical operations (Piaget, 1958). According to Gallagher (1977), Piaget considered that cognitive equilibrium initially takes place in terms of probability-based prediction, but develops to the point where it eventually takes place in terms of logically necessary responses of strict implication. This developmental shift in the type of equilibratory compensations, from coarse and probabilistic to finer and logical, could be taken to imply a developmental shift in the underlying type of thinking.

A control system perspective of homeostatic regulation at innate level

From a control perspective, the basic features of homeostatic regulation can be represented by a feedback loop that incorporates input, reference value, comparison, and output (Mackay, 1966; Powers, 1974). A schematic depiction of the feedback loop is presented in Figure 1.2.

The operation of the homeostatic circuit can be explained systematically in terms of: 1) a reference standard that indicates the required value of the variable to be controlled; 2) a sensor to detect the actual value of that variable, provided by the stimulus information; 3) a comparator to compare the required value with the actual value and so to detect the discrepancy or error; 4) a corrective action or ‘response information’ generator which, upon receipt of the error signal, will provide the appropriate corrective action signal or ‘response information’; 5) an effector with the ability to implement this action as the response of the system; and 6) feedback indicating the result of the action on the environment, as a subsequent input providing a new actual value, in the form of the consequential stimulus information. The error referred to in 3) is control ‘error’, which is the discrepancy between the actual stimulus conditions and the required stimulus conditions, and it is the driving force for the response behaviour. Reduction of control ‘error’ occurs as the control system reacts to remove the discrepancy between the actual stimulus conditions and the required stimulus conditions. Error signals at an innate level lead to reflexive physiological processes that serve to minimise the error and thereby re-establish homeostasis (Schutter, 2016).

Figure 1.2 Homeostatic control at innate level

Feedback concerning a response that results in a decrease in control system error will be experienced as being beneficial, whilst that which results in an increase in error will be experienced as detrimental. The circuit therefore incorporates the homeostasis-related biological consequence, or value, of stimulus-response links (Carver & Scheier, 2008). In ef...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Preview
• Introduction
• 1 Homeostasis, brain, and cognition
• 2 Cognition as information representation and processing
• 3 Learning-based control
• 4 Critical issues in cognition and learning-based control
• 5 Brain: Basic structure, control function, and development
• 6 Cerebellum and cerebrum: structure, function and cognition
• 7 The brain as a hybrid computer: cerebellum and cerebrum as complementary components
• 8 Brain/mind: an integrated architecture
• 9 Dreaming brain and dreaming mind
• 10 Brain/mind architecture: an integrated psychology
• 11 Psychological processes and neuro-systems dialogue
• 12 Systems balance and imbalance: mental health, mental disorders, and some implications for education
• Index