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Mapping Mental Function to Brain Structure: How Can Cognitive Neuroimaging Succeed?

2010; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 5; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/1745691610388777

1745-6924

Russell A. Poldrack,

Embodied and Extended Cognition

The goal of cognitive neuroscience is to identify the mapping between brain function and mental processing. In this article, I examine the strategies that have been used to identify such mappings and argue that they may be fundamentally unable to identify selective structure–function mappings. To understand the functional anatomy of mental processes, it will be necessary for researchers to move from the brain-mapping strategies that the field has employed toward a search for selective associations. This will require a greater focus on the structure of cognitive processes, which can be achieved through the development of formal ontologies that describe the structure of mental processes. In this article, I outline the Cognitive Atlas Project, which is developing such ontologies, and show how this knowledge could be used in conjunction with data-mining approaches to more directly relate mental processes and brain function.