The entangled brain

The widespread exercise of attempting to understand the human brain, along with its wide range of functions such as motor control, emotional response, or adaptability, by viewing its different regions—different from one another based on the region’s neuronal cells’ structural and anatomical dissimilarity—as functional centers for a single unique brain characteristic is facing a significant challenge as recent research, using modern technologies, unearths brain behaviors that facilitate a more interactive and dynamic brain functionality.

Historically, neuroscientists have tried to reduce the whole human brain into segments dedicated to unique human tasks or behaviors—comparing the brain with a large machine whose multiple independently functioning parts, interconnected with each other, make the whole machine perform. Indeed, we label portions of the brain to be responsible for a particular human task or behavior—for example, the occipital lobe at the brain’s backside is believed to be responsible for vision or sight.

However, this view, though widespread even among neuroscientists, is too straightforward to account for the complex and continuous interactions of various parts of the highly entangled human brain. Research has shown that when a single task is performed or an emotion is felt, what responds and engages during the process is not the brain’s one single portion or region, but multiple regions simultaneously. What is even more interesting is that two identical tasks that are slightly different only because of their corresponding environment or situation may have different brain regions responding during their performance.

Think about an orchestra. All the violins play as a single group during one rhythm, but when the next rhythm begins, they divide into two parts, one playing their independent violin rhythm, while the other supports the cellos, and they again collaborate to support the piano’s music as a new rhythm comes to the music the next moment. The functionality of the brain is the same as the orchestra. It is not stationary, meaning we cannot certainly declare one single lobe to be working for a single brain characteristic all the time. It is rather dynamic, capable of adapting to the environment and situation—a single lobe’s neurons firing during one human emotion can respond to a different one the next moment if the situation requires.

This is what even evolution suggests—our brain evolved to support us in adapting to our surroundings to find food, survive among dangerous animals stronger than us, and reproduce and nurture our offspring in threatening environments. The new dynamic view of the brain also sheds light on mental disorders or abnormalities, completely unique, not the same as their name, to each of their patients due to their very own life history and situation. Hence, the brain does not work under a central controlling system as a human-made machine does; rather, the small interactions among its entangled close and distant parts make complex responses possible.

This summary is based on Luiz Pessoa's essay “The Entangled Brain” (Aeon), which explores how brain functions emerge from dynamic, networked interactions rather than isolated regions. Main essay link: https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-human-brain-is-like-a-murmuration-of-starlings