Illnesses will naturally be shaped by the core functions of the organs from which
they arise. Conceived broadly, computation and adaptive changes or “learning” are
the core and most distinguishing features of the brain. Computational, adaptive change
and learning principles are therefore likely to play a mechanistic role in shaping
and forming illnesses arising from the brain. Computation and learning interact: the
computations our brains can perform today are a function of the learning they have
undergone and of the computations they have performed in the past, whereas the adaptive
change a brain can undergo depends on its computational abilities. These core features
of the brain hence suggest that illnesses can arise when the demands for learning
and computation outstrip what the brain can deliver, just like symptoms of heart failure
arise when the pumping requirements outstrip what the heart can deliver. Properly
comprehending and treating such illnesses in a mechanistic and precise manner will
likely require that mental health researchers and clinicians pay due respect to their
as-yet all too poorly understood learning and computational nature (
1
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References
- Charting the landscape of priority problems in psychiatry, part 2: Pathogenesis and aetiology.Lancet Psychiatry. 2016; 3: 84-90
- Computational psychiatry as a bridge from neuroscience to clinical applications.Nat Neurosci. 2016; 19: 404-413
- Resting-state connectivity biomarkers define neurophysiological subtypes of depression.Nat Med. 2017; 23: 28-38
- Evaluating the evidence for biotypes of depression: Methodological replication and extension of.Neuroimage Clin. 2019; 22: 101796
Article Info
Publication History
Accepted:
November 21,
2019
Received:
November 19,
2019
Identification
Copyright
© 2019 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
