The DOI matches its Crossref record, with a small difference in title or year; 426 of the 428 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The Cooperative Neuron: Cellular Foundations of Mental Life
Abstract
The Cooperative Neuron roots our understanding of mental life, as consciously experienced and as studied by psychologists, in recent discoveries in cellular neurophysiology, which show that many neurons in the mammalian neocortex have capabilities that transcend those assumed by twentieth-century psychology and systems neuroscience. These neurons receive information from many other parts of the brain and amplify their information transmission when appropriate in that context. Amplification is defined and quantified using recent advances in information theory by which the contributions of different inputs to information transmission can be distinguished. This context-sensitive cooperative style of Big Data processing produces widespread coherence from operations that are localized within each of a multitude of local neuronal processors. This book shows how this provides cellular foundations for contextual disambiguation in perception, selective attention, working memory and imagery, emotional prioritization, cognitive control, and learning, which has profound implications for neurobiology, psychology, neurology, psychiatry, and philosophy. The book is written for a wide audience, and it explains the neuroscience to the psychologists, the psychology to the neuroscientists, and both fields to philosophers, to students of the behavioural and brain sciences, and to all intrigued by the enduring mystery of how brains can be minds. Finally, it identifies many issues inviting explora…
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An integrative, multiscale view on neural theories of consciousness
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Graham, B. P., Kay, J., & Phillips, W. A. (2025) · Neural Computation · doi:10.1162/neco_a_01739 · Cited by 9
Self-citationPastorelli, E., Yegenoglu, A., Kolodziej, N., Wybo, W. A. M., Simula, F., Diaz-Pier, S., Storm, J. F., & Paolucci, P. S. (2025) · Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fncom.2025.1566196 · Cited by 5
A model of thalamo-cortical interaction for incremental binding in mental contour-tracing
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Semantization of memories in a hippocampal–cortical spiking neural network
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Context-sensitive conscious interpretation and layer-5 pyramidal neurons in multistable perception
Bachmann, T. (2025) · Brain and Behavior · doi:10.1002/brb3.70393 · Cited by 3
Thalamo-Cortical Interaction for Incremental Binding in Mental Contour-TracingPreprint
Schmid, D., & Heiko Neumann, B. (2023) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2023.12.20.572705 · Cited by 3
Defects of Cortical Microcircuits Following Early Exposure to Alcohol
Granato, A. (2025) · Advances in experimental medicine and biology · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-81908-7_1 · Cited by 1
Geloso, M. C., Sante, G. D., & Granato, A. (2026) · Cells · doi:10.3390/cells15100869 · Cited by 1
Control of two-pathway signal integration in a model neocortical pyramidal cellPreprint
Graham, B. P., Kay, J., & Phillips, W. A. (2025) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2025.04.21.649759
Self-citationWybo, W. A. M., Ewert, L., Linssen, C., Babu, P. N., Pastorelli, E., Paolucci, P. S., & Morrison, A. (2026) · Communications Biology · doi:10.1101/2025.06.30.662287
Cellular mechanisms of serotonergic psychedelics - apical hypercontextualisation
Kaup, K., Jiménez, J. H., & Aru, J. (2026) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2026.106876
Local processors: Active dendrites and artificial intelligence
Hu, Y., Glatz, N. S., & Palmer, L. M. (2026) · Current Research in Neurobiology · doi:10.1016/j.crneur.2026.100169
Metadata
- Authors
- Phillips, W. A.
- Affiliations
- University of Stirling (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Phillips, William A.
- ORCID
- Phillips, William A.
- Publisher
- Oxford University PressOxford
- Published
- 2023-04-20
- OpenAlex
- W4377022295
- Cited by
- 13
- References
- 428
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 8 · 2023: 1
- FWCI
- 3.83
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Keywords
- neocortex, information amplification, information theory, perception, selective attention, working memory, imagery, cognitive control, learning, philosophy of mind, systems neuroscience
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