ReviewFrontiers in computational neuroscience2018
The Anatomy of Inference: Generative Models and Brain Structure.
Review in Frontiers in computational neuroscience, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 87 papers.
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Who cites it
87 citing papers in PubMed.
- Active inference with reusable state-dependent value profiles.Biological cybernetics · 2026Article
- Human claustrum neurons encode uncertainty and prediction errors during aversive learning.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
- Inferential planning in the frontal cortex.Cell reports · 2026Article
- Active inference and artificial reasoning.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Prediction, pain, and the power of context: toward a contemporary identity for the chiropractic profession.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2026Review
- Writing Increases Precision-Weighted Inference of Conceptual Organization: A Bayesian-Brain Active-Inference Model of the Writing-over-Speaking Advantage in Analytic Thinking.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Limb apraxia and active inference in the visuomotor pathways.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Review
- Active inference and speech motor control.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Review
- Sleep bruxism: a novel theoretical perspective through the lens of the free energy principle (FEP).Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- The phantastic organ: predictive processing in the brain.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Dual-point sensory anchoring: emergent attentional coherence through embodied coupling.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Strange attractors: purpose, synchronicity, flow, and the neurodynamics of meaning.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Review
- The active construction of past episodes.Translational neuroscience · 2026Article
- Neurobiological illness models of schizophrenia and stigma reduction: has that ship sailed?Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2025Review
- SPM-30 years and beyond.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Review
- Experienced meditators show greater forward traveling cortical alpha wave strengths.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Investigating the intrinsic top-down dynamics of deep generative models.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Eigenmodes of the deep unconscious: the neuropsychology of Jungian archetypes and psychedelic experience.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Review
- Deep computational neurophenomenology: a methodological framework for investigating the how of experience.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
27 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
To infer the causes of its sensations, the brain must call on a generative (predictive) model. This necessitates passing local messages between populations of neurons to update beliefs about hidden variables in the world beyond its sensory samples. It also entails inferences about how we will act. Active inference is a principled framework that frames perception and action as approximate Bayesian inference. This has been successful in accounting for a wide range of physiological and behavioral phenomena. Recently, a process theory has emerged that attempts to relate inferences to their neurobiological substrates. In this paper, we review and develop the anatomical aspects of this process theory. We argue that the form of the generative models required for inference constrains the way in which brain regions connect to one another. Specifically, neuronal populations representing beliefs about a variable must receive input from populations representing the Markov blanket of that variable. We illustrate this idea in four different domains: perception, planning, attention, and movement. In doing so, we attempt to show how appealing to generative models enables us to account for anatomical brain architectures. Ultimately, committing to an anatomical theory of inference ensures we can form empirical hypotheses that can be tested using neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and electrophysiological experiments.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.