ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019
The Cognitive Lens: a primer on conceptual tools for analysing information processing in developmental and regenerative morphogenesis.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 83 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evolution expresses the second law of thermodynamics in action.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2026Article
- SuperARC: a test for artificial superintelligence based on compressed modelling, recursive prediction and problem complexity.Nature communications · 2026Article
- On the prospects of basal cognition research becoming fully evolutionary: promising avenues and cautionary notes.History and philosophy of the life sciences · 2025Article
- AI-driven automated discovery tools reveal diverse behavioral competencies of biological networks.eLife · 2025Article
- Stress sharing as cognitive glue for collective intelligences: A computational model of stress as a coordinator for morphogenesis.Biochemical and biophysical research communications · 2024Article
- Self-Improvising Memory: A Perspective on Memories as Agential, Dynamically Reinterpreting Cognitive Glue.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Collective intelligence: A unifying concept for integrating biology across scales and substrates.Communications biology · 2024Review
- Cellular signaling pathways as plastic, proto-cognitive systems: Implications for biomedicine.Patterns (New York, N.Y.) · 2023Review
- Darwin's agential materials: evolutionary implications of multiscale competency in developmental biology.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2023Review
- There's Plenty of Room Right Here: Biological Systems as Evolved, Overloaded, Multi-Scale Machines.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Discussion on the Relationship between Computation, Information, Cognition, and Their Embodiment.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Learning in Transcriptional Network Models: Computational Discovery of Pathway-Level Memory and Effective Interventions.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Cognition as Morphological/Morphogenetic Embodied Computation In Vivo.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: An Experimentally-Grounded Framework for Understanding Diverse Bodies and Minds.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2022Article
- Crucial Development: Criticality Is Important to Cell-to-Cell Communication and Information Transfer in Living Systems.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Bistability of somatic pattern memories: stochastic outcomes in bioelectric circuits underlying regeneration.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- Uncovering cognitive similarities and differences, conservation and innovation.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Evolutionary transitions in learning and cognition.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Active perception during angiogenesis: filopodia speed up Notch selection of tip cellsPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Gene regulatory networks exhibit several kinds of memory: quantification of memory in biological and random transcriptional networks.iScience · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Brains exhibit plasticity, multi-scale integration of information, computation and memory, having evolved by specialization of non-neural cells that already possessed many of the same molecular components and functions. The emerging field of basal cognition provides many examples of decision-making throughout a wide range of non-neural systems. How can biological information processing across scales of size and complexity be quantitatively characterized and exploited in biomedical settings? We use pattern regulation as a context in which to introduce the Cognitive Lens-a strategy using well-established concepts from cognitive and computer science to complement mechanistic investigation in biology. To facilitate the assimilation and application of these approaches across biology, we review tools from various quantitative disciplines, including dynamical systems, information theory and least-action principles. We propose that these tools can be extended beyond neural settings to predict and control systems-level outcomes, and to understand biological patterning as a form of primitive cognition. We hypothesize that a cognitive-level information-processing view of the functions of living systems can complement reductive perspectives, improving efficient top-down control of organism-level outcomes. Exploration of the deep parallels across diverse quantitative paradigms will drive integrative advances in evolutionary biology, regenerative medicine, synthetic bioengineering, cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence. This article is part of the theme issue 'Liquid brains, solid brains: How distributed cognitive architectures process information'.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.