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Understanding Cognition Through Functional Connectivity

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Complex Human Dynamics

Part of the book series: Understanding Complex Systems ((UCS))

Abstract

With every word that you read on this page, your brain orchestrates a symphony of electrical sounds – millions of neurons perform at the same time and billions of synapses coordinate their sounds. If you make yourself a break and start preparing a coffee, a new array of neural musicians will become active. While we know right now quite well how these functions that you perform are segregated in the brain – that is, which set of neurons activates to enable your reading and which to make you remember where you put the coffee jar – it still remains a challenge to understand how the brain integrates separated tasks into a coherent function. How does it happen that the letters form a word in your mind and the words form a meaningful sentence? How do you coordinate the movement of your hands when you reach for the cup with one and for the coffee pot with the other? New tools made available by complexity sciences – the modern network theory – give us a unique chance to describe and measure the integration of information in the brain that is crucial for any function it performs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, Stawki 5/7, 00183, Warsaw, Poland

    Agnieszka Rychwalska

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  1. Agnieszka Rychwalska
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Correspondence to Agnieszka Rychwalska .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Stawki 5/7, Warsaw, 00183, Poland

    Andrzej Nowak

  2. Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Hum, Chodakowska Street 19/13, Warsaw, 03815, Poland

    Katarzyna Winkowska-Nowak

  3. Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, Stawki 5/7, Warsaw, 00183, Poland

    David Brée

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Rychwalska, A. (2013). Understanding Cognition Through Functional Connectivity. In: Nowak, A., Winkowska-Nowak, K., Brée, D. (eds) Complex Human Dynamics. Understanding Complex Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31436-0_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31436-0_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31435-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31436-0

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