Tracers in neuroscience: Causation, constraints, and connectivity
Tracers in neuroscience: Causation, constraints, and connectivity
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DOI：
10.1007/s11229-020-02970-z
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发表时间：
2021-01
期刊：
影响因子：
1.5
通讯作者：
Lauren N. Ross
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lauren N. Ross
本文研究了神经科学中的示踪技术，用于识别大脑和神经系统中的神经连接。这些连接捕获了一种“结构连接”，有望让我们了解这些组织的功能本质（Sporns in Scholarpedia, 2007）。这是由于神经连通性限制了信号传播的流动，这是神经元中的一种因果过程。这项工作探讨了如何使用示踪剂来识别因果信息，它们应该满足什么标准，它们提供的因果信息的形式，以及对这些技术的分析如何有助于哲学文献，特别是关于标记传递和因果关系的机械描述的文献。
This paper examines tracer techniques in neuroscience, which are used to identify neural connections in the brain and nervous system. These connections capture a type of “structural connectivity” that is expected to inform our understanding of the functional nature of these tissues (Sporns in Scholarpedia, 2007). This is due to the fact that neural connectivity constrains the flow of signal propagation, which is a type of causal process in neurons. This work explores how tracers are used to identify causal information, what standards they are expected to meet, the forms of causal information they provide, and how an analysis of these techniques contributes to the philosophical literature, in particular, the literature on mark transmission and mechanistic accounts of causation.