Minding the gut: extending embodied cognition and perception to the gut complex

Federico Boem; Gregor P. Greslehner; Jan Pieter Konsman; Lynn Chiu

doi:10.3389/fnins.2023.1172783

Titel

Minding the gut: extending embodied cognition and perception to the gut complex

Autor*in

Federico Boem

Section Philosophy, University of Twente

Gregor P. Greslehner

Institut für Philosophie, Fakultät für Philosophie und Bildungswissenschaft, Universität Wien

Jan Pieter Konsman

IMMUNOlogy from CONcepts and ExPeriments to Translation, CNRS UMR, University of Bordeaux

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Abstract

Scientific and philosophical accounts of cognition and perception have traditionally focused on the brain and external sense organs. The extended view of embodied cognition suggests including other parts of the body in these processes. However, one organ has often been overlooked: the gut. Frequently conceptualized as merely a tube for digesting food, there is much more to the gut than meets the eye. Having its own enteric nervous system, sometimes referred to as the “second brain,” the gut is also an immune organ and has a large surface area interacting with gut microbiota. The gut has been shown to play an important role in many physiological processes, and may arguably do so as well in perception and cognition. We argue that proposals of embodied perception and cognition should take into account the role of the “gut complex,” which considers the enteric nervous, endocrine, immune, and microbiota systems as well as gut tissue and mucosal structures. The gut complex is an interface between bodily tissues and the “internalized external environment” of the gut lumen, involved in many aspects of organismic activity beyond food intake. We thus extend current embodiment theories and suggest a more inclusive account of how to “mind the gut” in studying cognitive processes.

Stichwort

gut complexembodied cognitionperceptionproto-cognitionaffordances

Objekt-Typ

journal article

Sprache

Englisch [eng]

Persistent identifier

phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:2045412

DOI

10.3389/fnins.2023.1172783

Erschienen in

Titel