Persons and executive functions of the brain.

SUBURO AM; GRAÑANA N

Oxford

Conferencia; Persons and their brain; 2012

Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion. St Anne’s College, Oxford, UK

We act willfully when we choose to perform an action and authenticate a sequence between our intention and the performed action. Awareness of this sequence is embedded in our notion of free will. We propose that exploration of the relationship between the so-called Executive Function Module (EFM) and free will might provide new arguments for the neurobiological and philosophical controversies about freedom and determinism/indeterminism. The EFM is defined as a structural-functional brain network in charge of intentionality and responsible for purposeful, goal-directed behavior. EFM is also involved in the evaluation of action outcomes and in the control of behavior by inhibiting inappropriate actions. At present, various tests in association with brain imaging show that brain activity in selective areas is required for operation of the EFM. The existence of a distinct neural module responsible of all human executive functions apparently supports a deterministic view. By definition, a module is something that can be changed independently of other modules. Although available data show that certain parts of the brain participate in EFM functions, they do not exclude involvement of other parts. Therefore, conclusions about deterministic or indeterministic views of human behavior seem beyond the epistemic limits of present neuroscientific investigation. EFM is a partial but useful neurocognitive construct for research. However, it does not exclude a broader notion of executive functions as something that we, persons, do and achieve, integrating such factors as time, informational novelty, complexity and uncertainty.