Neurocomputational Nosology: Malfunctions of Models and Mechanisms

Executive dysfunctions, psychopathologies arising from problems in the control and regulation of behavior, can occur as a result of the faulty execution of formal information processing models or as a result of malfunctioning neural mechanisms. The models correspond to the formal descriptions of how signals in the environment must be transformed in order to behave adaptively, and the mechanisms correspond to the signal transformations that nervous systems implement in order to execute those cognitive functions. Mechanisms in the form of repeated patterns of neural dynamics execute information processing models. Two distinct modes of malfunction can occur when neural dynamics execute models of information processing. The processing models describing behavior may fail to be executed correctly by neural mechanisms. Or, the neural mechanisms may malfunction, failing to implement the right computation. As an example of malfunctioning models in executive cognition, purported failures of rule following can be understood as failures to appropriately execute a suite of processing models. As an example of malfunctioning mechanisms of executive cognition, maladaptive behavior resulting from dysfunction in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) can be understood as failures in the signal transformations carried out therein. The purpose of these examples is to illustrate the potential benefits of considering models and mechanisms in the diagnosis and etiology of neuropsychological illness and dysfunction, especially disorders of executive cognition.