{"title":"Spontaneous thought as play: the value of fictional goals in the default mode network","authors":"Gaia Molinaro , Moshe Bar","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101504","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101504","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Given its prevalence in our wakeful mental activity, spontaneous thought (ST) has been attributed several roles in cognition, most of which engage the brain’s default mode network. Among the benefits of ST is its ability to support the proactive simulation of possible future scenarios, including situations that, prima facie, may seem frivolous, futile, or simply unlikely. By drawing an analogy between ST and children’s play, we propose a substantial role for what might otherwise seem like useless mental activity. In children’s play, ‘fictional’ activities have been argued to hold inherent value, as they hone the capacity to generate new plans and ideas — even if never pursued — and the ability to generate increasingly accurate simulations. We suggest that ST similarly provides a platform for the simulation of goals and scenarios outside the boundaries of what is likely or even feasible in the given context, facilitating learning and innovation. In this capacity, ST supports human intelligence and mental well-being. We discuss the implications of our proposal for the understanding of ST and its underlying neural circuitry.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101504"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143591912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Renee Baysarowich , Rachelle Humes , Helly Goez , Jessica Remedios , Nicholas Denomey , Sophie DeCoste , Taylor Johansen , Amedeo D'Angiulli
{"title":"Socioeconomic status and brain development: insights and theoretical perspectives on deficit, adaptation, and resilience","authors":"Renee Baysarowich , Rachelle Humes , Helly Goez , Jessica Remedios , Nicholas Denomey , Sophie DeCoste , Taylor Johansen , Amedeo D'Angiulli","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101502","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101502","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The link between socioeconomic status (SES) and differences in brain structure, function, and development has been a major area of developmental social and cognitive neuroscience (DSCN) research. In such a context, much effort aimed at uncovering links between low SES and neurocognitive challenges or deficits. We identify the main theoretical DSCN frameworks from a comprehensive bibliometric analysis. Then, we review support for each framework through a scoping ‘review of reviews’ and key papers therein. Finally, we explore implications and insights for interventions. Our review supports a balanced perspective not reducible to simple linear causal links involving individual children’s or parental deficits. Instead, it relates to complex social structure and nonlinear developmental processes exploiting vulnerability to promote adaptation and/or resilience. The present synthesis suggests that social public health programs at individual, family, and macrolevel can buffer the harmful associations between low SES and brain outcomes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101502"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143577904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Collective action impacts on climate change mitigation","authors":"Nicole M Ardoin, Alison W Bowers","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101503","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101503","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To address climate change, we need immediate and sustained collective action at multiple scales. In this short, narrative review, we examine recent research on collective action to mitigate climate change (referred to as collective climate action). We explore the conceptualization of climate change as a collective action problem and review documented interventions and outcomes. Although researchers have made progress in understanding what drives collective climate action, gaps remain in evaluating practical interventions and measuring long-term impacts. Opportunities exist for future interdisciplinary research to bridge individual and collective approaches, improve outcome measurement, and design interventions that can more effectively promote collective action to address climate change.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101503"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143577905","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Laura Thomas-Walters, Eric G Scheuch, Abby Ong, Matthew H Goldberg
{"title":"The impacts of climate activism","authors":"Laura Thomas-Walters, Eric G Scheuch, Abby Ong, Matthew H Goldberg","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101498","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101498","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We review 50 studies on the impacts of climate activism. We present the existing evidence in a map of what we know about climate activism and its impacts. There is strong evidence that climate activism shifts public opinion and media coverage in a pro-climate direction, but this varies by context and the tactics employed. There is more moderate evidence that activism can pressure policymakers to communicate more about climate change, encourage voters to vote in a more pro-climate direction, and financially pressure carbon-intensive companies. We review suggestive evidence that protest can influence emissions and environmental policy. Although these studies cover a wide swath of outcome variables, a majority examine intermediate variables, rather than long-term impacts. Generalizability is challenged by a bias toward the United States and Western Europe. We call for greater focus outside those geographic areas and more attention to activism’s impact on public policy and emissions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"63 ","pages":"Article 101498"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143562656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aligning brain and behavior","authors":"Henry H Yin","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101487","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101487","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To understand how the brain generates behavior, both brain activity and behavior must be measured accurately. Although neuroscience has developed powerful tools for measuring brain activity, its behavioral measures are far more primitive, as it lacks a coherent conceptual framework for analyzing and interpreting behavior. Here I review key limitations in current studies of behavior, such as categorical measures and input/output analysis, which are manifested in conventional behavioral measures and experimental designs. I discuss how these limitations stem from the dominant linear causation paradigm, which has impeded progress in understanding the relationship between neural activity and behavior. Finally, I review recent studies that use alternative strategies for studying how the brain generates behavior and experimental results that challenge the linear causation paradigm. These results suggest a hierarchical feedback control model with intrinsic reference states, circular causation, and simultaneous reciprocal interactions between the organism and the environment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"62 ","pages":"Article 101487"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143549676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Agency and Intentionality","authors":"Michael Tomasello","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101501","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101501","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Nature cannot build organisms biologically prepared for every contingency they might possibly encounter. Instead, nature builds some organisms to function as feedback control systems that pursue goals, make informed behavioral decisions about how best to pursue those goals in the current situation, and then monitor behavioral execution for effectiveness. Nature builds psychological agents, and these are of several different types depending on the nature of the self-regulatory architecture involved. Humans have evolved to create joint and collective agencies with others, which has enabled them to construct the unique cultural niches within which all of their most complex cognitive and social capacities develop.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"62 ","pages":"Article 101501"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143549677","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alex van Hoorn , Joop Jonckheer , Steven Laureys , Stefaan Six
{"title":"Why neurophysiological monitoring should be included to assess patient comfort during continuous sedation until death","authors":"Alex van Hoorn , Joop Jonckheer , Steven Laureys , Stefaan Six","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101485","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101485","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Terminally ill patients may experience refractory symptoms. Continuous sedation until death (CSD) can relieve the intractable suffering. In CSD, behavioral observational scales alone are predominantly used to assess comfort and titrate sedation and analgesia accordingly. Unlike observational scales, neurophysiological monitoring is a nonmotor response–based assessment of consciousness, discomfort, and pain.</div></div><div><h3>Aim of the review</h3><div>The primary aim of this narrative review is to discuss neurophysiological monitoring in relation to behavioral observational scales in CSD.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Motor response–based observational scales in CSD are highly unreliable, with a risk of over- and under-medication. Neurophysiological monitoring may contribute to an increased accuracy in assessing consciousness, pain, and comfort. Additional information can lead to more informed decision-making and facilitate patient-tailored treatment approaches. In CSD, processed electroencephalography and analgesic nociception index monitoring may have practical limitations and habitual and cultural reservations.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>Neurophysiological monitoring during CSD is methodologically superior to the current practice using solely observational sedation or pain scales primarily based on motor responsiveness. An additional neurophysiological monitoring approach to assess consciousness, awareness, comfort, and pain can improve CSD quality. Practical or technological hesitation and reluctance toward clinical acceptability of implementing neuromonitoring should be overcome.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"62 ","pages":"Article 101485"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143529866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A critical reflection on behavioural difficulty: proposing a barrier-first approach","authors":"Elliot J Sharpe, Linda Steg","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101500","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101500","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>When someone tells us that they care about protecting the environment, should we believe them? Some say we can only tell how motivated someone is to protect the environment by looking at their overt pro-environmental behaviour. The behavioural difficulty approach argues that the more difficult and costly the pro-environmental behaviour someone does, the more they care about protecting the environment. In contrast, we argue that when we do not account for people’s abilities to meet behavioural costs based on the context they live in (e.g. housing situation) and their access to resources (e.g. disposable income), we make errors in estimating pro-environmental motivation from overt pro-environmental behaviour, which are likely to be particularly detrimental for those who are already disadvantaged (e.g. on low incomes). We propose a barrier-first approach, focusing on what prevents people from acting on their (strong) motivation to protect the environment and looking to remove those barriers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"62 ","pages":"Article 101500"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143519691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Genetically encoded dopamine sensors: principles, applications, and future directions","authors":"Hui Dong , Zhenghua Wang , Yulong Li","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101489","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101489","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Dopamine is a crucial neuromodulator involved in various physiological and pathological states. Detecting dopamine dynamics with high spatial and temporal resolution serves as a fundamental basis for understanding the multifaceted functions of dopamine. Recently, emerging genetically encoded dopamine fluorescent sensors enable high spatiotemporal resolution <em>in vivo</em> detection of dopamine dynamics within the living brain. Here, we summarize the principles and features of genetically encoded dopamine sensors. We then highlight the advantages of these dopamine sensors through studies that have utilized them. Finally, we present perspectives on future directions for the development of next-generation dopamine sensors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"62 ","pages":"Article 101489"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143453843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The prediction illusion: perceptual control mechanisms that fool the observer","authors":"Warren Mansell, Tauseef Gulrez, Michael Landman","doi":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101488","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cobeha.2025.101488","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A key claim in the philosophy of science is the inseparable relationship between theory and observation. Whilst measurement of an organism’s actions is fundamental to building and testing accurate theoretical models, the interpretation of the activity is itself subject to the perspective of the researcher, which can be manifested as biases and illusions. We introduce four types of illusion (environmental, self-caused, self-affected, perceptual) that appear to require prediction and have supported the development of probabilistic predictive processing models. Yet, in each case, we review recent evidence in which a nonpredicting system leads to the same observations. In each case, the alternative architecture is a system that implements the dynamic control of ongoing, currently perceived variables through varying its actions to counteract disturbances — a perceptual control system. We propose that predictive processing is probably limited to a smaller class of observations, such as long-term planning.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":56191,"journal":{"name":"Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences","volume":"62 ","pages":"Article 101488"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143446021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}