{"title":"Bridging metabolic-cognitive modelling: from synaptic cost to functional brain organisation.","authors":"Hamish A Deery, Rui Zheng, Sharna D Jamadar","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X2610630X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X2610630X","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Haueis and Colaço argue that metabolism is a generative principle for cognitive modelling. We extend this by bridging the \"scaling gap\" through functional PET (fPET) and network neuroscience. By measuring glucodynamics and the metabolic network of the brain, we can model how glucose metabolism enables network efficiency, temporal flexibility, information transfer, and ultimately the cognitive capacity of the human brain.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e456"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149103657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"So there is no false consciousness in egalitarian societies?","authors":"Monique Borgerhoff Mulder","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26105755","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26105755","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>While definitions based on outcomes should not be abandoned, this novel framework usefully reveals the plural processes underlying relative equality. The authors are right to argue that egalitarian societies do not require preferences for equity, but should perhaps also consider how ideologies of egalitarianism can obscure inequalities.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e422"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149103740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Metabolism: A constraint and driver of neurodevelopment.","authors":"Maheen Siddiqui, Emily J H Jones","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26106244","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26106244","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This commentary extends recent accounts of metabolic constraints in cognitive modelling by considering their role in brain development. We argue that shifting energy availability both constrains and drives the emergence of functional specialisation and network organisation. Integrating interactive specialisation, we show how metabolic factors shape competitive and cooperative interactions, and how atypical energy metabolism may contribute to neurodivergent developmental trajectories.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e478"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149103759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Patriarchy in hunter-gatherer societies.","authors":"William Buckner, Luke Glowacki","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26105950","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26105950","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Stibbard-Hawkes and von Rueden provide a valuable account of inequality across nominally egalitarian societies, but their attempt to salvage the egalitarian concept is less convincing. The processes they identify as maintaing relative equality are oriented around hunter-gatherer socioecology, while a different selection could categorize almost any human society as \"egalitarian\" in some domain. Gender-based coercion poses a strong challenge to the framework's emphasis on individual autonomy.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e423"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149103791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The metabolic regulator: Why energy constraints imply generative models.","authors":"Hamidreza Jamalabadi, Tim Hahn","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26106190","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26106190","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We argue that under minimal thermodynamic and control-theoretic assumptions, metabolic constraints imply generative cognition. We formalize cognition as a resource-bounded controller of probability flows, where metabolic budgets define path-space divergence constraints. This reframes inference as a physically instantiated process governed by metabolic regulation, implying that progress in the cognitive sciences requires grounding cognitive models in nonequilibrium thermodynamics and dynamical systems.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e464"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149103724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding \"societies of near-equals\".","authors":"Brian F Codding","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26106037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26106037","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Egalitarian societies are defined as those of near-equals, yet some have confused the concept to be analogous with equality and used the absence of evidence of truly equal societies to reject the concept altogether. Stibbard-Hawkes and von Rueden seek to correct course, highlighting that egalitarian societies, properly defined, do exist and that by focusing on process, we can come to learn about the factors that influence variation in social organization. Their synthesis provides a nuanced image of egalitarian societies and offers direction for future research focused on examining the emergence of egalitarian relations out of the interactions between individual decisions and local environmental and social contexts. Such a program has and will continue to illuminate the diversity of ways societies organize, identify general processes, and provide insights into factors that promote opportunities for individuals to live among near-equals.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e426"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149103784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Egalitarianism and the social mind.","authors":"Thom Scott-Phillips","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26105792","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26105792","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>There is a three-way fit between: humans' evolutionary ecology, which is deeply social; the turn towards fundamentally social understandings of human cognition; and the target article's reframing of egalitarianism in terms of process rather than outcome. Here, I outline this three-way fit, and how it might inform a rethinking of the idea of an \"open\" society.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e443"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149103662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Blind ignorance or rational inattention? On the history and future of metabolic considerations for cognitive models.","authors":"Ari Khoudary, Aaron M Bornstein, Megan A K Peters","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26106293","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26106293","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We build upon Haueis and Colaço's account in two ways. First, we argue that the backgrounding of metabolism was a pragmatic response to a <i>data granularity problem</i> faced by traditional cognitive modelers. Then, we suggest that <i>equivalence demonstrations</i> offer a promising pathway for incrementally introducing metabolic considerations into extant modeling practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e466"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149103704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Egalitarianism boosts collective intelligence.","authors":"Vivek V Venkataraman, Thomas S Kraft","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26106025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26106025","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The target article by Stibbard Hawkes and von Rueden (SHVR) provides useful terminological housekeeping, but its individualistic account of egalitarianism in small-scale societies risks overlooking important group-level functions. We argue that egalitarian norms are not merely by-products of individual strategies but actively sustain cooperation, coordination, and collective decision-making, enhancing group stability and collective intelligence. A full account of egalitarianism must integrate both individual-level processes and emergent group-level outcomes. Egalitarianism not only constrains inequality but also underwrites the cooperative capacities of small-scale societies.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e450"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149103619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Energy cost per operation in brains and AI hardware: What is more efficient?","authors":"Jan Karbowski","doi":"10.1017/S0140525X26106141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X26106141","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Haueis and Colaço point out that mammalian brains are much more energy efficient than AI supercomputers because the former use orders of magnitude less energy. I argue this issue is more nuanced, and the \"efficiency\" is scale dependent. Contrary to popular belief, I show that the human brain uses much more energy per operation than the most powerful AI supercomputers.</p>","PeriodicalId":8698,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral and Brain Sciences","volume":"49 ","pages":"e465"},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149103640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}