Neuroconstructivism: A Developmental Turn in Cognitive Neuroscience?

Abstract

Since its birth, brain science has been for the most part the study of the structure and functioning of an already formed brain, the study of the endpoint of a process. Brodmann areas, for instance, are cortical areas of the adult brain (Brodmann 1909). In his authoritative Neurobiology, Shepherd devotes only one chapter (out of thirty) to developmental neurobiology (Shepherd 1994). From early attempts at functional localization by Gall or Broca to recent neurocognitive models like the model of visual cognition proposed by Milner and Goodale (Milner & Goodale 2006), functional decomposition of the brain has essentially remained the decomposition of the brain of the adult. Neuroconstructivism, then, as it has been recently vindicated (Mareschal et al. 2007; Sirois et al. 2008) could be understood, first, as the idea that we should take brain development more seriously. This suggestion comes at a time when in many fields of biology, ontogenetic development has become the object of both fascinating discoveries and intense speculation. But there is more to neuroconstructivism than a developmental perspective on the brain, as it can be understood as a view of cognition: it is this view of cognition that motivates a specific, renewed approach to the human brain. What neuroconstructivism is challenging, in fact, is a view of cognitive explanation, and of cognitive development.