Thought (or thinking) encompasses a flow of ideas and associations that can lead to logical conclusions. Although thinking is an activity of an existential value for humans, there is still no consensus as to how it is adequately defined or understood.

Because thought underlies many human actions and interactions, understanding its physical and metaphysical origins and its effects has been a longstanding goal of many academic disciplines including philosophy, linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, biology, sociology and cognitive science.

Thinking allows humans to make sense of, interpret, represent or model the world they experience, and to make predictions about that world. It is therefore helpful to an organism with needs, objectives, and desires as it makes plans or otherwise attempts to accomplish those goals.

Psychoanalysis

Main articles: Id, ego and super-ego and Unconscious mind

The "id", "ego" and "super-ego" are the three parts of the "psychic apparatus" defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model, the uncoordinated instinctual trends are encompassed by the "id", the organized realistic part of the psyche is the "ego", and the critical, moralizing function is the "super-ego".

Biology

A neuron (also known as a neurone or nerve cell) is an excitable cell in the nervous system that processes and transmits information by electrochemical signaling. Neurons are the core components of the brain, the vertebrate spinal cord, the invertebrate ventral nerve cord and the peripheral nerves. A number of specialized types of neurons exist: sensory neurons respond to touch, sound, light and numerous other stimuli affecting cells of the sensory organs that then send signals to the spinal cord and brain. Motor neurons receive signals from the brain and spinal cord that cause muscle contractions and affect glands. Interneurons connect neurons to other neurons within the brain and spinal cord. Neurons respond to stimuli, and communicate the presence of stimuli to the central nervous system, which processes that information and sends responses to other parts of the body for action. Neurons do not go through mitosis and usually cannot be replaced after being destroyed, although astrocytes have been observed to turn into neurons, as they are sometimes pluripotent.

Functionalism vs. embodiment

The above reflects a classical, functional description of how we work as cognitive, thinking systems. However the apparently irresolvable mind–body problem is said to be overcome, and bypassed, by the embodied cognition approach, with its roots in the work of Heidegger, Piaget, Vygotsky, Merleau-Ponty and the pragmatist John Dewey.

This approach states that the classical approach of separating the mind and analysing its processes is misguided: instead, we should see that the mind, actions of an embodied agent, and the environment it perceives and envisions, are all parts of a whole which determine each other. Therefore, functional analysis of the mind alone will always leave us with the mind–body problem which cannot be solved.

Journal of Brain Research is a peer reviewed, open access journal considering research on all aspects of Neuroscience, Neurodegenerative diseases, Experimental neurology, Functional neurology, Traumatic Brain injury, surgical neurology, Neurological rehabilitation, Neurotoxicology, Neuropharmacology, Neuronal plasticity and Behaviour, clinical neurology, Brain development and Cell differentiation. The Journal aims to provide a platform for the exchange of scientific information addressing research topics in the field of Brain and Neurological sciences.

Journal of Brain Research accepts original manuscripts in the form of research articles, review articles, Clinical reviews, commentaries, case reports, perspectives and short communications encompassing all aspects of Neurological sciences.

Submit manuscript at https://www.scholarscentral.org/submissions/brain-research.html or as an e-mail attachment to  manuscripts@hilarispublisher.com

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Journal of Brain Research