Embodiment & Emergence — Weekly Roundup #1
March 29, 2026 · A curated synthesis of research and ideas on mind, body, and collective behavior
This is the first issue of the Embodiment & Emergence — Weekly Roundup. Each week, it brings together research and writing that probe how mind, body, and behavior are organized across different levels and timescales. The work is expert-curated and AI-assisted: AI helps process and structure the material, while selection, framing, and interpretation remain human-guided. Not all findings are equally strong, and many remain correlational or provisional, but each offers a useful signal toward more embodied and emergent ways of understanding cognition and experience.
Embodiment starts from the premise that mind is not just something the brain does in isolation, but something shaped by the body’s sensations, actions, physiology, and ongoing exchanges with the world. Emergence points to how larger patterns — in thought, behavior, identity, and groups — arise from many interacting parts rather than from a single controlling center. This roundup highlights research and theory that make those dynamics more visible across brains, bodies, development, and collective life. This is not a consensus view, but a working synthesis of research and ideas that point in related directions.
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This Week’s Synthesis — March 28, 2026: Embodied Mind-Wandering, Immune System Cognition, Astrocyte Regulation of Brain State, and Large-Scale Structure in Personality and Brain Development.
Embodied Mind-Wandering Reshapes the “Resting” Brain
Banellis, L., et al. (2026). Uncovering the embodied dimension of the wandering mind. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2520822123
TAGS: neuroscience, resting-state fMRI, mind-wandering, embodiment, interoception, network dynamics, psychopathology, cross-sectional
OVERVIEW: This study used resting-state fMRI in 536 healthy participants to examine how often self-generated thoughts at rest turn toward the interoceptive and somatic body (“body-wandering”). The authors extended a retrospective multidimensional experience sampling approach to include probes about visceral and somatomotor thoughts during rest. They identified a robust interindividual dimension of body-wandering associated with negative affect, high autonomic arousal, and fewer socially oriented thoughts. Multivariate functional connectivity analyses linked these affective, body-focused thoughts to a thalamocortical connectivity pattern interconnecting somatomotor and interoceptive–allostatic cortical networks.
OF NOTE: The work reframes the resting state from a purely “cognitive baseline” to an intrinsically embodied condition in which spontaneous thoughts can be strongly anchored in visceral and somatic experience. The finding that body-wandering feels negatively toned and high-arousal in the moment, yet is associated with lower self-reported symptoms of depression and ADHD, highlights a tension between momentary subjective experience and trait mental health. The connectivity results suggest that ongoing self-generated thought is supported by distributed thalamocortical loops that bridge somatomotor systems with interoceptive–allostatic control networks. This positions embodiment and large-scale network dynamics as central to understanding what the “resting” brain is actually doing.
CAVEATS: The design is cross-sectional and correlational, so it cannot determine whether body-wandering influences affect, arousal, or symptoms, or whether these factors shape thought content and connectivity. Experience sampling was retrospective and confined to the scanner rest context, which may reduce ecological validity and miss faster or context-dependent fluctuations in embodied experience. The sample consisted of healthy participants, so generalization to clinical populations and more diverse demographics remains uncertain. The links between thought content and functional connectivity are indirect, and the mechanisms by which these distributed networks give rise to specific embodied experiences are not established.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: Resting-state “mind-wandering” includes a substantial embodied component, where attention turns toward visceral and somatic sensations, accompanied by negative affect and heightened arousal. Paradoxically, individuals who show a greater propensity for such body-wandering report fewer symptoms of depression and ADHD, suggesting a more complex relationship between uncomfortable momentary states and longer-term mental health. At the neural level, these embodied thoughts are associated with thalamocortical connectivity patterns linking somatomotor with interoceptive–allostatic networks. Overall, the study supports an update from viewing rest as a purely cognitive baseline to seeing it as an embodied, network-level phenomenon, while underscoring that the evidence is correlational and context-limited.
Thinking With the Immune System
Ciaunica, A. (2025). From cells to selves. Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/why-you-need-your-whole-body-from-head-to-toes-to-think
TAGS: embodied cognition, immune system, self-organisation, neuroimmune, development, pregnancy, philosophy of mind
OVERVIEW: This essay is a conceptual/philosophical piece, not an empirical study, so there are no reported sample sizes or quantitative datasets; the scale of evidence is drawn from illustrative findings in immunology, developmental biology, and neuroscience rather than a single study. The author argues that cognition cannot be located solely in the brain, but instead emerges from the whole body, starting from single cells and especially early-developing immune processes. The piece emphasises that immune cells arise and operate before neurons, shaping how an organism distinguishes self from non-self and maintains homeostasis. The essay proposes that cognition may be layered on top of older, body-wide self-regulation systems rather than originating solely in the brain.
OF NOTE: The core conceptual move is to relocate the “self” from a brain-bound, adult thinker to a multi-level, cellular organism that has been regulating its own survival since the zygote. The immune system is recast as an information-processing and “fact-checking” network that continuously negotiates what counts as self, non-self, missing self, and aberrant self, long before explicit thought. Pregnancy is used as a paradigmatic case of nested, interacting immune systems, highlighting that our first experiences of the world are literally mediated by another body. This strongly aligns with embodied and emergent views of cognition, treating neurons as latecomers in a pre-existing landscape of cellular negotiation and homeostatic control.
CAVEATS: Because this is an essay rather than a targeted empirical study or quantitative review, it synthesises diverse literatures without systematically reporting effect sizes, sample characteristics, or methodological constraints, making the strength of evidence harder to evaluate at a glance. Many claims about “basal cognition” in cells and bacteria are grounded in cited work, but here they are presented at a high level, without detailed descriptions of paradigms or alternative interpretations. The generality of the thesis (from cells to full human minds) is more speculative than demonstrated, and key boundary questions—such as how far cognitive terms should extend down the biological hierarchy—are argued rather than empirically resolved. Readers should therefore treat this primarily as a framing proposal that invites further testing, rather than a settled, data-complete model.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: If you think of cognition as what solitary adult brains do, this piece should push you toward a more developmentally grounded, body-wide, and immune-centered picture. It suggests that forms of organism-level self-regulation may be in place before neural systems develop, potentially shaping later cognition, with thinking emerging as a later-developing layer built on more fundamental regulatory processes. For work on embodiment and emergence, it’s a useful conceptual scaffold: treat neural activity as tightly coupled to metabolic and immune self-organisation, rather than as the sole engine of mind.
Astrocytes as Regulators of Brain State
Wickelgren, I. (2026). Once thought to support neurons, astrocytes turn out to be in charge. Quanta Magazine. https://www.quantamagazine.org/once-thought-to-support-neurons-astrocytes-turn-out-to-be-in-charge-20260130/
TAGS: astrocytes, neuromodulation, brain states, emergence, glia, affective dynamics, animal models
OVERVIEW: This feature synthesizes a trio of 2025 Science papers and related work in fruit flies, zebrafish, and mice that collectively reframe astrocytes as active regulators of brain state. Across these animal models, experiments combine whole-brain imaging, opto/chemogenetic manipulations, and molecular tracing to show that astrocytes integrate neuromodulatory input (e.g., norepinephrine), accumulate calcium over seconds to minutes, and then release ATP/adenosine to reshape neuronal firing. The exact sample sizes, number of animals, and recording durations are not reported in this article, so the quantitative scale of each experiment remains unclear. However, convergent evidence across species and labs suggests a robust and conserved mechanism.
OF NOTE: Conceptually, the work challenges neuron-centric connectome models by showing that you can radically alter firing patterns without changing synaptic wiring, via astrocyte-mediated neuromodulation. Astrocytes sit over hundreds of thousands to millions of synapses, integrating activity over longer timescales and shifting global brain state (e.g., arousal, “giving up,” sleep-wake transitions) rather than encoding rapid, point-to-point messages. This is a clear embodiment/emergence story: slow, diffuse glial physiology (calcium waves, ATP/adenosine release) shapes emergent network-level modes like alertness, hopelessness, or sleep pressure. The same norepinephrine–astrocyte–adenosine chain appears in fruit flies, zebrafish, and mice, suggesting an evolutionarily conserved mesoscale control layer above the connectome.
CAVEATS: Because this is a journalistic synthesis rather than a formal meta-analysis, methodological and quantitative details (sample sizes, effect sizes, variability) are not fully specified, limiting precise assessment of strength of evidence. Most data come from nonhuman animals in highly controlled lab paradigms (startle responses, forced-swim-like “futile effort” tasks, dissected brain preparations), so direct generalization to human subjective states and psychiatric conditions is still speculative. The article highlights ongoing debates about mechanisms (e.g., whether astrocytes use distinct “gliotransmitters”), and many cellular steps are still being resolved. Evidence that some mental health disorders may be “astrocyte disorders” is suggestive, not demonstrated.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: If you think in terms of circuits and brain states, astrocytes now need to be in the model: they integrate neuromodulatory signals over time and can modulate network activity and contribute to shifts in brain state without changes in synaptic wiring. For embodiment, this work foregrounds slow, metabolic-like processes (calcium accumulation, ATP/adenosine signaling, sleep pressure) as key levers on mood and motivation, not just fast spikes. For emergence, it illustrates a layered control architecture: neuronal connectomes interacting with astrocyte-mediated state regulation, which in turn links to organism-level behaviors like startle, persistence, and giving up. Practically, it argues that focusing only on neurons may have constrained progress on brain disorders, and that targeting astrocyte signaling could open new therapeutic routes for conditions involving dysregulated mood and arousal.
Big-Data Personality Analysis Supports a “Big Two” Structure
Zhuang, K., et al. (2025). Machine-learning decomposition identifies a Big Two structure in human personality with distinct neurocognitive profiles. Advanced Science, 12(13), 509009. https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202509009
TAGS: personality, machine learning, individual differences, large-scale data, cognitive neuroscience, trait structure, emergence
OVERVIEW: This study applied an additive, parts-based machine learning method (orthogonal projective non-negative matrix factorization) to item-level Big Five questionnaire data from a mega-scale, globally diverse sample of 1,336,840 respondents, pooled across multiple IPIP, NEO, and BFI datasets. After cross-validated evaluation of 2–8 factor solutions, both the familiar Big Five and a more parsimonious “Big Two” factor structure emerged as highly stable and generalizable. The two factors, labeled Social Adaptation and Spontaneous Mentation, respectively integrated Extraversion–Agreeableness–Conscientiousness items versus Neuroticism plus introspective Openness items. In a subsample of 988 young adults with resting-state fMRI and behavioral data, these Big Two dimensions are associated with structured variation across emotional, cognitive, and neural measures.
OF NOTE: Rather than imposing the Big Five, the authors let large-scale item-level covariation “self-organize” into low-dimensional structure, revealing a Big Two that cuts across traditional trait boundaries. Social Adaptation captures externally oriented social functioning—engagement, cooperation, and goal-directed self-regulation—while Spontaneous Mentation captures internally directed, imagination- and emotion-laden thought. Embedding individuals in a 2D space defined by these axes yields geometric “directions” that align with gradients across psychiatric symptoms, cognition, and functional connectivity. This provides an emergent, low-dimensional landscape where personality, brain networks, and mental health co-vary along shared dimensions rather than in isolated categories.
CAVEATS: All factors were derived from inventories rooted in the Big Five, so the identified Big Two reflect covariance within that framework and may not generalize to broader, less theory-bound descriptors. The key findings are cross-sectional and correlational, including the links to emotional/psychiatric scores, cognitive measures, and resting-state connectivity, so they cannot establish causal mechanisms. Self-report data remain vulnerable to response styles and cultural norms, and although the authors checked for acquiescence bias and examined cross-cultural subgroups, socially desirable responding and other biases cannot be ruled out. Finally, the emphasis on low-dimensional structure may obscure meaningful facet-level heterogeneity, particularly within Openness, where some items cluster with Social Adaptation in certain cultural contexts.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: At very large scale, item-level personality data compress robustly into two additive, cross-cutting dimensions—Social Adaptation and Spontaneous Mentation—that reorganize Big Five content by functional orientation (external social engagement vs internal mentation). These Big Two traits generalize across instruments, age, sex, and many cultures, and they form a 2D space in which psychiatric symptoms, cognitive performance, and resting-state functional connectivity fall along systematic directions. The Big Two representation shows stronger associations with neural measures compared with Big Five scores while preserving similar links to cognition and mental health, suggesting it is not just simpler but also neurocognitively informative. For thinking about emergence, the work illustrates how massive, heterogeneous self-report data can reveal a low-dimensional, brain-linked scaffold that organizes complex patterns of behavior, experience, and psychopathology.
Functional Gradients of the Cortex Shift Across the Human Lifespan
Taylor, H. P., IV, Huynh, K. M., Thung, K.-H., Lin, G., Lyu, W., Lin, W., Ahmad, S., & Yap, P.-T. (2026). Functional hierarchy of the human neocortex across the lifespan. Nature. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10219-x
TAGS: neuroscience, functional connectivity, resting-state fMRI, development, aging, emergence, embodiment, brain networks
OVERVIEW: This study analyzed 3,972 gradient maps from 3,556 individuals spanning birth to 100 years to chart how large-scale gradients of functional connectivity in the neocortex change across the lifespan. The authors report that cortical organization is anchored by primary sensory systems in infancy, differentiates along association and control axes during childhood and adolescence, and then gradually dedifferentiates in aging.
OF NOTE: Instead of tying cognition to fixed brain regions, the work emphasizes continuous gradients of connectivity that evolve over time, offering a more dynamic, network-based view of brain organization. This gradient framing fits an embodiment-and-emergence lens, where primary sensory systems provide an early scaffold from which more abstract association and control networks differentiate.
CAVEATS: The results are derived from aggregated, population-level fMRI patterns, so individual variability and rich, real-world behavior are not deeply characterized. Links between gradient measures and cognitive performance are correlational, meaning the study shows association rather than causal mechanisms for how these gradients shape specific mental functions.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: The paper supports a picture of brain development and aging as shifts in broad connectivity gradients rather than changes in isolated regions, with strong sensory anchoring early in life and reduced differentiation later on. For readers interested in embodiment and emergence, it offers a cautiously useful reference map of how distributed network architecture may condition the texture of cognition across the human lifespan.
How the Mouth Became Symbolic
Rinaldi, L. S., & Gallese, V. (2026). How the mouth became symbolic. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2026.02.011
TAGS: embodiment, language evolution, sound symbolism, development, orofacial motor control, mirror system, conceptual grounding, review
OVERVIEW: This article is a theoretical and integrative review, not a single empirical study. The authors argue that early oral exploration (oral stereognosis), oromanual affordances, and sound symbolism provide a sensorimotor scaffold for the emergence of spoken language. Drawing on developmental, neuroimaging, comparative, and behavioral work, they propose that ingestive and exploratory mouth routines were gradually exapted into articulatory patterns. In this account, preverbal action-based meanings are progressively transformed into conventional verbal symbols via neural reuse and strengthening dorsal auditory–motor pathways.
OF NOTE: The paper reframes the mouth as an early “cognitive organ,” emphasizing its role in exploring object size, shape, and texture before fine manual control emerges. It links classic sound-symbolism phenomena (e.g., bouba/kiki, vowel–size mappings, trill–roughness associations) to cross-modal correspondences grounded in orofacial and manual action. A central move is to treat sound symbolism as an iconic “bootstrapping” route that makes certain word forms easier to learn and stabilize, especially in infancy. The framework highlights how frontoparietal, mirror, and arcuate fasciculus circuits could support increasingly abstract but still embodied conceptual structure.
CAVEATS: Because this is a narrative, theory-building review, it synthesizes findings from many paradigms rather than providing new, unified data. Sample sizes, species, and methods vary widely across the cited work, and not all links in the proposed pathway (from oral exploration to symbolic speech) are directly tested in a single design. Many claims about developmental and evolutionary trajectories are plausible but ultimately inferential, relying on converging but indirect evidence. The article does not fully resolve how much of lexical structure is explained by embodied iconicity versus statistical or cultural factors alone.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: A careful reader can treat this paper as a rich, embodied alternative to strongly “amodal symbol” views of language origins and processing. It suggests that early oromanual affordances and ingestive rhythms provided both temporal and structural templates for syllables and prosody, and that sound symbolism crystallizes sensorimotor regularities into shareable vocal forms. The account is strongest where it tracks specific neural and developmental constraints (e.g., somatotopy, arcuate fasciculus maturation, oral-motor influences on speech perception). Overall, it motivates targeted empirical work on how oral exploration and sound–shape mappings concretely shape phonology, word learning, and conceptual development.
A Tribal Mind: When Beliefs Become Social Signals
Funkhouser, E. (2022). A tribal mind: Beliefs that signal group identity or commitment. Mind & Language, 37(3), 444–464. https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12326
TAGS: social cognition, signaling theory, group identity, belief, norm psychology, cooperation, motivated cognition
OVERVIEW: This theoretical paper argues that some beliefs function as social signals of group identity or commitment rather than as straightforward attempts to track truth. Drawing on examples like climate change denial and religious belief, the author uses signaling theory to model how such beliefs can be shaped by in-group incentives. The focus is conceptual, not empirical: the paper synthesizes existing work on signaling, self-presentation, and group bias to propose a functional account of these “tribal” beliefs. The central claim is that these beliefs are selected and maintained partly because they can be detected by others and influence their behavior in ways that benefit the believer’s standing within the group.
OF NOTE: A key move is to treat beliefs themselves—rather than just overt behaviors or rituals—as signals that broadcast loyalty, trustworthiness, or status. This reframes familiar cognitive biases (like favoring congenial information) as potentially adaptive responses to social environments where group membership and reputation are vital. By importing tools from animal signaling theory and evolutionary social science, the paper links micro-level belief formation to macro-level coalition dynamics and cultural evolution. That makes it relevant to questions about how group-level patterns and norms emerge from individual cognitive processes.
CAVEATS: Because this is a philosophical and theoretical article, it does not present new data, experiments, or quantitative estimates of effect size. Many of the examples (e.g., climate attitudes, religiosity) draw on prior empirical literatures with their own debates and mixed findings, so the signaling account should be read as a framing lens rather than a definitive explanation. The paper focuses on beliefs that are especially identity-loaded, and its analysis may not generalize to more mundane or purely instrumental beliefs. It also does not fully specify when signaling pressures dominate over accuracy motives, which limits direct predictive power.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: The work suggests that to understand certain politically or religiously charged beliefs, we need to look beyond accuracy and consider their signaling functions in social networks and coalitions. On this view, some seemingly irrational beliefs may be “rational” in a broader sense because they secure group inclusion, trust, or cooperation. For science-minded readers, this encourages caution about purely informational interventions: correcting evidence may not budge beliefs that are doing heavy social work. More broadly, the paper supports an emergentist picture in which group identities, norms, and reputational incentives shape the landscape in which individual cognition unfolds.
This Week’s Takeaways — March 29, 2026: These studies collectively support a view of cognition as more distributed and multi-level than strictly brain-localized accounts suggest.
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About Stephen
Stephen Buehler, MA, MFT is a psychotherapist, consultant, and crisis response specialist with over 30 years of experience across healthcare, mental health, nonprofits, Fortune 500 consulting environments, and high-performance teams. His work focuses on helping individuals and organizations build emotional agility, respond effectively under pressure, and realign around purpose and shared values. [LinkedIn]
Selected experience:
20,000+ hours consulting with healthcare leaders and teams on collaboration, burnout, and crisis response
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Lifelong engagement in movement, athletics, and somatic practice, including lived experience with chronic illness and pain
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