Morten L. Kringelbach
Director of Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing, University of Oxford, UK and Principal Investigator at Center for Music in the Brain, University of Aarhus, Denmark
“Thermodynamics of Mind: Eudaimonia and flourishing in the human brain”
Abstract: In order to survive, the brain must constantly extract, predict and recognise the essential spacetime features of complex environments. This distributed computation of information relies on having a hierarchy of optimal information transfer across the whole brain at the lowest possible metabolic cost. Suboptimal brain orchestration has been linked to mental illness, yet the fundamental principles of brain orchestration over fast and slow timescales are still not well understood. I will show how significant progress has been made using our new Thermodynamics of Mind which is a general theory of brain function, which provides causal evidence of the underlying mechanisms using whole-brain modelling of neuroimaging data. A series of studies have already furthered our understanding of human flourishing using data from experiments including music, food, social interactions, meditation and psychedelics. Overall, this new evidence has given rise to a deeper understanding of experiences that can give rise to both flourishing and suffering, providing meaning and purpose to life, and may eventually help to find novel ways to rebalance the brain in neuropsychiatric disorders.
Professor Kringelbach’s prizewinning research has helped elucidate the brain systems driven by hedonic and eudaimonic stimuli such as, for example, infants, food, psychedelics and music. He has published fourteen books, and over 400 scientific papers, chapters and other articles and his research features regularly in newspapers, magazines, radio and television.
Further reading
Kringelbach M.L., Sanz Perl Y. & Deco G. (2024) The thermodynamics of mind. TICS, 28:568-81
Deco G., Sanz Perl Y., Johnson S., Bourke N., Carhart-Harris R. & Kringelbach M.L. (2024) Different hierarchical reconfigurations in the brain by psilocybin and escitalopram for depression. Nature Mental Health, 2: 1096–1110.