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<p>This article reappraises brain function by reconsidering the role of cerebral fluid dynamics in cognition. Tracing a lineage from early modern thinkers like Descartes—who invoked hydraulic metaphors and ’animal spirits’—to J.C. Bose’s pioneering studies on electro-mechanical plant physiology, and culminating in contemporary findings on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), extracellular space (ECS), and neurovascular coupling, we reveal a forgotten yet vital computational substrate. We argue that alongside the well-studied digital operations of neural circuits exists a slower, analog, evolutionarily older layer of electrofluidic computation. This system—comprised of ionic diffusion, convective CSF flow, and vascular modulation—not only supports but dynamically shapes neural activity. The brain emerges as an electromechanical ecology of electric pulses and fluid flows, where the mind is both a pattern of neural activity and a choreography of fluid flows.</p>

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The electrofluidic brain as a basement layer for neural computation

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月19日

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  • V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy,
  • Vigneswaran Chandrasekaran,
  • Nagesh C. Shanbhag

摘要

This article reappraises brain function by reconsidering the role of cerebral fluid dynamics in cognition. Tracing a lineage from early modern thinkers like Descartes—who invoked hydraulic metaphors and ’animal spirits’—to J.C. Bose’s pioneering studies on electro-mechanical plant physiology, and culminating in contemporary findings on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), extracellular space (ECS), and neurovascular coupling, we reveal a forgotten yet vital computational substrate. We argue that alongside the well-studied digital operations of neural circuits exists a slower, analog, evolutionarily older layer of electrofluidic computation. This system—comprised of ionic diffusion, convective CSF flow, and vascular modulation—not only supports but dynamically shapes neural activity. The brain emerges as an electromechanical ecology of electric pulses and fluid flows, where the mind is both a pattern of neural activity and a choreography of fluid flows.