#33 · Systems biology

Neuro-evolution tests whether large brains evolve in changing environments or from static…

The dominant thread is causal attribution in adaptive systems: whether an observed trait reflects the environment that selected it or a prior condition that shaped it. The brain-size preprint uses neuro-evolution in an artificial seasonal foraging task to contrast large brains evolving in changing environments with large brains arising from earlier static ones. The gut-brain agent-based model parallels this logic: sensory traits shape learned diet and microbiome, and microbiome similarity alone does not uniquely identify the cause, which is framed as behavioural degeneracy. The neural-astrocyte paper is less directly aligned, modelling astrocytes as enabling evidence accumulation and context switching in reinforcement learning via a hybrid automaton. What is new across these preprints is explicit modelling of alternative pathways to comparable outcomes rather than assumption of a single driver.