{
  "abstract": "Neuroscience treats the brain as a control hierarchy, with cortical systems governing subcortical mechanisms. We argue that this mistakes a configuration for an architecture. Local asymmetries of influence are real, but control is relational and process-specific; because neural elements constrain one another across concurrent processes, relations can form cycles that resist a stable ranking. Evidence from learned action, cortico-cerebellar and thalamocortical loops, and defensive behavior shows that control changes with practice, task phase, urgency, viability demands, and affordances. Hierarchical order therefore characterizes time-bounded configurations, whereas heterarchy characterizes the architecture's repertoire across occasions. We propose a spectrum of control indexed by dynamical decoupling: how far behavior can depend on history, internal state, and anticipated consequences. The account yields experimentally testable predictions.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2610.04643",
  "author_total": 2,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Luiz Pessoa"
    },
    {
      "name": "Andrea Gambarotto"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/30fkms9mvegb8.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2610.04643",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "30fkms9mvegb8",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.04643",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-NC-ND 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "q-bio.NC"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2805|Embodied and Extended Cognition"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7220708869",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.04643",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-03",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/30fkms9mvegb8.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:27:11Z",
      "native_id": "2610.04643",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.04643"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "arxiv:q-bio.NC",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Heterarchy in the Brain: Control as a Spectrum, Not a Chain of Command",
  "title_text": "Heterarchy in the Brain: Control as a Spectrum, Not a Chain of Command",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:27:11Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/30fkms9mvegb8",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}