Degeneracy

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A note for Lesson no. 2, "Your Brain Is a Network," in Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett.
Some context from page 39 is:

This phenomenon is called degeneracy.

Degeneracy in the brain means many different sets of neurons can produce the same behavior or function. It is a prerequisite for complexity.[1][2] And it allows species to evolve.


References

  1. Edelman, Gerald M., and Joseph A. Gally. 2001. “Degeneracy and Complexity in Biological Systems.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98 (24): 13763–13768.
  2. Tononi, Giulio, Olaf Sporns, and Gerald M. Edelman. 1999. “Measures of Degeneracy and Redundancy in Biological Networks.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 96 (6): 3257–3262.