Could the Next Discovery About the Brain Happen Between Us?
Could the Next Discovery About the Brain Happen Between Us?
Imagine encountering a stone that awakens a painful memory. It remains motionless, yet your heart races, your breathing changes, and your attention reorganizes. Now imagine encountering another person who can perceive your reaction and respond to it. What actually changes during these encounters? And could even the language we use to describe them influence the questions we are able to ask?
BrainLatam Special Series | 8th Symposium on Neuroscience and Cognition at UFABC — 2026
WHEN A STONE CHANGES THE BODY
Imagine someone who experienced something deeply aversive in association with a particular stone.
Years later, that person encounters the object again.
Their heart may accelerate.
Their breathing may change.
Their muscles may tense.
Their attention reorganizes.
They may experience an immediate urge to move away.
The stone remains materially similar. Yet the encounter activates relationships between perception, memory, learning, and physiology.
Research on threat processing shows that stimuli associated with previous experiences can trigger defensive responses even when the original danger is absent.
The object does not need to change physically for the encounter to participate in an important transformation of the subject.
And the next encounter may find that subject in different conditions.
THE SAME STONE IS NOT THE SAME EXPERIENCE
Now imagine a stone projectile point associated with the archaeological tradition known as Umbu.
An archaeologist examines its shape and possible manufacturing techniques.
A child asks who made it.
Another person might recognize something connected to a family experience.
The material object may be the same.
The relationships established with it are not.
Recent Brazilian research, including work by Julia Mahamut Garcia and Marcio Augusto Uliana Macella, shows that even archaeological classifications of stone projectile points must be reconsidered in light of new analyses.
We cannot attribute specific feelings to ancient populations without evidence.
But we can ask:
What changes when different subjects encounter the same object?
Perhaps it is not the stone. Perhaps it is the possibility of perceiving, naming, and acting in relation to it.
THE ENCOUNTER DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PLEASANT
At BrainLatam, we have been developing a proposition:
An encounter can modify the configuration of the Body-Territory (Corpo-Território) that will encounter the next object, subject, or environment.
That transformation does not have to be positive.
One experience may expand abilities.
Another may produce aversion.
A conversation may clarify a doubt or intensify a conflict.
Some encounters may also produce no detectable lasting change.
Scientific research must distinguish momentary alterations from persistent modifications.
Our original concept of the Body-Territory considers the subject inseparable from the bodily and relational conditions of experience.
This invites us to investigate not only what was perceived, but also which conditions changed during the encounter.
WHEN THE OTHER CAN ALSO RESPOND
Now replace the stone with another subject.
One researcher presents a hypothesis.
Another identifies a variable that had not been considered.
The first responds.
The second reconsiders the interpretation.
Both may leave the conversation with possibilities they did not have before.
In an encounter between subject and object, the stone does not need to respond intentionally.
In an encounter between subjects, each participant can perceive and respond to the other's response.
Ezequiel Di Paolo and Hanne De Jaegher developed the perspective of participatory sense-making, in which social interactions can participate in the constitution of meaning.
This does not mean that two people share a single consciousness.
It means that the relationship itself can participate in what each person will subsequently be able to understand and do.
COULD OUR SENTENCE ALREADY BE ORGANIZING THE ENCOUNTER?
Imagine describing an experience:
“The man encounters the stone.”
In Portuguese, the most common word order is Subject–Verb–Object (SVO).
First, we name who acts.
Then we present the action.
Finally, what participates as its object.
But not every language organizes sentences this way.
In many varieties of Quechua, the canonical order is Subject–Object–Verb (SOV).
An illustrative construction is:
Runa papata mikhun.
“The man eats potatoes.”
The subject and object appear before the verb.
Grammatical marking, such as the suffix -ta, helps identify syntactic roles.
The very sequence in which we introduce the participants and the action can differ.
QUECHUA DOES NOT IMPRISON THE VERB
We need to avoid oversimplification.
SOV is the canonical order in many Quechua varieties, but that does not mean the verb must appear at the end of every sentence.
Other sequences may occur depending on focus, topic, and discourse context.
Peruvian linguist María Elena Sánchez Arroba investigated these variations in Southern Peruvian Quechua.
In 2024, Argentine researcher Mayra Juanatey also analyzed different word orders in narratives from Santiago del Estero Quichua.
These studies demonstrate grammatical and discursive diversity.
They do not demonstrate that Quechua produces a more collective consciousness than Portuguese.
Linguistic differences do not establish superiority between ways of perceiving the world.
But they offer opportunities to investigate how language participates in organizing experience.
WHAT IF LANGUAGE PARTICIPATES IN PERCEPTION?
Imagine hearing an incomplete sentence:
“The man encounters…”
You have already received the action, but you are still waiting for its complement.
Now imagine a construction in which the subject and object appear before the verb.
Expectations during comprehension may unfold in a different sequence.
This does not mean that grammar determines thought.
Portuguese speakers can also conceptualize relationships before formulating an action.
And Quechua speakers do not have to think exclusively according to their language's canonical word order.
The scientific question is more specific:
How do different linguistic structures participate in attention, anticipation, and the construction of meaning during communication?
In Collaborative Science, different languages may also offer different ways of formulating questions about a phenomenon.
5D CONSCIOUSNESS: THE METABOLISM OF THE ENCOUNTER
In our original hypothesis of 5D Consciousness, we propose:
“Consciousness is a movement that perceives itself Being within the metabolism produced.”
We use metabolism in an expanded conceptual sense, including movements of matter and energy within the perimeter of sensitivity of each Body-Territory.
This definition does not replace the conventional biochemical meaning.
In the aversive experience involving the stone, different physiological processes may rapidly reorganize.
That does not mean the body's entire metabolism has literally been replaced.
It means that the bodily configuration of the experience can change.
Allostasis offers scientific tools for investigating adjustments to environmental demands.
Our hypothesis asks how these changes participate in the conditions under which the subject will continue perceiving itself Being.
An encounter does not merely deliver information: it can modify the bodily and relational conditions of the next encounter.
THE BRAIN DOES NOT RESPOND TO AN EMPTY CONTEXT
In 2026, Devon Stoliker and colleagues published a study in Nature examining brain activity during experiences involving psilocybin.
Participants were assessed under different conditions, including music, meditation, film, and rest.
The researchers found patterns of brain activity that were sensitive to the experimental context.
These findings apply to the specific conditions studied.
They do not prove 5D Consciousness or justify generalizations about every everyday encounter.
But they reinforce a methodological question:
How much of what we measure also depends on the experience taking place while we measure it?
Context can participate in the organization of observed brain signals.
Understanding a measurement therefore requires considering the conditions under which it was produced.
WHEN UFABC BROUGHT SCIENCE INTO THE CLASSROOM
In 2018, Guilherme Brockington, Joana Balardin, Guilherme Zimeo Morais, Roberto Lent, João Ricardo Sato, and colleagues investigated the use of fNIRS in educational settings.
Their demonstrations included a teacher–child interaction, a university lecture, and an astronomy activity.
The study brought neuroscience, education, and technology together.
It did not demonstrate that learning could be measured entirely through cortical oxygenation.
It demonstrated possibilities for investigating processes in settings closer to everyday experiences.
When different disciplines encounter one another, they do not merely generate new answers. They can generate new questions and methods for investigating them.
This, too, is a possible transformation in the configuration of a scientific system.
A DISCOVERY THAT CROSSED LATIN AMERICA
In 2026, the LatAm-FINGERS study brought together researchers from eleven Latin American countries to investigate interventions related to cognitive decline.
The collaboration had to consider different social, institutional, and cultural conditions.
The trial found greater improvement in cognitive measures in the structured intervention group compared with flexible counseling.
It did not demonstrate the definitive prevention of new dementia cases.
But it showed the possibility of producing experimental knowledge through regional collaboration.
Territorial diversity did not have to disappear for comparable scientific results to be produced.
Each institution contributed its own experiences, participants, and conditions.
The encounter between these perspectives made a multicenter investigation possible.
WHEN A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE CHANGES THE EXPERIMENT
Imagine a team studying responses to visual stimuli.
One researcher examines brain signals.
Another asks about breathing.
A third identifies a lighting condition.
Someone familiar with the participants introduces a cultural interpretation that had not been considered.
Perhaps the next experiment needs to be different.
This does not guarantee a discovery.
But it can change research questions, controls, and procedures.
At BrainLatam, we represent Artinis & NIRx for fNIRS technologies and Brain Products for EEG.
These instruments make it possible to investigate different dimensions of brain activity.
Other measurements can add information about the heart, breathing, and behavior.
No instrument, by itself, captures the complete meaning of an encounter.
Collaboration must also recognize its limits.
JIWASA: ENCOUNTERING DOES NOT REQUIRE AGREEMENT
At BrainLatam, we use Jiwasa to propose shared agency without erasing individuality.
One researcher may disagree with another.
A community may challenge a scientific interpretation.
A student may identify a question nobody had considered.
Collaboration requires conditions in which these differences can be examined.
It does not mean accepting every hypothesis without evidence.
It means preserving opportunities for questioning, revision, and learning.
An encounter between subjects can change the system without requiring the subjects to become identical.
Perhaps this is one of the greatest possibilities of Collaborative Science: transforming questions and relationships while preserving different ways of perceiving and Being.
THE NEXT ENCOUNTER HAS NOT YET HAPPENED
Return to the stone.
For one person, it may awaken an aversive memory.
For another, an archaeological question.
For a third, perhaps it is simply a stone.
Now imagine those people meeting.
One shares an experience.
Another contributes knowledge.
Someone asks an unexpected question.
And perhaps even the language used to describe the stone participates in new possibilities for interpretation.
The 8th Symposium on Neuroscience and Cognition at UFABC offers a concrete opportunity for encounters between different questions, methods, and experiences.
We cannot know in advance which encounters will lead to discoveries.
But we can investigate the conditions that make those encounters possible.
If every encounter can modify the configuration of a Body-Territory and the relationships within a collective, how many discoveries are still waiting for subjects, objects, languages, and territories that have not yet had the opportunity to meet?
Jiwasa: the possibility of Being many without anyone having to cease Being.
About This Series
This article concludes BrainLatam's special series as a sponsor of the 8th Symposium on Neuroscience and Cognition at the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), scheduled for November 16–19, 2026, in São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil.
Throughout the W45/2026 series, we have investigated relationships between the brain, organisms, metabolism, behavior, complex systems, education, neurotechnologies, environments, democracy, and Collaborative Science.
BrainLatam represents Artinis & NIRx for fNIRS technologies and Brain Products for EEG, helping connect research instruments and opportunities in neuroscience across Latin America.
The concepts of Body-Territory, 5D Consciousness, Jiwasa, and the Jiwasa-State belong to BrainLatam's original conceptual framework and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the symposium's researchers or organizers.
Official event website: https://www.even3.com.br/viii-simposio-em-neurociencia-e-cognicao-da-universidade-federal-do-abc-761401/
References — A Second Reading of the Article
1. Aversive experiences can modify sensory processing and responses to stimuli associated with threats.
Fleming, L. L.; Harnett, N. G.; Ressler, K. J. (2024). Sensory alterations in post-traumatic stress disorder. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 84, 102821.
This review examines relationships between traumatic experiences and sensory processing. It does not imply that every aversive memory constitutes post-traumatic stress disorder.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2023.102821
2. A single category of archaeological artifacts may include objects with different characteristics, requiring classifications to be reconsidered.
Garcia, J. M.; Macella, M. A. U. (2025). A coleção de pontas líticas lascadas do Laboratório de Arqueologia, Etnologia e Etno-História: morfometria e espacialização [The Collection of Knapped Stone Projectile Points at the Laboratory of Archaeology, Ethnology and Ethnohistory: Morphometrics and Spatial Distribution]. Revista de Arqueologia, 38(3), 66–101.
This study from the State University of Maringá examines 53 stone projectile points and discusses the diversity of artifacts previously associated with the Umbu tradition.
https://doi.org/10.24885/sab.v38i3.1289
3. The encounter between subject and object can be interpreted as the relational production of meaning without requiring physical transformation of the object.
Cionek, J. (2026). Dados não são significado [Data Are Not Meaning]. BrainLatam.
The essay develops the original hypothesis that an encounter can change the meanings attributed to an object and the subject's possibilities for action and interpretation.
https://brainlatam.com/blog/dados-nao-sao-significado-8571
4. Interactions between people can participate in constructing meaning rather than merely transmitting previously established content.
De Jaegher, H.; Di Paolo, E. (2007). Participatory sense-making: An enactive approach to social cognition. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 6, 485–507.
A foundational reference in the enactive approach to social cognition. The work supports discussion of participatory sense-making but does not prove the 5D Consciousness hypothesis.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-007-9076-9
5. Quechua frequently has canonical Subject–Object–Verb order, although other orders can occur according to discourse needs.
Sánchez Arroba, M. E. (2007). Basic order and marked orders in South Peruvian Quechua. Lengua y Sociedad.
The researcher from the National University of San Marcos in Peru examines different syntactic sequences and their relationships to focus, topic, and discourse organization.
https://revistasinvestigacion.unmsm.edu.pe/index.php/lenguaysociedad/article/view/26514
6. Word order in Quechua varieties also depends on pragmatic factors and relationships between sentences.
Juanatey, M. (2024). Word order variation in discourse in Santiago del Estero Quichua. Nueva Revista del Pacífico, 81, 283–317.
The Argentine researcher examines constituent-order variation in narratives from Santiago del Estero Quichua.
https://revistasdp.upla.cl/index.php/NRP/article/view/1313
7. Grammatical marking of objects can allow greater flexibility in word order, including in bilingual Quechua varieties.
Typological Shift in Bilinguals’ L1: Word Order and Case Marking in Two Varieties of Child Quechua. (2021). Languages, 6(1), 42.
This study compares Quechua varieties in Peru and Bolivia, analyzing word order, language contact, and case marking, including the suffix -ta.
https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6010042
8. Brain organization can differ according to the contextual conditions in which an experience takes place.
Stoliker, D.; Novelli, L.; Khajehnejad, M.; et al. (2026). Psychedelics align brain activity with context. Nature, 656, 936–947.
The study investigated brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging and EEG under different experimental conditions involving psilocybin. Its findings are specific to that investigation and do not prove 5D Consciousness.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10910-z
9. UFABC demonstrated the feasibility of investigating brain signals during educational interactions closer to everyday situations.
Brockington, G.; Balardin, J. B.; Zimeo Morais, G. A.; Malheiros, A.; Lent, R.; Moura, L. M.; Sato, J. R. (2018). From the Laboratory to the Classroom: The Potential of Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy in Educational Neuroscience. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1840.
The study presents three fNIRS proof-of-concept demonstrations in educational activities, showing research possibilities without reducing learning and meaning to a hemodynamic measurement.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01840
10. Collaboration between Latin American countries can produce scientific knowledge through shared protocols and cultural adaptation.
Crivelli, L.; Suemoto, C. K.; Sosa, A. L.; Lopera, F.; et al.; LatAm-FINGERS Study Group (2026). Multidomain lifestyle intervention for the prevention of cognitive decline in at-risk older adults in Latin America (LatAm-FINGERS): a single-blind, multicentre, randomised controlled trial. The Lancet, 408(10553), 417–429.
The multicenter trial found greater improvement in cognitive measures in the structured intervention group, without directly demonstrating prevention of new dementia cases.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(26)01278-X
11. Studying the brain in context creates opportunities to connect different disciplines, methods, and experiences.
UFABC (2026). 8th Symposium on Neuroscience and Cognition — The Brain in Context: Contemporary Challenges in Interdisciplinary Neuroscience.
The event provides opportunities for dialogue among researchers and participants interested in understanding the brain in relation to behavior, organisms, and environments.
Scientific and conceptual note: Body-Territory, 5D Consciousness, Jiwasa, and the expanded conception of metabolism are original formulations developed by BrainLatam. Physiological changes associated with aversive memories do not demonstrate the literal replacement of the body's entire metabolism. SOV word order in Quechua varieties does not demonstrate a more relational consciousness or determine how speakers perceive the world. Research on sensory processing, language, interactions, and brain activity provides foundations for scientific questions but does not directly validate these formulations. The example involving a stone associated with the Umbu tradition is hypothetical and does not attribute specific emotional experiences to archaeological populations.
BRAINLATAM · W45/2026 · BLOG 10 · FINAL VERSION · ENGLISH
