Ruthless reductionism in recent neuroscience

Cognitive informatics has a stated interest in keeping track of developments within the neurosciences, especially concerning cognitive phenomena (like learning, memory, perception, complex motor execution, and even consciousness). Until now, cognitive informaticists have only attended to developments in cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology. In this paper, I urge that cognitive informaticists begin attending to molecular and cellular cognition. This exciting new field employs a "ruthlessly reductive" methodology that continues to elucidate the mechanisms of cognition and consciousness. My argument is empirical: I survey some recent developments from this field for phenomena that cognitive informaticists have cited as relevant to their concerns. By attending to such developments, cognitive informaticists will also insert their discipline into the applications of information-theoretic resources to the search for cellular and molecular processes generating cognition and consciousness.