Micah Allen
Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University and University of Cambridge
Functionalist What matters is the organisation of the processing, not the material
Micah Allen is Professor of Neuroscience at the Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN) at Aarhus University, where he directs the Embodied Computation Group, and holds an affiliation with the University of Cambridge. His research combines psychophysics, computational psychiatry, and physiological recording to test how visceral rhythms in the heart, lungs, and gut constrain cortical inference and metacognitive awareness.
In the November 2026 study Embodied Dynamic Causal Modelling: Brain and Cardiac Effective Connectivity (bioRxiv 2026.10.27.762241), co-authored with Andrew D. Levy, Peter Zeidman, and Karl J. Friston, Allen helps formalize Embodied DCM and the closed-loop Brainstem Cardiac Network (BCN). By jointly inverting simultaneous EEG and ECG time series across cortical, thalamic, brainstem, and sinoatrial node compartments, the model distinguishes top-down autonomic predictions from bottom-up baroreceptor prediction errors during cognitive action inhibition.
Allen’s framework treats interoception as the foundational anchor of the conscious self-model. Under his predictive processing account, subjective confidence and perceptual stability are continuously regulated by how the brain forecasts and controls the physiological state of its own body, providing a formal computational bridge between functionalist active inference and biological embodiment.
Known for. Interoceptive predictive processing, Embodied Dynamic Causal Modelling, visceral modulation of perceptual awareness and metacognition
Coverage on this site
- Karl Friston, Micah Allen and Andrew Levy Model Brain and Cardiac Connectivity with Embodied DCM November 2026
Related researchers
- Andrew D. LevyWellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London and Aarhus UniversityEmbodied Dynamic Causal Modelling, Brainstem Cardiac Network, brain-heart effective connectivity
- Peter ZeidmanWellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College LondonDynamic Causal Modelling, Parametric Empirical Bayes, Embodied DCM software and statistical methods
- Karl FristonUniversity College London. Chief Scientist, VERSES AIThe free energy principle and active inference
- Hedayat AbedijooACE Conscious Studio / IndependentACE.await (2026), the ACE decision framework (Agency, Connection, Exchange)
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Blaise Agüera y ArcasGoogle VP and Fellow, CTO of Technology & SocietyComputational functionalism, active inference, on-device neural computing, What Is Intelligence? (2025), and Who Are We Now? (2023)
- Igor AleksanderImperial College LondonAxiomatic Consciousness Theory, neural state machines, The World in My Mind, pioneering neural network engineering
Micah Allen is listed with the other functionalists and computationalists, who hold that what matters is the organisation of the processing, not the material. The theory family behind that position is set out in the index of consciousness theories. Every researcher covered on this site is indexed in the directory of consciousness researchers.