What happens in the brain between perfect synchrony and total disorder , and why might that intermediate zone be where cognition lives? Computer scientist Murray Shanahan explains how metastable chimera states in coupled oscillator networks may capture the dynamic coalitions that govern brain function. Subscribe for more from the Convergent Science Network podcast series. Murray Shanahan joins Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott at the BCBT summer school to discuss his computational work on metastability and chimera states in brain-like networks. The conversation builds on Pascal Fries's communication-through-coherence hypothesis, which proposes that synchronized neuronal populations are positioned to exchange information and cooperate, while desynchronized populations are effectively shut out. Shanahan extends this framework by showing that abstrac ...