ProfessorMac Shine

Network Architecture of Cognition and Attention

Understanding how the brain organises its activity to support flexible, adaptive behaviour is a central focus of the lab. Recent methodological advances have made it possible to track the network structure of the human brain over time, revealing that functional connectivity is not a static property but a continuously evolving signature of the brain's computational state. Using both fMRI and electrophysiology, my group maps the relationship between inter-regional communication and large-scale network structure across a diverse range of brain states and cognitive demands. A key theoretical commitment in this work is to move beyond phenomenological description toward mechanistic explanation — identifying the biological and neuromodulatory axes that drive network reconfiguration, and formalising these dynamics using tools from modern dynamical systems mathematics, including Koopman operator theory. This framework allows us to decompose high-dimensional neural trajectories into interpretable geometric structures, connecting the systems-level perspective directly to the biophysical substrates of cognition and attention.

Systems Neurobiology

A foundational interest of the lab is understanding the complex, adaptive dynamics that emerge from neural activity — dynamics that must strike a precise balance between flexibility and robustness to support the full range of behaviours shaped by natural selection. We use neurobiology as our primary empirical and theoretical guide, combining multimodal neuroimaging, pharmacological perturbation, and computational modelling to identify the algorithmic rules that govern higher brain function. A particular focus is the role of neuromodulatory systems — including dopamine, acetylcholine, and noradrenaline — in tuning the brain's dynamical regime, shifting neural circuits between states of high gain and high flexibility versus stability and automaticity. This neuromodulatory gain control framework positions the lab at the intersection of systems neuroscience, computational psychiatry, and translational research into conditions such as Parkinson's disease and disorders of consciousness.

Dynamic Network Reconfigurations

A major focus of the group is identifying sensitive and specific methods for tracking dynamic reconfigurations in the brain's network organisation — during spontaneous resting conditions, active task performance, and across distinct arousal and pharmacological states. We draw on a wide range of neuroimaging data sources and analytical approaches, including time-resolved functional connectivity, dimensionality reduction, and Koopman-based decomposition of neural state-space trajectories. A core empirical and theoretical question motivating this work is what drives the brain's tendency to reconfigure — whether through endogenous neuromodulatory fluctuations, external task demands, or pathological disruption. By characterising the geometry and temporal statistics of these reconfigurations, we aim to develop principled accounts of how the brain navigates its repertoire of functional states, with direct implications for understanding cognitive flexibility, arousal regulation, and neuropsychiatric disease.

Evolutionary Neuroscience

What makes the human brain exceptional? Although humans have large brains relative to body size, recent comparative work has shown that the most distinctive features of human neural organisation arise not from overall expansion but from the disproportionate elaboration of interconnected networks linking the cortex and the cerebellum. In work conducted with my father, evolutionary biologist Professor Rick Shine, I have proposed that these newly evolved cortico-cerebellar circuits dramatically enhanced our capacity to delegate control over well-practised tasks from higher to lower neural centres — a principle we term delegation to automaticity. We further argue that the formidable neurocomputational demands of mastering bipedal balance during human evolution provided a powerful selective pressure favouring individuals whose brains could efficiently transfer motor and cognitive routines in this way. The challenges of walking upright may thus have driven the rapid elaboration of the human brain, freeing conscious, prefrontal networks from the burden of routine control and redirecting their capacity toward novel, flexible, and creative thought. This evolutionary framework continues to inform the lab's broader theoretical program, connecting questions about neural architecture and neuromodulation to the deep history of why the brain is organised the way it is.