From Nodes to Networks: reframing health through psychophysical loci and connectome-based neuroscience

This article proposes NeuroEnergetics as a conceptual and hypothesis-driven framework aimed at reframing health as a state of dynamic systemic coherence rather than the mere absence of disease. Integrating insights from network neuroscience, embodied cognition, interoceptive research, and psychophysiology, the model explores how specific psychophysical loci—historically described across diverse cultural and somatic traditions—may correspond to functional hubs within large-scale brain networks. The framework draws on contemporary connectome-based neuroscience to examine the interaction between the Default Mode Network, Salience Network, and Central Executive Network, emphasizing their role in emotional regulation, autonomic balance, and embodied self-processing. Traditional somatic maps are reinterpreted as first-person phenomenological codifications of neurovisceral integration zones, potentially observable through multimodal neuroimaging, electrophysiology, and physiological biomarkers. Rather than presenting original experimental data, this work advances a testable hypothesis and outlines a distributed, open-science experimental strategy designed to assess the robustness of the model across independent research settings. Proposed outcome measures include functional connectivity metrics, heart rate variability, inflammatory markers, and psychometric indices of emotion regulation and sense of coherence. By bridging embodied experience and systems neuroscience, this article contributes to ongoing efforts to develop integrative, non-reductionist models of health and consciousness, and invites interdisciplinary collaboration to empirically explore the neurophysiological correlates of psychophysical coherence.