Phroneme
The instrument, made visible

A live brain that tells you what it does and what it cannot.

Type a feeling or a metaphor. The interface returns the regions the published literature associates with that kind of input. Every region carries a confidence band and a citation, and every answer carries the caveat that activation is association, not proof. Most tools in this space hide that line. We put it on the screen.

Live Brain
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idle
Initializing neural field…
Cortex
Limbic
Reward
Subcortical
Sensory
Hindbrain
The interface returns the regions the published literature associates with your input, each with a confidence band and a citation. It is a teaching instrument, not a scanner. It will never tell you what your brain is doing. That honesty is the product.
How the engine works
Live language model

Your phrase is interpreted by a language model constrained to a fixed region atlas. It can read novel metaphors, but it may only return regions that exist in our validated list.

Deterministic fallback

If no key is set or the model call fails, a built-in citation-grounded engine answers instead, so an investor demo never breaks. Both paths return the same honest shape.

Honesty guardrails

Confidence is capped at moderate. No answer claims certainty, because reverse inference forbids it. The caveat is attached to every response by the server, not the model.

The region atlas

The regions the interface can surface

A schematic teaching atlas, not an MNI coordinate map. Each region is scoped to associations the literature supports.

DLPFCCortex
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Associated with working memory, planning, and cognitive control. In the cognitive-debt work, this is part of the network that disengages when reasoning is offloaded to AI.

vmPFC / OFCCortex
Ventromedial prefrontal / orbitofrontal cortex

Associated with linking emotion to value and decision making, and with self-referential meaning.

ACCCortex
Anterior cingulate cortex

Associated with the integration of negative affect, pain, conflict, and cognitive control.

InsulaCortex
Anterior insula

Associated with interoception, the felt sense of the body, and with disgust and urgency. Activation here does not prove any single feeling.

AmygdalaLimbic
Amygdala

Popularly the 'fear center,' but meta-analysis shows it is not fear-specific: it responds to salience across many states, including sadness. The clearest case for reading it as an association, never a verdict.

HippocampusLimbic
Hippocampus

Associated with episodic memory and the binding of experience over time.

NAccReward
Nucleus accumbens / ventral striatum

Associated with reward anticipation, wanting, and motivation.

ThalamusSubcortical
Thalamus

A central relay associated with routing sensory and motor signals across the cortex.

PCC / DMNCortex
Posterior cingulate / default mode

Part of the default mode network, associated with self-referential thought, mind-wandering, and rumination.

M1Sensory
Primary motor cortex

Associated with the planning and execution of voluntary movement.

STGSensory
Superior temporal / auditory-language cortex

Associated with hearing, and with the processing of speech and language.

V1Sensory
Occipital / visual cortex

Associated with early visual processing, including visual metaphor and imagery.

PAGHindbrain
Brainstem / periaqueductal gray

Associated with arousal, autonomic response, and defensive reactions such as freezing or the urge to flee.

CerebellumHindbrain
Cerebellum

Classically motor coordination, increasingly associated with timing and aspects of cognition and affect.

Every association traces to a source. See the full sources list.