DREX Citizen as the Metabolism of the State

Human Behavior Map: from DNA to Body-Territory

A living body does not function only with ideas.

It needs energy.

Each cell receives nutrients, oxygen, chemical signals, and minimum conditions to participate in the organism. It does not receive this as a favor. It receives it because it is part of the body.

Decolonial Neuroscience asks a deeper political question:

What if the State also needed to function as a living metabolism?

In that case, each citizen would not be only a consumer, voter, or worker. Each citizen would be a Body-Territory, a living unit of the State.

And every Body-Territory should participate in the national economic metabolism by right.

Money as social energy

Today, a large part of money is born through debt, bank credit, interest, speculation, and financial intermediation.

This creates an existential problem.

When money is born mainly in banks and debt, the citizen learns to live through scarcity, fear, and economic obedience.

But a country also has other sources of value:

standing forests, protected rivers, biodiversity, scientific knowledge, public data, collective work, care, education, culture, territory, and biomes.

DREX Citizen proposes a shift in political imagination:

part of money can be born in the citizen and in the living territory, not only in debt.

From official Drex to DREX Citizen

The Central Bank of Brazil presents Drex as the Brazilian digital real and as a platform for digital assets, smart contracts, security, and democratized access to financial services.

The BrainLatam2026 proposal goes one step further as a public-policy idea:

DREX Citizen is not only digital currency. It is an Economic Right to Existence.

The central formulation is:

Economic Right to Existence guaranteed by DREX Citizen and by the country’s territorial assets.

This means that every Body-Territory participates in the State’s economic metabolism by right, not as political favor, welfare benefit, or electoral dependency.

Living territory as public asset

A standing forest is not empty land.

A clean river is not an unproductive resource.

Biodiversity is not decoration.

Living territory produces climate, water, food, mental health, ecological stability, belonging, culture, and future.

The decolonial question is:

Who should receive the value produced by living territory?

The Human Behavior Map answer is:

the Body-Territory that inhabits, protects, regenerates, and belongs to the territory.

Metabolism against economic blackmail

When the Body-Territory does not have guaranteed economic participation, it becomes vulnerable.

Vulnerable to hunger.
Vulnerable to debt.
Vulnerable to vote buying.
Vulnerable to polarization.
Vulnerable to fear.

When every Body-Territory participates in the national economic metabolism, politics changes its foundation.

The citizen can choose with less fear.

Can study with more time.

Can care for family better.

Can participate in community.

Can think before obeying.

Can belong without needing to hate.

DREX Citizen, carbon credits, territorial assets, and local PIX circulation can form a new economic layer of the State: a layer that nourishes democracy from the living body.

Economic Human Behavior Map

An economic Human Behavior Map can measure how economic security changes:

sleep, stress, attention, decision-making, cooperation, trust, physical activity, mental health, learning, community participation, and belonging.

This can be studied with:

EEG, fNIRS/NIRS, HRV/RMSSD, GSR, breathing, actigraphy, belonging scales, territorial indicators, and local economic data.

The scientific question becomes:

When the Body-Territory receives guaranteed economic participation, does the body move from vigilance into cooperation?

Scientific references and experimental pathways

Banco Central do Brasil. (2023). “A moeda digital oficial brasileira — Drex: referências básicas.”
This document presents Drex as a platform for digital assets, smart contracts, and democratized access to financial services, offering the technical base for imagining DREX Citizen as expanded public policy.
Experiment: simulate DREX Citizen transaction scenarios and measure trust, decision-making, and stress with prefrontal fNIRS, HRV, and GSR.

Araújo, B. C. (2024). “Drex, ou Real Digital: considerações iniciais.” Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada — IPEA.
This article discusses Drex as a Central Bank platform with digital real, tokenized assets, and institutional challenges, helping differentiate official Drex from DREX Citizen as social metabolism.
Experiment: compare behavioral responses to three economic narratives: bank debt, welfare benefit, and Economic Right to Existence.

Duarte, P. C. (2024). “Enhancing Financial Inclusion in Developing Countries: The Potential of Drex, the Brazilian CBDC.”
This study analyzes the potential of CBDCs for financial inclusion in emerging countries, using Drex as the Brazilian case.
Experiment: test whether simple digital-payment interfaces increase economic agency in young people and adults.

Tigre, P. B., & Paula, L. F. (2025). “Central Bank Digital Currencies and the Drex in Brazil.” Instituto de Economia — UFRJ.
This paper examines Drex in the Brazilian financial environment after Pix and discusses its potential for inclusion, efficiency, and transformation of the payment system.
Experiment: measure with EEG/fNIRS whether economic predictability improves planning, executive control, and decision-making.

Soterroni, A. C., et al. (2023). “Nature-based solutions are critical for putting Brazil on track towards net-zero emissions.” Global Change Biology.
This article shows that nature-based solutions are especially important for Brazil, connecting forests, biodiversity, human well-being, and climate resilience.
Experiment: study communities in green and gray territories using mobile fNIRS, HRV, and environmental belonging scales.

Alves, L. L. M., et al. (2024). “Strategic Analysis of the Forest Carbon Market in Brazil.” Sustainability.
This study highlights opportunities in Brazil’s forest carbon market and the importance of local communities, reinforcing carbon credits as territorial assets of belonging.
Experiment: compare trust, cooperation, and well-being in communities with and without direct participation in carbon projects.

Furtado, F. P. (2024). “In the Name of the Climate: Extractive Capitalism and Carbon Colonialism in Brazil.” Ambiente & Sociedade.
This article warns that carbon policies can reproduce extractive logics when communities are not protected, reminding us that carbon credits must serve living territories rather than green speculation.
Experiment: evaluate whether direct community-benefit models increase belonging and reduce perceived territorial injustice.

Banco Central do Brasil. “Perguntas e respostas — Drex.”
The FAQ explains that people and companies will be able to convert conventional reais into digital reais through authorized institutions, showing that official Drex still depends on regulated institutional design.
Experiment: test different digital-access models and measure comprehension, trust, and perceived economic autonomy.

How to transform this evidence into public policy

If you are running for President of Brazil

Propose the Economic Right to Existence, guaranteed by DREX Citizen, carbon credits, and the country’s territorial assets, so that each Body-Territory directly participates in the national economic metabolism.

If you are running for the Senate

Propose a Legal Framework for DREX Citizen and Territorial Assets, ensuring that biomes, carbon credits, public data, environmental assets, and territorial wealth are linked to the development of Brazilian Body-Territories.

If you are running for Governor

Create State Laboratories of Economic Metabolism and Human Behavior Map, connecting universities, the Central Bank, schools, SUS, municipalities, biomes, and EEG/fNIRS laboratories to measure how economic security changes health, learning, and cooperation.

If you are running for Federal Deputy

Allocate resources to pilot projects involving DREX Citizen, carbon credits with local return, territorial PIX, community bioeconomy, and research on economic behavior, belonging, and mental health.

If you are running for State Deputy

Support programs in schools, neighborhoods, traditional communities, settlements, Indigenous territories, quilombos, and universities to test models of territorial economic participation linked to standing forests, recycling, regenerative agriculture, culture, and citizen science.

Sentences for a government plan

The money of a living country should not be born only from debt; it should also be born from the citizen, the preserved territory, and the living assets of the nation.

Each Body-Territory must participate in the State’s economic metabolism through the Economic Right to Existence.

DREX Citizen is the proposal to transform digital currency, carbon credits, and territorial assets into direct economic energy for life, belonging, and sovereignty.