Tekoha, APUS and the Right to Live Where the Body Breathes

Human Behavior Map: from DNA to Body-Territory

Imagine entering an area of the Atlantic Forest with no trail.

The body observes.

The body listens.

The body feels the ground.

Among leaves, branches, roots, stones, vines and trees, a silent question emerges:

where can life continue?

A root becomes support.

An opening between leaves becomes direction.

A space between branches becomes a path.

A leaning trunk becomes reference.

Movement is born from the perception of possibilities.

When attention finds passage, the body moves.

When the body perceives a path, APUS expands.

When APUS expands, Tekoha begins to breathe.

This insight from the forest helps us understand Blog 9.

The Body-Territory moves better when it perceives what it can do, where it can pass, how it can adjust the step and how it can continue with presence.

Attention that searches for paths expands APUS.

Attention trapped in obstacles narrows APUS.

Therefore, in the Human Behavior Map, the right to live where the body breathes is also the right to form a Tekoha capable of perceiving possibilities.

Tekoha: APUS Living Inside the Body

Tekoha is the place where one lives.

And it is also the living memory of APUS inside the body.

It is the internal representation of Extended Proprioception.

It is what the Body-Territory has learned to feel as world, home, food, custom, belief, group, danger, desire, belonging and future.

In the Damasian Mind, the mind is born from the relationship between interoception and proprioception.

In the Human Behavior Map, this relationship expands:

Interoception + Proprioception = Damasian Mind.
Extended Proprioception = APUS.
APUS internalized in the body = Tekoha.

Tekoha is territory turned into bodily memory.

It is APUS living inside interoception.

The house stays inside the body.

Food stays inside the body.

School stays inside the body.

Language stays inside the body.

Belief stays inside the body.

Landscape stays inside the body.

The group stays inside the body.

Joy stays inside the body.

Hope stays inside the body.

Fear also stays inside the body.

All of this forms Tekoha.

Yãy hã mĩy and the Formation of Tekoha

Tekoha is born through living.

It is formed by Yãy hã mĩy, a concept of Maxakali origin that we work with as the process of imitating oneself into being in order to transcend oneself into being.

The child learns by imitating.

Imitates the gaze.

Imitates the tone of voice.

Imitates food.

Imitates gesture.

Imitates courage.

Imitates prayer.

Imitates anger.

Imitates the way of loving.

Imitates the way of obeying.

Imitates the way of belonging.

Each imitation leaves marks in the body.

These marks form internal paths.

These internal paths form Tekoha.

The human being imitates.

And can also transcend what was imitated.

When we perceive a belief, a custom, a tension or a fear as something learned, the possibility of Metacognition opens.

At that moment, Tekoha stops being automatic repetition and becomes a path of transformation.

We welcome our own history.

We perceive our own history inside the body.

And then we can choose better what continues to move us.

APUS: the Field of Possible Movements

APUS is Extended Proprioception.

Traditional proprioception allows us to perceive the position of the body: hand, foot, spine, head, movement.

But the human body also feels space.

It feels the wall too close.

It feels the unsafe street.

It feels the tight room.

It feels the cold school.

It feels the welcoming square.

It feels the breathing forest.

It feels the landscape opening the future.

APUS is the field of possible movements perceived by the Body-Territory.

In the forest, APUS is perceiving where the foot can find support.

At school, APUS is perceiving where attention can grow.

At home, APUS is perceiving where the body can rest.

In the city, APUS is perceiving where coexistence can happen.

In politics, APUS is perceiving where collective life can organize itself.

When this APUS is repeated many times, it becomes bodily memory.

That memory is Tekoha.

Paper, Stone and Scissors: a Game to Understand the Brain

The Human Behavior Map uses the game Paper, Stone and Scissors to offer children, adolescents and adults a simple way to perceive how their own brain may be activating in each moment.

Stone, Scissors and Paper are modes of organization of the Body-Territory.

The game becomes a pedagogical language.

A child can ask:

am I in Stone?

am I in Scissors?

am I in Paper?

This question already opens Metacognition.

It helps perceive the body itself functioning.

It helps perceive thought itself moving.

It helps perceive when the group expands or narrows the possible paths.

Stone: Speed, Automatism and Protection

Stone is speed.

Stone is action.

Stone is automatism.

Stone is the fast thinking described by Daniel Kahneman.

The body perceives.

The body reacts.

The body decides.

The body replicates.

The body protects.

The body attacks.

The body freezes.

The body flees.

The body executes.

In Zone 1, Stone is fundamental.

It allows walking, driving, cooking, writing, playing piano, responding to danger and performing repeated tasks efficiently.

Stone offers speed to the Body-Territory.

It sustains much of everyday life.

In the forest, Stone appears when the body quickly adjusts the step.

The root appears.

The foot responds.

The branch touches the arm.

The body shifts.

Stone works in favor of life.

Scissors: Cutting, Classification and Discernment

Scissors is analysis.

Scissors is cutting.

Scissors is classification.

Scissors is scrutiny.

Scissors is Kahneman’s slow thinking.

Here, the prefrontal cortex becomes central.

The person compares.

Organizes.

Questions.

Classifies.

Separates.

Chooses.

Scissors allows discernment.

It helps separate belief from evidence, impulse from decision, fear from reality, path from automatic repetition.

In scientific research, Scissors is essential.

In public policy, Scissors is essential.

In education, Scissors is essential.

In everyday life, Scissors helps the Body-Territory perceive with greater precision.

This Scissors Tensional Self may be accompanied by intense focus, shorter and higher breathing, an increase in CO₂ from approximately 40 to 45 mmHg and cerebral vasodilation, especially in prefrontal regions involved in control, classification and decision-making.

Scissors produces precision.

But in the game Paper, Stone and Scissors, Stone defeats Scissors.

This reminds us that, after analyzing, classifying, cutting and planning, the Body-Territory needs to return to doing.

Stone embodies practical action.

It transforms what was planned into gesture, movement, attempt, execution and experience.

But Stone also needs to meet Paper.

Because Paper defeats Stone.

Paper opens Fruition and Metacognition over embodied action.

This is where we question blind faith in a plan, a custom, a belief or a way of doing that may be sustained by cognitive biases.

Thus, the game teaches:

Scissors analyzes.

Stone acts.

Paper contemplates, perceives and expands.

The healthy cycle of the Body-Territory is to analyze, act, perceive and transform.

Paper: Fruition, Metacognition and Zone 2

Paper is the connectome of Fruition with Metacognition.

It is the state in which doing and being contemplate each other.

Action continues happening.

And the body perceives the action happening.

Being perceives doing.

Doing reveals being.

Here appears high-performance Yãy hã mĩy.

It is imitating oneself into being in order to transcend oneself into being with presence, belonging and internal freedom.

In Zone 2, the following appear:

Fruition.

Metacognition.

Criticality.

Belonging.

Creativity.

Breathing.

Presence.

Choice.

In Zone 2, the person perceives their Tensional Selves and chooses how to use them.

They perceive:

“this is my Teacher Self, and I am more than it.”

“this is my Political Self, and I am more than it.”

“this is my Wounded Self, and I am more than it.”

“this is my Self that learned to obey, and I am more than it.”

This is where Tekoha can be seen.

And when Tekoha can be seen, it can be transformed.

Zone 1: the Tensional Selves in Task

In Zone 1, the Tensional Selves are active to perform tasks.

The Teacher Self.

The Researcher Self.

The Father Self.

The Mother Self.

The Musician Self.

The Political Self.

The Driver Self.

The Worker Self.

These Tensional Selves organize movement, attention, posture, language, memory, energy and decision.

In a healthy Zone 1, the body assumes the tension required for doing.

The action finds its own closure.

The body performs the task.

The body returns the tension to the territory.

The next moment can be born whole.

Zone 2: When the Group Becomes a Force of Belonging

In Zone 2, belonging sustains internal freedom.

The group expands paths.

The group welcomes.

The group protects.

The group distributes strength.

The group sustains trust.

The group regulates life.

This is where True Jiwasa emerges.

In Zone 2, the deep experience is:

I am the strength of the group that moves me.

This preserves the self.

And reveals the we.

The group lives in me.

I live in the group.

And both remain capable of Metacognition.

True Jiwasa allows the person to move with the group while preserving criticality.

It allows belonging and thinking.

It allows cooperation and creation.

It allows action and contemplation.

It allows being the strength of the group and receiving strength from the group.

Zone 3: When the Space of Movement Narrows

In Zone 3, the body begins to carry into the next step tensions that belonged to the previous step.

Attention begins to gravitate around threats, guilt, shame, urgency, enemies, debts, desires and fears.

The group organizes direction.

Organizes identity.

Organizes obedience.

Organizes attack.

Organizes defense.

Organizes freezing.

Here appears False Jiwasa.

The person feels collective strength.

Attention remains occupied.

Tensions remain active.

Fruition loses space.

Metacognition loses space.

Criticality decreases.

Internal freedom weakens.

The Body-Territory begins to be moved by the needs, fears and hatreds of the group.

Tekoha begins to carry marks from other moments.

The body carries into the present tensions built in other contexts.

These tensions guide perception, emotion and decision.

The body obeys an old belief.

The body defends a group that may have already changed its function.

The body repeats tensions from a previous moment in another moment that asks for another body.

Stone in Zone 3: Speed with Little Space for Choice

In Zone 3, Stone can take over decision-making with little space for Metacognition.

The person responds quickly.

Responds with certainty.

Repeats the group.

And believes they are thinking for themselves.

This is one of the deepest mechanisms of the colonization of belonging.

The body automates what the group taught it to fear.

Then calls it truth.

In the forest, when attention becomes occupied by obstacles, the body stiffens.

Movement decreases.

APUS narrows.

Stone takes over.

The body freezes.

In social life, something similar happens.

When attention is occupied by enemies, threats, shame and debts, possible movements decrease.

The person continues acting.

But acts inside a narrow corridor.

Healthy Tekoha expands paths.

Fragile Tekoha narrows paths.

Healthy Tekoha: Memory of Possible Paths

The right to live where the body breathes is the right to housing, city, nature and also the formation of a healthy Tekoha.

A Tekoha capable of sustaining Zone 2.

A Tekoha capable of returning to Fruition.

A Tekoha capable of perceiving its Tensional Selves.

A Tekoha capable of recognizing when the group has become capture.

A Tekoha capable of finding paths in the forest, at school, in the city, in politics and inside the body itself.

Healthy Tekoha is memory of possible paths.

It is APUS reminding the body that passage still exists.

What Recent Brain Works Are Showing

The works presented at the Brain Behavior and Emotions congresses between 2021 and 2025 help us perceive this contemporary landscape.

Many investigate phenomena that appear when the Body-Territory loses regulation.

Problematic smartphone use.

Gaming disorder.

Chemical dependency.

Compulsions.

Emotional suffering.

University mental health.

Isolation.

Physical activity.

Negative symptoms.

Autonomic regulation.

Brain interventions.

Social functionality.

We need to praise these researchers.

They are looking at real bodies, real students, real patients, real symptoms and concrete Brazilian or Latin American populations.

What BrainLatam2026 adds is a new question:

which of these phenomena express fragile Tekoha and a reduction of possible movements?

When the street disappears,

when the square no longer gathers,

when the forest moves away,

when adults stop being living references,

the screen assumes the role of formative territory.

The algorithm begins to dispute Yãy hã mĩy.

When adolescents lose school belonging, the algorithm offers immediate belonging.

When economic stability becomes fragile, attention begins to gravitate around survival.

The body reorganizes priorities.

Tekoha also reorganizes itself.

When politics transforms everything into an enemy, Stone assumes fast decisions.

When the city offers little space to walk, play, rest and coexist, the Body-Territory looks for compensations.

Thus, digital dependency, excessive gaming, compulsions and emotional suffering can also be reread as symptoms of a Tekoha crisis.

A crisis appears in the internal and external territory that should allow Fruition, Metacognition, criticality and true belonging.

Tekoha and Science

Contemporary science is already beginning to measure parts of this phenomenon.

The neuroscience of interoception shows how the brain monitors internal states of the body.

Proprioception shows how movement and body position sustain perception and action.

Embodied cognition shows that thinking happens with the body.

Research on environment and mental health shows that space, nature, noise, safety, light and coexistence affect attention, stress and well-being.

Research on physical activity shows that the body in movement modifies mental health.

Research on digital dependency and gaming shows that virtual environments can capture reward, attention and belonging.

Research with fNIRS, EEG, HRV, GSR, breathing and eye-tracking allows us to measure how body, brain and environment couple together.

Thus, the question expands:

what Tekoha is being formed inside the Body-Territory?

Scientific References and Experimental Paths

Damasio, A. “The Strange Order of Things.”
Damasian theory supports the mind as a bodily, affective and regulatory process.
Experiment: measure how environments and territorial memories modify bodily reports, sense of safety, breathing, HRV and decision-making.

Berntson, G. G., & Khalsa, S. S. “Neural Circuits of Interoception.” Trends in Neurosciences.
Interoception shows how the brain monitors internal states of the body.
Experiment: observe whether memories of home, school, neighborhood, religion and group alter interoceptive perception, GSR, breathing and prefrontal activity.

Kahneman, D. “Thinking, Fast and Slow.”
The distinction between fast thinking and slow thinking helps translate Stone and Scissors into accessible language for children and adolescents.
Experiment: use fast-decision and reflective-decision tasks, associated with EEG, fNIRS, HRV and breathing, to observe transitions between Stone, Scissors and Paper.

Mondardo, M. Works on Tekoha and Guarani territory.
The concept of Tekoha helps understand territory as way of life, culture, struggle, memory and belonging.
Experiment: compare affective maps of territory among urban, Indigenous, rural and peripheral youth.

Mura, F. “O Tekoha como categoria histórica.”
Tekoha appears as a historical and relational category, not only as physical space.
Experiment: investigate how family narratives, food, beliefs and displacement form bodily memories of belonging.

Kaplan, S., & Kaplan, R. “The Experience of Nature.”
Attention Restoration Theory suggests that natural environments favor attentional recovery.
Experiment: compare attention tasks before and after a closed room, urban square, forest and intense digital exposure.

Ulrich, R. S. “View Through a Window May Influence Recovery from Surgery.” Science.
The classic study showed an association between a view of nature and more favorable hospital recovery.
Experiment: test whether natural landscapes reduce bodily tension, GSR and respiratory frequency compared to dense urban environments.

Twohig-Bennett, C., & Jones, A. “The health benefits of the great outdoors.” Environmental Research.
The review associates exposure to green spaces with different health indicators.
Experiment: track HRV, sleep, mood, physical activity and belonging in people with different levels of access to green areas.

Jimenez, M. P., et al. “Associations between Nature Exposure and Health.”
The review discusses associations between nature and physical, mental and social health.
Experiment: compare groups with low, medium and high weekly exposure to nature, measuring attention, GSR, HRV, breathing and belonging scales.

Brain Behavior and Emotions works from 2021–2025 on smartphone use, gaming, dependency, mental health, physical activity, negative symptoms and social functionality.
These works help observe how contemporary behaviors may indicate loss of bodily, social and territorial regulation.
Experiment: reinterpret these phenomena through the lens of Tekoha, verifying whether access to nature, welcoming schools, community belonging, collective physical activity and reduced digital capture decrease risk of suffering and compulsion.

BrainLatam2026 Experimental Proposal

Central question:

do environments that expand APUS and strengthen healthy Tekoha increase Zone 2, Paper, Fruition, Metacognition, criticality, creativity and True Jiwasa, reducing the narrowing of possible movements associated with Zone 3, False Jiwasa and automated Stone?

Experimental design:

Compare four conditions:

closed room without nature;
room with natural elements;
tree-lined urban square;
natural environment or forest.

Also compare three social states:

cooperative group with trust;
competitive group with threat;
polarized group with symbolic enemy.

Participants:

adolescents;
university students;
teachers;
older adults;
community groups.

Tasks:

sustained attention;
working memory;
creative task;
collective decision circle;
cooperative physical activity;
controlled exposure to social media;
Body-Territory report;
affective map of the neighborhood;
identification of Tensional Selves;
Fruition and Metacognition exercise;
Paper, Stone and Scissors game as a language of self-observation.

Measures:

prefrontal fNIRS;
EEG;
EEG microstates;
HRV/RMSSD;
GSR;
breathing;
SpO₂;
eye-tracking;
accelerometry;
speech analysis;
belonging scales;
safety scales;
creativity scales;
problematic smartphone use scales;
gaming scales;
measures of polarization and belief rigidity.

Hypothesis:

environments with nature, safety, spatial openness, coexistence and true belonging will increase Zone 2 markers: better autonomic regulation, greater attentional stability, greater creativity, greater Metacognition and greater cooperation.

Environments of threat, polarization, digital capture and fragile belonging will increase Zone 3 markers: greater rigidity, greater automatism, higher GSR, lower HRV, lower cognitive flexibility and greater predominance of fast responses associated with Stone.

How to Transform This Evidence into Public Policy?

If you are a candidate for President of the Republic

Propose the National Tekoha-APUS Body-Territory Program, integrating housing, schools, SUS, culture, sports, standing forest, Citizen DREX, territorial carbon credit and prevention of digital capture to guarantee the Right to Live Where the Body Breathes.

If you are a candidate for the Senate

Propose a Legal Framework for the Right to Body-Territory, recognizing green areas, air quality, safety for walking, living schools, local culture, territorial mental health, protection of childhood against algorithmic capture and community belonging as foundations of the Secular Democratic State.

If you are a candidate for Governor

Create State Tekoha-APUS and Human Behavior Map Centers, connecting universities, schools, SUS, architecture, urbanism, traditional communities and EEG/fNIRS laboratories to measure how territory, landscape, environment, belief and group affect mental health, learning, creativity and Zone 2.

If you are a candidate for Federal Representative

Allocate resources to multicenter research on city, nature, school, fNIRS, EEG, HRV, GSR, breathing, eye-tracking, Tekoha, Zone 2, Zone 3, digital dependency, youth and mental health.

If you are a candidate for State Representative

Support pilot projects in schools, neighborhoods, Indigenous villages, quilombos, health units and public squares to create territories of Fruition, community gardens, educational trails, care circles, living libraries, collective sports, local culture and safe spaces for coexistence.

Citizen DREX and the Economic Right to Remain in the Territory

The economy also shapes Tekoha.

When a person needs to abandon their city, family, forest, neighborhood, culture or landscape just to survive, the Body-Territory breaks.

And when the Body-Territory breaks, Tekoha is also wounded.

That is why Citizen DREX enters as the economic metabolism of the State.

It can be thought of as the minimum energy needed to keep the body alive in the living territory.

When combined with carbon credit, standing forest, local economy, school, health, culture and belonging, Citizen DREX can reduce economic obedience and strengthen the right to live where the body breathes.

The economy can allow each Body-Territory to flourish with dignity.

Phrases for a Government Plan

Tekoha is the living memory of APUS inside the body.

APUS is Extended Proprioception; Tekoha is when this extension becomes memory, food, belief, custom, belonging and way of being.

The right to live where the body breathes is also the right to form a healthy Tekoha.

Stone is speed, protection and automatism.

Scissors is cutting, classification and discernment.

Paper is Fruition, Metacognition and belonging in Zone 2.

Zone 2 is when the body belongs with Fruition, Metacognition, criticality and True Jiwasa.

True Jiwasa is feeling: I am the strength of the group that moves me, with internal freedom.

Zone 3 is when the space of possible movements narrows and the body begins to carry old tensions into new moments.

A healthy city is one that allows its bodies to breathe, learn, coexist and create.

Healthy Tekoha sustains belonging.

Fragile Tekoha opens space for belonging to be replaced by consumption, fear, debt or polarization.

Citizen DREX is the minimum economic metabolism for the body to remain alive in its territory.

True public policy asks what kind of body, mind, Tekoha and belonging each public work will produce.

Tekoha, APUS and Jiwasa form a triad for the State of the future: living territory, situated body and collective life regulated with criticality.