Contemporary Cognitive Neuroscience Research Articles

Reading in the Brain Revised and Extended: Response to Comments

Reading in the Brain (Les neurones de la lecture, 2007) examined the origins of human reading abilities in the light of contemporary cognitive neuroscience. It argued that reading acquisition, in all cultures, recycles preexisting cortical circuits dedicated to invariant visual recognition, and that the organization of these circuits imposes strong constraints on the invention and cultural evolution of writing systems. In this article, seven years later, I briefly review new experimental evidence, particularly from brain imaging studies of illiterate adults, which indicates that reading acquisition invades culturally universal cortical circuits and competes with their prior function, including mirror‐invariant visual recognition and face processing. In response to my critics, I emphasize how brain plasticity and brain constraints can be reconciled within the Bayesian perspective on learning. I also discuss the importance of a newly discovered gesture system in reading and writing. Finally, I argue that there is consistent evidence for deep cross‐cultural universals in writing systems, as well as for the multiple subtypes of dyslexia that are expected given the broad set of areas recruited by the reading task.

Imaging Emotion in Schizophrenia: Not Finding Feelings in All the Right Places

Imaging Emotion in Schizophrenia: Not Finding Feelings in All the Right Places

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Consciousness, Mysticism and Psi

The greatest contemporary challenge in the arena of cognitive neuroscience concerns the relation between consciousness and the brain. Over recent years the focus of work in this area has switched from the analysis of diverse spatial regions of the brain to that of the timing of neural events. It appears that two conditions are necessary in order for neural events to become correlated with conscious experience. First, the firing of assemblies of neurones must achieve a degree of coherence, and, second, reflexive (i.e. top-down, or reentrant) neural pathways must be activated. It does not, of course, follow that such neural activity causes consciousness; it may be, for example, that the neural activity formats the brain to interact with consciousness. The latter possibility is suggested by analysis of mystical texts suggesting that coherence and reflexivity constitute the conditions for the influx of “spirit.” Kabbalistic sources, for example, describe a hierarchy of “brains” in the human and divine realms through which the principles of coherence and reflexivity operate. Whilst the ontological assumptions of such a scheme place it beyond the realm of psychology, parallels with the picture deriving from the contemporary cognitive neuroscience of consciousness are striking.

Cognitive control deficits in schizophrenia: mechanisms and meaning.

Although schizophrenia is an illness that has been historically characterized by the presence of positive symptomatology, decades of research highlight the importance of cognitive deficits in this disorder. This review proposes that the theoretical model of cognitive control, which is based on contemporary cognitive neuroscience, provides a unifying theory for the cognitive and neural abnormalities underlying higher cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia. To support this model, we outline converging evidence from multiple modalities (eg, structural and functional neuroimaging, pharmacological data, and animal models) and samples (eg, clinical high risk, genetic high risk, first episode, and chronic subjects) to emphasize how dysfunction in cognitive control mechanisms supported by the prefrontal cortex contribute to the pathophysiology of higher cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. Our model provides a theoretical link between cellular abnormalities (eg, reductions in dentritic spines, interneuronal dysfunction), functional disturbances in local circuit function (eg, gamma abnormalities), altered inter-regional cortical connectivity, a range of higher cognitive deficits, and symptom presentation (eg, disorganization) in the disorder. Finally, we discuss recent advances in the neuropharmacology of cognition and how they can inform a targeted approach to the development of effective therapies for this disabling aspect of schizophrenia.

P03-176 - The interpretation of neurosynchrocicity in the Shamanistic healing ritual

The author interprets the neurophenomenology of Korean Shamanistic healing ritual from the perspectives on contemporary cognitive neuroscience and psychoneuroimmunology. In the traditional society of Korea, Shaman's healing performance has been one of the most dominant healing methods for the ordinary people. The field of neuropsychology and psychoneuroimmunology helps to articulate neurocognitive processes of Shamanistic healing ritual.On the cortical level of the human brain, the Shamanistic healing ritual (“Kut”) provides the left-side brain with a structured boundary and, at the same time, activates the right-side brain. On the subcortical level, the channel of the limbic system and the hypothalamus has been harmonized and balanced out to regulate the homeostasis of the human emotion, especially the immune system. The ritual processes of the “Kut” highly activate and sensitize the core function of human emotion, which is biologically connected with a series of neurological channels: the right hemisphere, the limbic system, the hypothalamus and the pituitary.During the “Kut” the participants disclose their painful and traumatic life events and memories. When they discharge and release their painful and traumatic life events, their inner function of the immune system is enhanced in a significant way. Especially, I articulate the neurocognitive processes of “synchronicity,” and suggest some psychotherapeutic effects on releasing the participants' emotional and cognitive pain or oppression (“Han” in Korean) and their clinical anger syndromes (“Whabyong” in Korean) as well as enhancing the immunity of mind as the empowered coping skill.

The Role of Prejudice in Psychopathology and Psychoanalytic History

Psychoanalysis has a checkered history in relation to prejudice. Some psychoanalysts have fought against prejudice in word and deed, while others have promoted bigoted views. Contemporary cognitive neuroscience has shown that we all harbor certain prejudices of which we may be unaware. Our unconscious prejudices may even affect our willingness to act for victims of genocide. The boundary between prejudice and sound moral judgment changes over time. The more diverse the community of psychoanalysts becomes, the more we can be sure that our theory and practice apply fairly to all humanity.

Special Section: Can There Be Such a Thing as Embodied Embedded Cognitive Neuroscience?

Contemporary cognitive neuroscience, for the most part, aims to figure out how cognitive processes are realized in the brain. This research goal betrays the field's commitment to the philosophical position that cognizing is something that the brain does. Since the 1990s, philosophers and cognitive scientists have started to question this position, arguing that the brain constitutes only one of several contributing factors to cognition, the other factors being the body and the world. This latter position we refer to as embodied embedded cognition (EEC). Although cognitive neuroscience's research practice and EEC do not seem to fit well together at present, it is pertinent to ask if a variant of cognitive neuroscience can be developed that sets itself research goals that are more congenial to the EEC view. In this paper we investigate this possibility. We put forth a new guiding metaphor of the role of the brain in cognitive behavior to replace the current cognitivist metaphor of the brain as an information-processing device. We also identify a research agenda that naturally arises from our metaphor. In this way we hope to provide an impetus for cognitive neuroscientists to pursue an EEC-inspired research program.

What is the role of motor simulation in action and object recognition? Evidence from apraxia

An important issue in contemporary cognitive neuroscience concerns the role of motor production processes in perceptual and conceptual analysis. To address this issue, we studied the performance of a large group of unilateral stroke patients across a range of tasks using the same set of common manipulable objects. All patients (n = 37) were tested for their ability to demonstrate the use of the objects, recognize the objects, recognize the corresponding object-associated pantomimes, and imitate those same pantomimes. At the group level we observed reliable correlations between object use and pantomime recognition, object use and object recognition, and pantomime imitation and pantomime recognition. At the single-case level, we document that the ability to recognize actions and objects dissociates from the ability to use those same objects. These data are problematic for the hypothesis that motor processes are constitutively involved in the recognition of actions and objects and frame new questions about the inferences that are merited by recent findings in cognitive neuroscience.

Blushing and the philosophy of mind

The introduction, an imaginary dialogue between a philosopher and a scientist, is followed by a brief discussion of the interactions between science, philosophy, and religion. Next comes an analysis of the three most popular philosophies of mind: classical mind–body dualism, computerism, and psychoneural monism. It is argued that the latter, held by medical psychologists since Hippocrates, and formulated explicitly by Cajal and Hebb, is the philosophy of mind that underlies contemporary cognitive and affective neuroscience. The standard objections to psychoneural monism (or materialism) are examined. Evolutionary psychology, though promissory, is judged to be more fancy than fact at its present stage. The conclusion is that the philosophy of mind is still in a poor shape, but that it can advance if it learns more from the science of mind. It would also help if scientific psychologists were to replace such tacitly dualistic expressions as “organ N instantiates (or subserves) mental function M” with “organ N performs mental function M”, just as we say “the legs walk” instead of “walking is subserved by legs,” and “the lungs breathe” instead of “the lungs instantiate breathing.”

Pre-reflective self-as-subject from experiential and empirical perspectives

In the first part of this paper I characterize a minimal form of self-consciousness, namely pre-reflective self-consciousness. It is a constant structural feature of conscious experience, and corresponds to the consciousness of the self-as-subject that is not taken as an intentional object. In the second part, I argue that contemporary cognitive neuroscience has by and large missed this fundamental form of self-consciousness in its investigation of various forms of self-experience. In the third part, I exemplify how the notion of pre-reflective self-awareness can be of relevance for empirical research. In particular, I propose to interpret processes of sensorimotor integration in light of the phenomenological approach that allows the definition of pre-reflective self-consciousness.

Movement Matters: The Contributions of Esther Thelen

Traditional theories of intelligence and its development concentrated on symbolic reasoning, paying little attention to the body and to the ways intelligence affects and is affected by the physical world. Esther Thelen (1941–2004) was a maverick who argued against that traditional view for the idea that intelligence is both made in and realized through physical actions on the world. This once singular position is now known as the embodiment hypothesis and has become a major organizing theme in contemporary cognitive science, neuroscience, and development (see, for example, Smith and Gasser

Dissociable Realization and Kind Splitting

It is a common assumption in contemporary cognitive neuroscience that discovering a putative realized kind to be dissociably realized (i.e., to be realized in each instance by two or more distinct realizers) mandates splitting that kind. Here I explore some limits on this inference using two deceptively similar examples: the dissociation of declarative and procedural memory and Ramachandran's argument that the self is an illusion.

Psychobiological basis of empathy

Empathy represents one of the basic forms of human expression. Empathy evolved to facilitate social behavior. The perception action model, extended to empathy, is an exciting paradigm in which to undertake contemporary cognitive and comparative neuroscience. It renders the perception of events as an active affair, both when watching others, and when performing actions.

Mind beyond the Net: Implications of Cognitive Neuroscience for Cultural Psychiatry

Contemporary cognitive neuroscience underscores the importance of a non-reductionist analysis of the interactions of person and environment. Recent advances hold the prospect of integrating analyses of social, psychological, and neural determinants of mental disorders in one coherent scientific framework based on an action-and agent-centered view of mind, brain, and behavior. This review describes the conceptual basis of research in cognitive neuroscience paying special attention to the value of different levels of explanation. It then discusses consequences for methods and frameworks of scientific explanation in cultural psychiatry and psychological medicine.

Psychoneural isomorphism: Historical background and current relevance

Abstract The relevance of Wolfgang Kohler's psychoneural isomorphism principle to contemporary cognitive neuroscience is explored. Kohler's approach to the mind—body problem is interpreted as a response to the foundational crisis of psychology at the beginning of the twentieth century. Some aspects of his isomorphism doctrine are discussed, with a view to reaching an interpretation that is both historically accurate and pertinent to issues currently debated in the philosophy of psychology. The principle was meant to be empirically verifiable. Accordingly, some similarities between Kohler's approach and current neural network modeling are pointed out, and it is shown that some recent trends in the neurosciences are broadly compatible with Kohler's views on cortical functioning. Isomorphism is interpreted as a form of neuroreductionism constrained by bridging laws relating mental phenomena to macrosocopic parameters of neural function. While isomorphism is probably valid for perceptual phenomena, its applic...