Mind-brain Relationship Research Articles

A Preparatory Neuroethical Approach to Assessing Developments in Neurotechnology

The unknowns of the brain-mind relationship and the novelty of neurologic techniques and technologies give rise to ethical questions that can be described, analyzed, and answered using a preparatory neuroethical framework to mitigate potential problems.

An Anti-Thought about Neurobiological Approach in Psychiatry

Psychiatry has been continuously evolving and changing. Given the continued ambiguity of the brain-mind relationship, unresolved questions remain of 1) how can, and perhaps should psychiatry proceed to formulate a viable system of characterizing mental normality and abnormality, and 2) how might such formulation affect the scope and tenor of psychiatric practice? Such questions are not esoteric or merely academic. Rather, in light of ongoing progress in genetics and neurobiology these questions reveal genuine challenges, and form the groundwork upon which a new diagnostic schema for, and definition of psychiatric profession and approach might be constructed [2].

La Metafísica de la mente de A. Kenny: 25 años después

A. Kenny’s Metaphysics of Mind : 25 years later To mark the 25th anniversary of A. Kenny’s The Metaphysics of Mind , this article discusses some of the central arguments of this book, in particular, it discusses Descartes’ dualism, the notion of soul or Aristotle’s psyche , human and animal language, voluntary action, the self, the mind-brain relation, thinking and intentionality, and determinism and free will. The author holds that, although Kenny’s book offers valid and substantial arguments inspired in Wittgenstein’s thought and the Aristotelian tradition, he occasionally fails to appreciate the depth of basic concepts in the Aristotelian tradition such as that of psyche and the immateriality of the human intellect. Despite this, the book constitutes one of the best efforts to break off with Descartes’ and the empiricists’ ideas, and to incorporate the Aristotelian tradition to the contemporary philosophy of mind.

Almost 40 years investigating near-death experiences: an overview of mainstream scientific journals.

This article reviews mainstream scientific publications on near-death experiences (NDEs). We searched near-death experience in titles, key words, and abstracts at the Web of Knowledge database published between 1945 and 2013. We identified 266 relevant documents, the oldest from 1977. There was a strong predominance of opinion articles (book reviews, commentaries, and editorials), review articles, phenomenological description articles, and articles that originated in the United States. Since 2000, the number of longitudinal and cross-sectional studies has increased; there has been a diversification in the countries that have published on the subject and more articles that discuss the implications of NDEs for the mind-brain relationship. The results indicate that most scholarly publications on NDEs are recent, usually have no original empirical data, and are concentrated in North America and Western Europe. Future studies should focus on increasing the cultural diversity in the field and on testing explanatory hypotheses based on high-quality empirical data.

Stimulating the Self: The Influence of Conceptual Frameworks on Reactions to Deep Brain Stimulation

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is generally considered to have great practical potential. Yet along with its remarkable efficacy, which is currently being tested in application to many pathologies, come a certain number of complications. In particular, there seem to be several adverse psychological implications behind a relevant number of postoperative situations. Whether these effects have to be attributed to a reactive response to a new situation or whether they are caused by the stimulation itself, or both, remains to be elucidated. This article takes up this issue, and evaluates how various views and conceptual schemes concerning the mind–brain relationship might play a role in the ensuing (mal)adaptation to DBS treatment. It is valuable to investigate the relationship between different conceptual assumptions and the onset of psychosocial maladaptations in clinical settings. In particular, we hypothesize that the frequently reported maladaptations might be partially caused by a concep-tual shift away from dualism and toward a “neurocentric” materialism, promoted by the scientific explanation of the pathological situation. This article examines which conceptual framework is likely to play a dominant role in the perception of the general public of how the mind relates to the brain, and how this contrasts with the opinions of experts in cognitive neuroscience. We investigate how these different conceptual frameworks might play a role in the occurrence of psychosocial maladaptations to DBS treatment in clinical settings. Finally, we suggest how a more inclusive, embodied embedded stance toward the mind–brain relationship might help to overcome such maladaptations.

Biomania: Benefits, Risks, and Challenges

As a tongue-in-cheek expression of protest, the author uses the term biomania to characterize excessive enthusiasm for exclusively biological approaches to psychiatry, while fully appreciating the increasingly vital contributions of neuroscience to the profession. Advocating science-informed humanism, the article brings to bear psychological and philosophical thinking on age-old problems now informed by neuroscience, including free will, the mind–brain relation, and the nature of consciousness. All these problems are pertinent to understanding patients and to educating them and their family members in this age of biological psychiatry. Clinicians in all mental health disciplines must strive to balance science and humanism in their therapeutic endeavors without sacrificing either to the other. This article provides some guidance for that aspiration.

Entre o filósofo e o cientista: poderá uma máquina sentir saudade?

Neuroscience is a field that is growing increasingly in the world and comes in revealing with great detail the workings of the hu­man brain. Already the philosophy of mind is the area that deals with more conceptual discussions about what neuroscience usually address empirically, ie, brain-mind relationship, consciousness, the nature of mind and so on. The book Among the Philosopher and scientist: a machine can miss? shows how the integration of this knowledge is important to think about both areas (philosophy of mind and neuroscience), introducing basic concepts and contro­versies of philosophy and applying them to empirical questions.

Thinking in circuits: toward neurobiological explanation in cognitive neuroscience.

Cognitive theory has decomposed human mental abilities into cognitive (sub) systems, and cognitive neuroscience succeeded in disclosing a host of relationships between cognitive systems and specific structures of the human brain. However, an explanation of why specific functions are located in specific brain loci had still been missing, along with a neurobiological model that makes concrete the neuronal circuits that carry thoughts and meaning. Brain theory, in particular the Hebb-inspired neurocybernetic proposals by Braitenberg, now offers an avenue toward explaining brain–mind relationships and to spell out cognition in terms of neuron circuits in a neuromechanistic sense. Central to this endeavor is the theoretical construct of an elementary functional neuronal unit above the level of individual neurons and below that of whole brain areas and systems: the distributed neuronal assembly (DNA) or thought circuit (TC). It is shown that DNA/TC theory of cognition offers an integrated explanatory perspective on brain mechanisms of perception, action, language, attention, memory, decision and conceptual thought. We argue that DNAs carry all of these functions and that their inner structure (e.g., core and halo subcomponents), and their functional activation dynamics (e.g., ignition and reverberation processes) answer crucial localist questions, such as why memory and decisions draw on prefrontal areas although memory formation is normally driven by information in the senses and in the motor system. We suggest that the ability of building DNAs/TCs spread out over different cortical areas is the key mechanism for a range of specifically human sensorimotor, linguistic and conceptual capacities and that the cell assembly mechanism of overlap reduction is crucial for differentiating a vocabulary of actions, symbols and concepts.

Investigating the Fit and Accuracy of Alleged Mediumistic Writing: A Case Study of Chico Xavier’s Letters

The study of mediumship is important because if mediumistic abilities were real, they would provide empirical support for non-reductionist theories of the mind, thus having major implications to our understanding of the mind-brain relationship. This study investigated the alleged mediumship of Chico Xavier, a very prolific and influential "medium" in Brazil. To investigate the accuracy of the information conveyed in Xavier's "psychographed" letters (i.e., letters allegedly authored by a deceased personality) and to explore the possible explanations for it. After a systematic search for Xavier's psychographed letters, we selected one set of 13 letters allegedly written by a same spiritual author (J.P.). The letters were initially screened for the identification of items of information that were objectively verifiable. The accuracy of the information conveyed by these items and the estimated likelihood of the Xavier's access to the information via ordinary means were rated using Fit and Leak scales based on documents and interviews carried out with the sister and friends of J.P. We identified 99 items of verifiable information conveyed in these 13 letters; 98% of these items were rated as "Clear and Precise Fit" and no item was rated as "no Fit." We concluded that ordinary explanations for accuracy of the information (i.e., fraud, chance, information leakage, and cold reading) were only remotely plausible. These results seem to provide empirical support for non-reductionist theories of consciousness.

Memórias de uma vida passada?

Contexto : Há crianças que alegam ter memórias de uma vida passada. Se essas supostas memórias puderem ser verificadas, elas poderão ser bastante relevantes para a questão da relação mente-cérebro. Elas poderão indicar que a memória não está apenas armazenada no cérebro e que a mente pode existir sem um cérebro e ainda assim reter algumas de suas memórias. Essas possibilidades são contrárias ao que atualmente se sabe sobre memória e sua dependência do funcionamento cerebral. Objetivos : Testar se um pesquisador independente obteria achados comparáveis aos de Stevenson (Universidade da Virgínia) que publicou um grande números desses casos. Métodos : Entrevistar as crianças que faziam afirmações consistentes sobre uma vida passada e as pessoas que haviam testemunhado as crianças fazerem essas declarações. Três estudos psicológicos compararam crianças com e sem alegadas memórias de uma vida passada. Resultados : Em dois dos três casos apresentados, foi encontrada uma pessoa falecida cujas características eram compatíveis com as afirmações das crianças sobre uma vida anterior. Psicologicamente, essas crianças diferem das outras crianças, mostrando sinais de Transtorno de Estresse Pós-Traumático, provavelmente por causa das alegadas lembranças de como elas morreram em acidentes ou foram assassinadas. Conclusões : As características dos casos de “memória de vida passada” fazem com que estas sejam relevantes para a questão da relação mente-cérebro.

The mind-brain relationship as a mathematical problem.

This paper aims to frame certain fundamental aspects of the human mind (content and meaning of mental states) and foundational elements of brain computation (spatial and temporal patterns of neural activity) so as to enable at least in principle their integration within one and the same quantitative representation. Through the history of science, similar approaches have been instrumental to bridge other seemingly mysterious scientific phenomena, such as thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, optics and electromagnetism, or chemistry and quantum physics, among several other examples. Identifying the relevant levels of analysis is important to define proper mathematical formalisms for describing the brain and the mind, such that they could be mapped onto each other in order to explain their equivalence. Based on these premises, we overview the potential of neural connectivity to provide highly informative constraints on brain computational process. Moreover, we outline approaches for representing cognitive and emotional states geometrically with semantic maps. Next, we summarize leading theoretical framework that might serve as an explanatory bridge between neural connectivity and mental space. Furthermore, we discuss the implications of this framework for human communication and our view of reality. We conclude by analyzing the practical requirements to manage the necessary data for solving the mind-brain problem from this perspective.

Implications of spiritual experiences to the understanding of mind–brain relationship

ObjectiveWhile there has been a large increase in scientific studies on spirituality, there has been too few of studies of the core of spirituality: spiritual experiences (SE), which often involve altered states of consciousness, reports of anomalous experiences and of consciousness beyond the body. This paper argues that SE, although usually neglected in debates regarding mind–brain relationship (MBR), may provide the much needed enlargement of the empirical basis for advancing the understanding of the MBR. MethodsThis paper briefly presents and discusses recent scientific investigations on some types of SE (meditative states, end of life and near death experiences, mediumship and alleged memories of previous lives) and their implications to MBR. ResultsNeurofunctional studies of SE have shown that they are related to but not necessarily caused by complex functional patterns in several brain areas. The study of meditative states, as voluntarily induced mind states that influence brain states has been a privileged venue to investigate top-down (mind over brain) causation. End of life and near death experiences offer cases of unexpected adequate mental function under severe brain damage and/or dysfunction. Scientific investigations of several types of SE have provided evidence against materialistic reductionist views of mind. ConclusionsThe recent trend to scientifically investigate SE has already produced interesting and thought-provoking findings that deserve careful further exploration. Because of their potential implication, these findings may also contribute to the understanding of MBR, which remains an important, yet poorly explored way to investigate human nature.

A Disorder of a Vulnerable Self: Anorexia Nervosa Patients’ Understanding of Disorder and Self in the Context of fMRI Brain Scanning

In this article, we aim to explore patient perspectives regarding the etiology of anorexia nervosa (AN) in the context of participating in brain research for AN. This is a qualitative study using semistructured interviews with 12 young AN patients. Data were analyzed according to thematic analysis method. This study shows that patients’ language used to express their understanding of the etiology of AN was characterized by psychological terms such as personality, self-esteem, control, and coping rather than neuroscientific terms.Participants held a complex understanding of the causes of AN, acknowledging a brain–mind relationship. However, participants expressed the hope that brain sciences could contribute to identify an objective, physical proof for AN, that would validate their illness, increase understanding, and reduce blame. The study suggests that prevailing biological explanations promoted by brain research did not encourage simplistic perspectives on causation among patients. Instead, patients viewed biological-based theories and brain science as a means of validating their illness.

A Unified Theory of Mind-Brain Relationship: Is It Possible?

The mind-body relationship has vexed philosophers of mind for quite a long time. Different theories of mind have offered different points of view about the interaction between the two, but none of them seem free of ambiguities and questions. This paper attempts to use a mathematical model for mind-body relationship. The model may generate some questions to think about this relationship from the viewpoint of operator theory.

Are microglia minding us? Digging up the unconscious mind-brain relationship from a neuropsychoanalytic approach

The unconscious mind-brain relationship remains unresolved. From the perspective of neuroscience, neuronal networks including synapses have been dominantly believed to play crucial roles in human mental activities, while glial contribution to mental activities has long been ignored. Recently, it has been suggested that microglia, glial cells with immunological/inflammatory functions, play important roles in psychiatric disorders. Newly revealed microglial roles, such as constant direct contact with synapses even in the normal brain, have defied the common traditional belief that microglia do not contribute to neuronal networks. Recent human neuroeconomic investigations with healthy volunteers using minocycline, an antibiotic with inhibitory effects on microglial activation, suggest that microglia may unconsciously modulate human social behaviors as “noise.” We herein propose a novel unconscious mind structural system in the brain centering on microglia from a neuropsychoanalytic approach. At least to some extent, microglial activation in the brain may activate unconscious drives as “psychological immune memory/reaction” in the mind, and result in various emotions, traumatic reactions, psychiatric symptoms including suicidal behaviors, and (psychoanalytic) transference during interpersonal relationships. Microglia have the potential to bridge the huge gap between neuroscience, biological psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis as a key player to connect the conscious and the unconscious world.

Explorando a relação mente-cérebro: reflexões e diretrizes

CONTEXTO: O avanco no entendimento da mente e sua relacao com o cerebro tem sido prejudicado por equivocos filosoficos e metodologicos. OBJETIVO: Discutir brevemente e propor diretrizes epistemologicas e metodologicas para uma frutifera investigacao da relacao mente-cerebro. RESULTADOS: A relacao mente-corpo ainda e um problema em aberto, nao havendo evidencias conclusivas de que a mente seja apenas um produto da atividade cerebral. Na exploracao da mente, deve-se evitar a aceitacao ou rejeicao prematura de teorias, buscando nao apenas evidencias confirmatorias, mas tambem as falseadoras de uma teoria. Deve-se ampliar e diversificar a base empirica, buscando especialmente experiencias humanas nao usuais, tais como as chamadas experiencias anomalas ou espirituais. A observacao de fenomenos anomalos que nao se encaixavam nos paradigmas estabelecidos foi essencial em revolucoes cientificas previas. Tanto dados quantitativos quanto qualitativos devem ser valorizados. Para explicar a mente e suas multiplas manifestacoes, e essencial haver abertura e rigor para criar, desenvolver e testar alternativas teoricas. Candidatos a paradigma de base tanto materialista quanto nao materialista devem ter oportunidade de ser apresentados, aprimorados e testados. CONCLUSAO: A ampliacao e a diversificacao da base empirica aliada a uma postura epistemologica e metodologica mais adequada sao essenciais para o avanco da compreensao da relacao mente-cerebro.

Exploring frontiers of the mind-brain relationship

Exploring frontiers of the mind-brain relationship

Exploring frontiers of the mind-brain relationship

Foreword R. Cloninger.- Preface A. Moreira-Almeida, F. Santana Santos.- Part I. Philosophy and History.- Materialism's eternal return: recurrent patterns of materialistic explanations of mental phenomena S. de Freitas Araujo.- The major objections from reductive materialism against belief in the existence of cartesian mind-body dualism R. Almeder.- Psychic Phenomena and the Mind-Body Problem: Historical Notes on a Neglected Conceptual Tradition C. S. Alvarado.- Part II - Physics.- No-collapse Physics and Consciousness C. J. S. Clarke.- The 'Quantum Soul' - A Scientific Hypothesis S. Hameroff and D. Chopra.- Part III - Functional Neuroimaging.- The Neurobiological Correlates of Meditation and Mindfulness J. Edwards, J. Peres, D. A. Monti, and A. Newberg.- Functional Neuroimaging Studies of Emotional Self-Regulation and Spiritual Experiences M. Beauregard.- Part IV - Human Experiences as Promising lines of investigation of Mind-brain relationship.- Near-Death Experiences and the Mind-Brain Relationship P. Fenwick.-Death, end of life experiences and their theoretical and clinical implications for the mind-brain relationship P. Fenwick and F. Santana Santos.- Research on Mediumistic and the Mind-Brain Relationship A. Moreira-Almeida.- Cases of the Reincarnation Type and the Mind-Brain Relationship E. Haraldsson.- Conclusion A. Moreira-Almeida, F. Santana Santos.

Mind and brain: a critical appraisal of cognitive neuroscience

The search for mind-brain relationships, with a particular emphasis on distinguishing hyperbole from solid empirical results in brain imaging studies.Cognitive neuroscience explores the relationship between our minds and our brains, most recently by drawing on brain imaging techniques to align neural mechanisms with psychological processes. In Mind and Brain, William Uttal offers a critical review of cognitive neuroscience, examining both its history and modern developments in the field. He pays particular attention to the role of brain imaging?especially functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)?in studying the mind-brain relationship. He argues that, despite the explosive growth of this new mode of research, there has been more hyperbole than critical analysis of what experimental outcomes really mean. With Mind and Brain, Uttal attempts a synoptic synthesis of this substantial body of scientific literature. Uttal considers psychological and behavioral concerns that can help guide the neuroscientific discussion; work done before the advent of imaging systems; and what brain imaging has brought to recent research. Cognitive neuroscience, Uttal argues, is truly both cognitive and neuroscientific. Both approaches are necessary and neither is sufficient to make sense of the greatest scientific issue of all: how the brain makes the mind.

Ethics and neuroscience

More than 20 years ago, the late Professor Stuart Sutherland, reviewing Gerald Edelman’s The Remembered Present on the neurobiology of consciousness, wrote the following opinion: It is a characteristic of ageing brain scientists to turn their minds to the problem of consciousness: Sir John Eccles, Roger Sperry and Sir Charles Sherrington are examples. Gerald M. Edelman, who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1972 for his work on immunology and who has more recently been doing research on the brain, has now joined their ranks. While their ambition is admirable, the result is usually lamentable. Yet the intervening decades have seen a proliferation of research programmes in the field of consciousness, with modest advances in some basic areas of cognitive neuroscience: work on vegetative state and post-coma cognitive capacities; explorations of emotions, physical awareness and vision; perception and intentionality, memory and learning. At the same time, many books have flowed from the laptops of ‘neurophilosophers’ proposing explanations for the deeper mysteries of consciousness: the mind–brain relationship, free will; our sense of being ‘selves’ or ‘souls’; the possibility of objective moral truths; the tendency for more than a few of us to be religious and believe in the immortality of our ‘souls’. Are their theories worth the effort of keeping abreast with them; do they constitute anything like a set of agreed qualitative conclusions? The current genre of neuroscientifically informed writings on philosophy of mind, mostly marked by a reductive and eliminative spirit, began in earnest back in the late 1980s and early 1990s with titles such as Roger’s Penrose’s The Emperor’s New Mind (1989), Dan Dennett’s Consciousness Explained (1991) and Francis’s Crick’s The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search For The Soul (1994). The concerted aim at the time was to quash, with the aid of new brain …