Primitive Aspects Research Articles

A formal model of primitive aspects of cognition and learning in cell biology as a generalizable case study of the threefold logic of Peircean semiotics in natural systems

A formal model of primitive aspects of cognition and learning in cell biology as a generalizable case study of the threefold logic of Peircean semiotics in natural systems

The antiemetic actions of GIP receptor agonism.

Nausea and vomiting are primitive aspects of mammalian physiology and behavior that ensure survival. Unfortunately, both are ubiquitously present side effects of drug treatments for many chronic diseases with negative consequences on pharmacotherapy tolerance, quality of life, and prognosis. One of the most critical clinical examples is the profound emesis and nausea that occur in patients undergoing chemotherapy, which continue to be among the most distressing side effects, even with the use of modern antiemetic medications. Similarly, antiobesity/diabetes medications that target the glucagon-like peptide-1 system, despite their remarkable metabolic success, also cause nausea and vomiting in a significant number of patients. These side effects hinder the ability to administer higher dosages for optimal glycemic and weight management and represent the major reasons for treatment discontinuation. Our inability to effectively control these side effects highlights the need to anatomically, molecularly, and functionally characterize novel neural substrates that drive and inhibit nausea and emesis. Here, we discuss clinical and preclinical evidence that highlights the glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide receptor system as a novel therapeutic central target for the management of nausea and emesis.

The Portal: Framing and Neutrality in the Age of Virtual Treatment

The author proposes that the concept of framing activity provides a useful approach to neutrality by synthesizing relational approaches with an extension of José Bleger’s (1967, 2012) conceptualization of the frame as containing primitive aspects of the analysand. She argues that the analytic frame also serves as a depository, or bulwark, for the analyst’s ideological alignments. Identifying how ongoing framing activity is in tension with this bulwark affords a means of approaching, interrogating, and “doing” neutrality that elaborates the flexibility and self-reflection that contemporary psychoanalytic thinking seeks to bring to an earlier, more rigid idea of “the frame.” Clinical vignettes focus on framing and its connection to neutrality in the context of remote treatments.

Equilibration and "Thermalization" in the Adapted Caldeira-Leggett Model.

I explore the processes of equilibration exhibited by the Adapted Caldeira–Leggett (ACL) model, a small unitary “toy model” developed for numerical studies of quantum decoherence between an SHO and an environment. I demonstrate how dephasing allows equilibration to occur in a wide variety of situations. While the finite model size and other “unphysical” aspects prevent the notions of temperature and thermalization from being generally applicable, certain primitive aspects of thermalization can be realized for particular parameter values. I link the observed behaviors to intrinsic properties of the global energy eigenstates, and argue that the phenomena I observe contain elements which might be key ingredients that lead to ergodic behavior in larger more realistic systems. The motivations for this work range from curiosity about phenomena observed in earlier calculations with the ACL model to much larger questions related to the nature of equilibrium, thermalization, and the emergence of physical laws.

The perverse and the psychotic superego

ABSTRACT In this contribution I will sustain that, given its origin, meaning and function, the superego is readily susceptible to the pathological distortions observed in clinical psychoanalytic work. After all, while we as psychoanalysts are unacquainted with the “normal” superego, we are accustomed to seeing patients with either an abnormal sense of guilt or a seeming absence of guilt. However, a distinction must first be drawn between the primitive superego and its pathological counterpart. Whereas some clinical situations involve a superego whose primitive aspects feature prominently in the foreground, in other cases one encounters psychopathological structures that do not stem from the primitive superego, even if they share the latter's seductive, dominant or intimidatory aspects.

Cranial endocast of the stem lagomorph Megalagus and brain structure of basal Euarchontoglires.

Early lagomorphs are central to our understanding of how the brain evolved in Glires (rodents, lagomorphs and their kin) from basal members of Euarchontoglires (Glires + Euarchonta, the latter grouping primates, treeshrews, and colugos). Here, we report the first virtual endocast of the fossil lagomorph Megalagus turgidus, from the Orella Member of the Brule Formation, early Oligocene, Nebraska, USA. The specimen represents one of the oldest nearly complete lagomorph skulls known. Primitive aspects of the endocranial morphology in Megalagus include large olfactory bulbs, exposure of the midbrain, a small neocortex and a relatively low encephalization quotient. Overall, this suggests a brain morphology closer to that of other basal members of Euarchontoglires (e.g. plesiadapiforms and ischyromyid rodents) than to that of living lagomorphs. However, the well-developed petrosal lobules in Megalagus, comparable to the condition in modern lagomorphs, suggest early specialization in that order for the stabilization of eye movements necessary for accurate visual tracking. Our study sheds new light on the reconstructed morphology of the ancestral brain in Euarchontoglires and fills a critical gap in the understanding of palaeoneuroanatomy of this major group of placental mammals.

The Wish to Never End: Grappling with the Termination of an Infant observation And its Relevance to Clinical Work

This paper uses a psychoanalytic infant observation to highlight the significance of grappling with endings. It describes the termination of a two‐year relationship with a child and his mother, who were observed weekly by the author. The content of the ending process is extrapolated to apply to infant observations in general, with implications for termination of psychoanalytic psychotherapy treatments with patients of any age as well as personal relationships. Transference and countertransference reactions and enactments evoked during the prelude to termination are considered. Vignettes from the infant observations illuminate important crossroads during the termination process. The paper also illustrates the resilient capacity that a child (and by extension the child part of an adult) can have to experience, process and bear the ending of a relationship, as well as to continue to hold that relationship internally. This glimpse into one child's, one mother's and one observer's experience of separating from each other demonstrates the ways primitive aspects of the psyche may be activated during a termination. Finally, Donald Meltzer's concept of three‐dimensional interior space and Bion's idea of open‐ended reality are applied, indicating how relationships that have ended may be contained within one's psyche, enduring beyond their ending.

Primeiros diálogos no grande tempo

O objetivo deste trabalho é o de oferecer uma sugestão de ensino de literatura para o Ensino Médio, recuperando aspectos primitivos de sua história para buscar uma contextualização de seu conceito e da extensão da importância de seu ensino, pois a literatura pode ser reconhecida como uma das necessidades básicas do ser humano, que fabula e fantasia. Para tal, parte-se de um resgate conceitual com amparo na ideia de cronotopo e do diálogo no grande tempo, de Bakhtin, e na sua exemplificação, estabelecendo um diálogo entre algumas formas primitivas de narrativa, os chamados “mitos da criação”.

Unique Dental Morphology of Homo floresiensis and Its Evolutionary Implications.

Homo floresiensis is an extinct, diminutive hominin species discovered in the Late Pleistocene deposits of Liang Bua cave, Flores, eastern Indonesia. The nature and evolutionary origins of H. floresiensis’ unique physical characters have been intensively debated. Based on extensive comparisons using linear metric analyses, crown contour analyses, and other trait-by-trait morphological comparisons, we report here that the dental remains from multiple individuals indicate that H. floresiensis had primitive canine-premolar and advanced molar morphologies, a combination of dental traits unknown in any other hominin species. The primitive aspects are comparable to H. erectus from the Early Pleistocene, whereas some of the molar morphologies are more progressive even compared to those of modern humans. This evidence contradicts the earlier claim of an entirely modern human-like dental morphology of H. floresiensis, while at the same time does not support the hypothesis that H. floresiensis originated from a much older H. habilis or Australopithecus-like small-brained hominin species currently unknown in the Asian fossil record. These results are however consistent with the alternative hypothesis that H. floresiensis derived from an earlier Asian Homo erectus population and experienced substantial body and brain size dwarfism in an isolated insular setting. The dentition of H. floresiensis is not a simple, scaled-down version of earlier hominins.

The analytic setting today: using the couch or the chair?

This paper re-visits Murray Jackson's 1961 paper in the Journal of Analytical Psychology, 'Chair, couch and countertransference', with the aim of exploring the role of the couch for Jungian analysts in clinical practice today. Within the Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP) and some other London-based societies, there has been an evolution of practice from face-to-face sessions with the patient in the chair, as was Jung's preference, to a mode of practice where patients use the couch with the analyst sitting to the side rather than behind, as has been the tradition in psychoanalysis. Fordham was the founding member of the SAP and it was because of his liaison with psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts that this cultural shift came about. Using clinical examples, the author explores the couch/chair question in terms of her own practice and the internal setting as a structure in her mind. With reference to Bleger's (2013) paper 'Psychoanalysis of the psychoanalytic setting', the author discusses how the analytic setting, including use of the couch or the chair, can act as a silent container for the most primitive aspects of the patient's psyche which will only emerge in analysis when the setting changes or is breached.

Descriptions of the dental remains of <i>Homo floresiensis</i>

Dental remains of Homo floresiensis excavated during 2002–2004 at Liang Bua, Flores, Indonesia, consist of one partial maxillary dentition, two nearly complete mandibular dentitions, and four isolated teeth. We present here morphological descriptions of all these specimens and report aspects of their dentition, occlusion, and oral health condition. This dental assemblage represents probably five but possibly four or six individuals. These different individuals share similar dental characteristics, supporting the view that the Liang Bua H. floresiensis assemblage represents a single population. We also reassess the previous claims for primitive and modern aspects of the H. floresiensis teeth. The previous studies reached conflicting conclusions: some researchers claim that these teeth are fully modern, whereas others highlight premolar and other morphologies that suggest their direct evolutionary link with the African earliest form of Homo or Australopithecus rather than with H. erectus. Neither of these views are supported. The H. floresiensis teeth exhibit a mosaic of primitive, derived, and unique characters, with the reported primitive aspects broadly comparable to the morphologies observed in H. erectus sensu lato. Although a more comprehensive comparative analysis is needed to fully illustrate dental morphological affinities of this dwarfed hominin species, we find no grounds for the hypothesis that H. floresiensis originated from the small-bodied, primitive hominins such as H. habilis sensu lato.

The return of the native: racialised space, colonial debris and the human zoo

This article takes Zurich’s Masoala Halle as an example to show how the spatial redistribution of whiteness, as Sara Ahmed calls it, is tied to a specific use of science and the scientific through two interconnected arguments. First, the difference between the scientific human and the ‘native informant’ is taken up. As Gayatri Spivak’s account of the native informant indicates, the displaying of whiteness relies on the racialised Other who stands in for the premodern ways of life as well as the basic and primitive aspects of human existence. Second, the current return of representations of the native Other to zoo exhibitions, as exemplified by the Zurich Zoo, needs to be seen within the trajectory of the human zoos of the late nineteenth century that were crucial for the popular establishment of a racialised gaze, which drew heavily on the emerging scientific approach to the world and vice versa.

Small-molecule uptake in membrane-free peptide/nucleotide protocells

The spontaneous phase separation of peptide/nucleotide droplets in water produces membrane-free chemically organized micro-compartments that offer new opportunities for the construction of synthetic cells and development of protocell models of prebiotic organization. Certain small molecules can be sequestered into the droplet interior but the uptake mechanisms are unexplored. Using confocal fluorescence microscopy, 31P NMR spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy and lateral molecular force microscopy, we probe the molecular interactions associated with sequestration of the water-soluble fluorescent anionic dye 1-anilinonapthalene-8-sulphonic acid (ANS) into positively charged oligolysine/ATP coacervate micro-droplets. Our results indicate that uptake of ANS proceeds initially through electrostatic interactions involving a ternary ANS/oligolysine/ATP complex, followed by a secondary mechanism based on non-polar interactions between ANS and ATP. We demonstrate that at very high levels of ANS the hybrid droplets develop a thin outer shell that is mechanically more compliant than the droplet interior, and acts as a quasi-membrane for restricting the influx of methylene blue. Our results suggest that understanding the mechanisms of molecular uptake into coacervate droplets could provide an important step towards the rational design of molecularly crowded microscale dispersions that display complex fluid behavior, compartment-mediated functionality and primitive aspects of synthetic cellularity.

Fuego festivo, humo sagrado: Las luminarias de San Antón en Tierra de Pinares (Ávila)

The feast-day of Anthony the Abbot, better known simply as St Anthony, is still celebrated in many Spanish towns and villages on 17 January every year. In the depths of winter, traditionally a period of rest from agricultural labour, people light bonfires in a renewal and purification ritual whose origins lie in the religious practices of Ancient Rome. In the village of San Bartolome de Pinares, in the province of Avila, the St Anthony celebrations have not only survived, but have seen a resurgence of interest in recent years. Information gathered from interviews carried out in 2008 gives greater insight into the primitive aspects of the feast-day (“setting the village free from the forces of evil”) as well as into its gradual secularisation.

News from Brazil: psychoanalytic observation and its seminar group as a space for the integration of splitting aspects in the parent-infant relationship1

This paper initially describes a network of expansion and spreading of Esther Bick′s contributions, mainly her infant observation method, among professionals involved with studying and working with early relationships, considering developments within the field of therapeutic consultations and early intervention (Winnicott, Lebovici), in São Paulo, Brazil. Starting from the experience of professionals with the psychoanalytic observation method (Bick/Tavistock/Mélega), infant observation groups have been formed, contributing to deepening and enriching training in several fields. The experience of the observers and the supervision group is here discussed, as containing spaces for working through primitive aspects and splitting processes in the contact of parent-infant relationships. Vignettes of weekly observations are presented: a baby who evoked concern about his development, whose parents seemed to benefit from the observer′s attitude of looking and getting in contact with painful perceptions, and a baby of an adolescent single mother to whom different worlds struggle for integration, in an ambivalent construction of her maternal function, and to whom the observer represents a possibility of less splitting and acting-outs. The modulating and mediating function of the observer′s mind and the amplifying resonance within the supervision group are demonstrated, facilitating access to elements of our internal worlds not always readily available to our conscious contact with the external world.

Social intelligence in tufted capuchin monkeys

Tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella), a species of New World primates, are known to be adept at various complex tool use both in the laboratory and in the wild. With their manual dexterity, they work as a helper for quadriplegic people. Social intelligence hypothesis, which places social intelligence as a major factor to advance complex information processing capability, predicts advanced social intelligence in this species with highly developed physical intelligence. In this paper, I describe a series of studies on social intelligence of this species in our comparative cognition laboratory at Kyoto University. As a competitive aspect of social intelligence, we analyzed spontaneous deceptive behavior between the monkeys. Two monkeys, dominant and subordinate, faced each other in the transparent boxes and two food cups were placed between them. When the subordinate monkey opened the baited cup, the dominant opponent was able to usurp the food. Some of the subordinates started to open the empty cup first: a behavior that could be interpreted as a deceptive act. As a cooperative aspect, we showed that two monkeys cooperated by dividing a sequence of behavior necessary to obtain rewards. This behavior continued even when only one of the participants received a reward if their roles were switched every trial; a reciprocal altruism was shown. To examine whether such complicated social behaviors reflect processes of mentalizing, we asked whether capuchin monkeys have cognitive components underlying them. We found that the monkeys are capable of recognizing attentional states of humans, inferring consequences of other's behavior, recognizing other's knowledge status, inferring the cause of other's emotional expression, and recognizing other's welfare. Thus these primitive aspects of mentalizing are clearly shared in species that is much more distant from humans than apes.

Self-conscious emotion deficits in frontotemporal lobar degeneration

Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is a neurodegenerative disease associated with dramatic changes in emotion. The precise nature of these changes is not fully understood; however, we believe that the most salient losses relate to self-relevant processing. Thus, FTLD patients exhibit emotional changes that are consistent with a reduction in self-monitoring, self-awareness and the ability to place the self in a social context. In contrast, other more primitive aspects of the emotional system may remain relatively intact. The startle response is a useful way to examine the precise nature of emotional deficits in neurological patients. In addition to a stereotyped defensive response (characterized by negative emotional facial behaviour and physiological activation), in many individuals it also evokes embarrassment, a self-conscious emotional response. Embarrassment seems to occur as the person becomes aware that the reaction to the startle was excessive and was observed by others. Because the self-conscious response depends on certain regions in frontal cortex, we expected that FTLD patients would have specific deficits in their self-conscious response. To test this notion, we examined the response of 30 FTLD patients and 23 cognitively normal controls to a loud, unexpected acoustic startle stimulus (115-dB burst of white noise). Emotional behaviours were measured along with an assessment of somatic, electrodermal, cardiovascular and respiratory responses. Results indicated that FTLD patients and controls were similar in terms of physiological responses and negative emotional facial behaviour to the startle, indicating that the defensive aspect of the startle was preserved. However, there were profound differences in the self-conscious response. FTLD patients showed significantly fewer facial signs of embarrassment than controls. This deficit in self-conscious response could not be explained by sex, cognitive status, age, education, medication, or differences in the negative emotional behaviour or physiological response. Thus, the emotional deficit in FTLD patients' response to the startle suggests a reduction in self-consciousness. These findings suggest that the emotional deficit in FTLD may be most profound in higher-order processes akin to those involved in the generation of embarrassment. These deficits are consistent with neural loss in the medial prefrontal cortex, which may play an important role in the production of self-conscious emotions. Disrupted self-conscious emotions in FTLD patients may have clinical importance because these deficits may underlie some of the socially inappropriate behaviours that are common in these patients.

Reality shows: uma abordagem psicossocial

Desde os primórdios da civilização, o ser humano mostra necessidade de representar cenicamente seus dramas pessoais e vicissitudes existenciais. O "reality show" é uma das versões pós-modernas da encenação da vida humana. Este artigo, por meio de uma pesquisa bibliográfica, analisa criticamente as relações existentes entre o "reality show" e aspectos psicossociais do comportamento humano. Conclui-se que tais programas televisivos são o retrato da contemporaneidade, ou seja, revelam a morte do sujeito, a fugacidade das experiências vividas, a desvalorização da história e o culto à imagem e à superficialidade. Por meio da sedução do espectador, mobilizam-se aspectos primitivos de seu psiquismo, fazendo com que ele se sinta narcisicamente poderoso e onipotente e se acredite dono do destino dos participantes do programa. Sugerem-se novos estudos que contribuam para a reflexão crítica e maior conscientização.

Taxonomic affinities and evolutionary history of the early Pleistocene hominids of Java: Dentognathic evidence

Temporal changes, within-group variation, and phylogenetic positions of the Early Pleistocene Javanese hominids remain unclear. Recent debate focused on the age of the oldest Javanese hominids, but the argument so far includes little morphological basis for the fossils. To approach these questions, we analyzed a comprehensive dentognathic sample from Sangiran, which includes most of the existing hominid mandibles and teeth from the Early Pleistocene of Java. The sample was divided into chronologically younger and older groups. We examined morphological differences between these chronological groups, and investigated their affinities with other hominid groups from Africa and Eurasia. The results indicated that 1) there are remarkable morphological differences between the chronologically younger and older groups of Java, 2) the chronologically younger group is morphologically advanced, showing a similar degree of dentognathic reduction to that of Middle Pleistocene Chinese H. erectus, and 3) the chronologically older group exhibits some features that are equally primitive as or more primitive than early H. erectus of Africa. These findings suggest that the evolutionary history of early Javanese H. erectus was more dynamic than previously thought. Coupled with recent discoveries of the earliest form of H. erectus from Dmanisi, Georgia, the primitive aspects of the oldest Javanese hominid remains suggest that hominid groups prior to the grade of ca. 1.8-1.5 Ma African early H. erectus dispersed into eastern Eurasia during the earlier Early Pleistocene, although the age of the Javanese hominids themselves is yet to be resolved. Subsequent periods of the Early Pleistocene witnessed remarkable changes in the Javanese hominid record, which are ascribed either to significant in situ evolution or replacement of populations.

Knowledge and experience of time in primitive mental states

The author proposes that time be considered an object of working through during the psychoanalysis of patients whose mental functioning reveals distinct primitive aspects. These so‐called ‘difficult patients’ are particularly intolerant of the temporal limits of analytic sessions and often attempt to undermine the analytic setting. He presents some hypotheses about time and the mind's depth levels. A series of clinical vignettes taken from the analysis of adolescent, borderline and psychotic patients shows several ways in which the analysand's perception of and relation to time surfaces and is worked through in the course of analysis. Analyzing the relationship with time and the conflict between denial and acceptance of temporality proved a significant catalyst in the development of cases that had tenaciously impeded progress. It thus became possible to bring about important changes in the ways such patients experienced affect in the analytic relationship and in object relations, not by acting directly upon these relationships but by working instead on the formal parameters that organize the mind–and primarily on its spatio‐temporal organization.