Somatic Representation Research Articles

Somatic Representation of Emotional Problems among Native Kyrgyz Speakers

IntroductionThe somatization problem has been one of the most acute in mental health for half a century (Kirmayer, L., 2000). Patients with somatic complaints turn to specialists in various fields but rarely to psychologists and psychiatrists, although the connection between bodily suffering and psychological difficulties sometimes lies on the surface (Molchanova E., 2016). In the last twenty years, the mechanisms of somatization have been considered by several disciplines, one of which is cultural psychiatry, which has become relevant.Unfortunately, most of the research focuses on the cultural characteristics of migrants living in the United States (Groleau, D. and Kirmayer, L. 2004). There needs to be more research on the cultural features of somatization in Kyrgyz culture.ObjectivesThe goal of the study is to discover the distinctive features of the process of somatization in Kyrgyz cultureThe objectives are:To create a vocabulary of somatic phrases and idioms used to represent somatic problems to find the most commonly used somatic idioms for emotional complaints by native speakers of the Kyrgyz language.To describe the mechanism of transformation of the emotional symptom into a specifically located and presented somatic complaint.MethodsThe research used a mixed, qualitative, and quantitative design.The first stage is qualitative, including ten semi-structured interviews with linguists, culturologists, historians, and specialists in folk art.The second stage included four focus groups (12 people in each group) with a follow-up analysis. The recruitment of respondents was carried out through social networks, announcements, and the snowball method.The third stage was quantitative. With the help of the dictionary compiled at the first stage, 250 participants ranked the frequency of somatic idioms, which were used to express the emotional problemsResultsThere have been found more than 200 somatic idioms, which are used to present emotional problems. The most frequent ones describe the heart, liver, and joints. Heart metaphors are associated with despair and anxiety, joints - with depression, and liver metaphors - with some personality characteristics, such as conformity and kindness. The created map of somatic representation of emotional problems shows the most frequent localization of somatic symptoms in disorders featuring somatic symptoms in native Kyrgyz speakers.ConclusionsThere is a culturally shaped specifics of somatic representations of emotional problems among native Kyrgyz speakers. More research needs to be conducted to interpret the nature of people’s emotional problems represented by somatic symptoms.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Cielesne reprezentacje zaburzeń odżywiania w utworach „Oto ciało moje” Aleksandry Pakieły oraz „Mleko i głód” Melissy Broder

The article presents a comparative analysis of the literary works Oto ciało moje (This is my body) by Aleksandra Pakieła and Milk Fed by Melissa Broder, focusing on the concept of somatopoetics as conceptualized by Anna Łebkowska. It interprets the somatic representations of the protagonists’ mental crises, which extend beyond typical acts of body disciplining associated with eating disorders. Highlighting the protagonists’ unsatisfied need for physical and emotional closeness to their mothers, a need sublimated through the pleasure derived from the texture and warmth of meals, the article also reflects on the relationship between compulsive eating, a result of prolonged starvation, and increased sexual desire, a theme emphasized in both works. These drives are linked to the heroines’ desires to deepen their connection with their bodies and restore somatopsychic coherence. While Pakieła’s protagonist is on the path to recovery, Broder’s protagonist disturbingly transitions from anorexia to binges, entwined with overwhelming lust. In this context, descriptions of her lover’s body, often likened to food, serve to objectify the other person.

«Язык» тела: тело в трансляции сенсорной информации в традиционном мировоззрении тюрко-монгольских народов

The article aims to study the information context of the body signs and the perception of this information by Inner Asian nomads in terms of man and nature interaction. Methods. The research is based on general scientific methods and particular methods of historical science, such as the historical-comparative research method and the method of cultural-historical reconstruction. Materials. In terms of studies of humans as social and biological beings, it is relevant to examine the human body in the system of traditional somatic representations of the Turkic-Mongolian peoples of Inner Asia. In their worldview, the human body represents a specialized “map” of messages of a physiological nature, where organs and body parts were seen as symmetrical and their messages were perceived as negative or positive, depending on location on the left or on the right. Of relevance was also whether the sign came from the upper or lower part of a particular organ. Special attention was paid to the “movements” of the liver and the heart. Conclusions. The study shows that the world that surrounds a person appeared as a complex multidimensional information space, with sensory information playing an important part in its perception. This information was not limited to images created by the senses. In fact, the entire body, including internal organs, was perceived as such a conductor, with various manifestations of a physiological nature, such as trembling, noises, itching, and pains serving as “messages”. Individuals that had special body sensitivity were described as those of “open flesh” or of “light bones”; these were usually the only child in the family or one of the twins.

Abstract 2227: Pan-cancer shedding patterns of tumor circulating cell free DNA

Abstract Introduction: Tumor circulating cell-free DNA (ctDNA) comprises DNA molecules cast from tumors that reach and survive in a patient's bloodstream. Given its non-invasive nature, the liquid biopsy of ctDNA has remarkable potential for diagnosis, prognosis, disease progression tracking, and treatment monitoring. Nonetheless, little is known about which tumor features yield higher representation of ctDNA in blood or even which regions in the tumor genome are more inclined to shed and thus be observed as ctDNA. Typically, studies of ctDNA have focused on a limited and well-established set of genes and recurrent variants. However, these limited gene panels may not capture the breadth of genetic alterations that reflect tumor biology. Their limited footprint hinders a comprehensive understanding of tumor heterogeneity, mechanisms of resistance, and DNA shedding patterns. To address these limitations, we developed a whole-exome scale cfDNA platform, NeXT Liquid Biopsy™, that enables sensitive detection and tracking of mutations in over twenty thousand genes from plasma samples. Results: Here we profile over 50 tumor, normal, and plasma matched samples using NeXT Liquid Biopsy to investigate pan-cancer patterns of DNA shedding. We observe varying levels of ctDNA shedding in plasma, suggesting that tracking tumors with an exome-scale set of variants, as opposed to with a targeted panel, can benefit greatly from the higher sensitivity and granularity of our enhanced exome sequencing. Next, we sought to investigate the patterns of somatic variants representation in plasma. For this, we integrate shedding ratios with transcriptome and epigenome data from healthy paired tissues and examine variant shedding biases associated with transcription rate and histone modifications in associated nucleosomes. Conclusion: We sequenced and analyzed one of the largest tumor, normal, and plasma cohorts to date with comprehensive coverage of somatic variants across all human genes. Our results suggest that tracking exome-scale somatic variants adds invaluable information to understand a tumor's biology. Moreover, our comprehensive coverage of the tumor genome can be used to unveil biases of tumor genome shedding patterns. We are able to investigate the shedding ratio across distinct genomic features deriving, to our knowledge, the first exome scale pan-cancer shedding resource of the human genome. Citation Format: Fabio C. P. Navarro, Simo Zhang, Mengyao Tan, Charles Abbott, Josette Northcott, John Lyle, Gabor Bartha, Jason Harris, John West, Richard Chen, Sean Michael Boyle. Pan-cancer shedding patterns of tumor circulating cell free DNA [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2021; 2021 Apr 10-15 and May 17-21. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(13_Suppl):Abstract nr 2227.

Distinct Illness Representation Profiles Are Associated With Anxiety in Women Testing Positive for Human Papillomavirus.

BackgroundTesting positive for human papillomavirus (HPV) at cervical cancer screening has been associated with heightened anxiety. To date, the cognitive determinants of heightened anxiety remain unclear, making it difficult to design effective interventions.PurposeThis study investigated latent illness representation profiles in women testing positive for HPV with no abnormal cells (normal cytology) and explored associations between these profiles and anxiety.MethodsWomen aged 24–66 (n = 646) who had tested HPV-positive with normal cytology at routine HPV primary screening in England completed a cross-sectional survey shortly after receiving their result.ResultsLatent profile analysis identified three distinct profiles of illness representations (termed “adaptive,” “negative,” and “negative somatic”), which differed significantly in their patterns of illness perceptions. Hierarchal linear regression revealed that these latent illness representation profiles accounted for 21.8% of the variance in anxiety, after adjusting for demographic and clinical characteristics. When compared with adaptive representations (Profile 1), women with negative representations (Profile 2) and negative somatic representations (Profile 3) had significantly higher anxiety, with clinically meaningful between-group differences (mean difference [MD] = 17.26, confidence interval [CI]: 14.29–20.22 and MD = 13.20, CI: 9.45–16.96 on the S-STAI-6, respectively).ConclusionThe latent illness representation profiles identified in this study provide support for the role of negative beliefs contributing to anxiety in women testing HPV-positive with normal cytology. Characteristics specific to subgroups of highly anxious women (Profiles 2 and 3) could be used by policymakers to target information in routine patient communications (e.g., test result letters) to reduce unnecessary burden. Future research should adopt longitudinal designs to understand the trajectory of illness representations from HPV diagnosis through to clearance versus persistence.

FROM ABSENCE TO RE(-)PRESENTATION: A READING OF THE FEMALE SUBALTERN’S BODY IN COETZEE’S WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS

This research paper explores an alternative mode of knowledge-production for the representation of the barbarian girl in Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians. In light of Chandra Mohanty’s critique pertaining the prominent academic methodologies that subsume all Third World women as homogenous and ahistorical subject of academic investigation, the paper offers an epistemological production of the barbarian girl’s representation without committing the act of ‘epistemic violence’: perceived from the realm of the metatextual instead from that of the textual, the girl’s somatic representation via its ‘presence by absence’ is recalcitrant and unyielding against the violence of imperialism.

Development of somatic mutation signatures for risk stratification and prognosis in lung and colorectal adenocarcinomas

BackgroundPrognostic signatures are vital to precision medicine. However, development of somatic mutation prognostic signatures for cancers remains a challenge. In this study we developed a novel method for discovering somatic mutation based prognostic signatures.ResultsSomatic mutation and clinical data for lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and colorectal adenocarcinoma (COAD) from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were randomly divided into training (n = 328 for LUAD and 286 for COAD) and validation (n = 167 for LUAD and 141 for COAD) datasets. A novel method of using the log2 ratio of the tumor mutation frequency to the paired normal mutation frequency is computed for each patient and missense mutation. The missense mutation ratios were mean aggregated into gene-level somatic mutation profiles. The somatic mutations were assessed using univariate Cox analysis on the LUAD and COAD training sets separately. Stepwise multivariate Cox analysis resulted in a final gene prognostic signature for LUAD and COAD. Performance was compared to gene prognostic signatures generated using the same pipeline but with different somatic mutation profile representations based on tumor mutation frequency, binary calls, and gene-gene network normalization. Signature high-risk LUAD and COAD cases had worse overall survival compared to the signature low-risk cases in the validation set (log-rank test p-value = 0.0101 for LUAD and 0.0314 for COAD) using mutation tumor frequency ratio (MFR) profiles, while all other methods, including gene-gene network normalization, have statistically insignificant stratification (log-rank test p-value ≥0.05). Most of the genes in the final gene signatures using MFR profiles are cancer-related based on network and literature analysis.ConclusionsWe demonstrated the robustness of MFR profiles and its potential to be a powerful prognostic tool in cancer. The results are robust according to validation testing and the selected genes are biologically relevant.

Motor cortex somatotopic presentation after restriction of neck movement in rats.

[Purpose] In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of neck movement restriction on somatotopic mapping of the motor cortex. We restricted cervical extension for two weeks and investigated the effects on motor cortex somatic representation in rats. [Subjects and Methods] We placed six Wistar rats into each of three groups: (i) the experimental group, in which cervical extension was restricted; (ii) the sham group, in which cervical movement was not restricted, but a splint was placed in the shoulder girdle; and (iii) the control group. After cervical immobilization for two weeks, we evaluated the motor cortex somatic representation using intra-cortical micro-stimulation. [Results] In the experimental group, the areas of the cervical and vibrissal domains of the motor cortex decreased by approximately 50%, and the forelimb domain showed slight reduction. In addition, a trunk domain formed at the locus of the vibrissal area. There were no differences between the sham and control groups. [Conclusion] Restriction of cervical extension for two weeks resulted in changes in motor cortex somatic representation. Reversible changes occurred in cortical areas that controlled the neck and parts of the body involved in cervical movement.

Authority, ethics and service (seva) amongst Hindu nationalists in India’s assertive margins

ABSTRACTThrough bringing history into conversation with ethnography, this paper re-examines scholarly understandings of Hindu nationalism and the practice of seva (service). Whereas much scholarship addresses Hindu nationalist service through a secular-liberal register, this paper considers what this language excludes. Giving critical attention to elite activists within the Hindu nationalist-led Vanavasi Kalyan Kendra (Tribal Welfare Centre), in Jharkhand, India, my research demonstrates how elite activists translate service into a religious language of somatic representation. This constructs marginal agents as passive subjects of a heavily moralistic ethical-self making project. This critical analysis opens up for study the differing ritual-politics of caste and gender which underlie the participation of marginal actors, practices which are not reducible to a discourse of religion or a universal category of acts. In order to grasp these more complex models, this paper gives importance to the ways in which its ethical discourses are inhabited in manifold ways. This tells a story of how Western models of religion are parochialized, and challenges the relationship between authority and agency which permeate our imagination of non-liberal discourses like those invoked by Hindu nationalist service projects.

Insomnia as a somatic representation of anxiety in the symptomatology of depression

Insomnia as a somatic representation of anxiety in the symptomatology of depression

Changing hands: persistent alterations to body image following brief exposure to multisensory distortions

The dynamic flexibility of body representation has been highlighted through numerous lines of research that range from clinical studies reporting disorders of body ownership, to experimentally induced somatic illusions that have provided evidence for the embodiment of manipulated representations and even fake limbs. While most studies have reported that enlargement of body parts alters somatic perception, and that these can be more readily embodied, shrunken body parts have not been found to consistently alter somatic experiences, perhaps due to reduced feelings of ownership over smaller body parts. Over two experiments, we aimed to investigate the mechanisms responsible for altered somatic representations following exposure to both enlarged and shrunken body parts. Participants were given the impression that their hand and index finger were either longer or shorter than veridical length and asked to judge veridical finger length using online and offline size estimation tasks, as well as to report the degree of ownership towards the distorted finger and hand representations. Ownership was claimed over all distorted representations of the hand and finger and no differences were seen across ownership ratings, while the online and offline measurements of perceived size demonstrated differing response patterns. These findings suggest that ownership towards manipulated body representations is more bidirectional than previously thought and also suggest differences in perceived body representation with respect to the method of measurement suggesting that online and offline tasks may tap into different aspects of body representation.

Three Questions about Somatic Representations: A Response to Freedman’s “Akratic Believing”

Three Questions about Somatic RepresentationsA Response to Freedman’s “Akratic Believing” Claire L. Pouncey (bio) I thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Freedman’s paper on “Akratic Believing.” Often, philosophy of psychiatry offers insights to clarify psychological and psychiatric concepts. Less frequently, it involves a real dialogue between philosophy and psychological science. Dr. Freedman’s account of what is bothersome, rather than just philosophically wrong-headed, about the concept of epistemic akrasia demonstrates that, at least where anxiety is concerned, the a posteriori world may have a great deal to offer theoretical philosophy. Freedman argues that understanding somatic responses to trauma, or more broadly construed, to anxiety, dissolves the problem of why there seems to be more to the problem of epistemic akrasia than first and second order beliefs simply “coming apart,” which Freedman finds incoherent. Drawing on a feeling of discomfort that she persuasively argues occurs in cases of both practical and epistemic akrasia, Freedman uses her own experience of anxiety to explore why she cannot convince herself of her own safety despite intellectually reasoning about why she ought to believe she is safe. This first-personal case augments examples of epistemic akrasia that Freedman draws from the literature. In each example, anxiety interferes with the agent’s ability to believe what she thinks she ought. Friedman explains this apparent paradox using evidence from the psychological trauma literature, which identifies a host of somatic responses that can result from trauma. Freedman argues that these responses are often experienced as cognitions, although they are actually subcortical, and thus non-cognitive. Freedman concludes that true epistemic akrasia is conceptually impossible. She explains why we experience situations that seem to speak against that impossibility as having doxastic merit or force, when in fact they do not. The conclusion that non-cognitive experiences influence our thoughts and actions, and therefore are not epistemically dismissible, is an important challenge to the personally sterile, prefeminist epistemology of the rationalist tradition. Freedman’s discussion inspires a number of questions for me, but I use this space to ask the three that I find most compelling. First, I question whether the phenomena Freedman describes [End Page 347] as the source of epistemically funny feelings are best characterized as “somatic representations.” Second, I wonder what she thinks they entail for epistemology generally. Third, I challenge Freedman’s claim that one cannot reason with such non-cognitive phenomena, for this is the basic premise of a number of psychotherapies. I address these in turn. I begin with a terminological concern: I wonder whether Freedman’s term “somatic representation” does the work she needs it to do, because the phenomena of interest may be not be limited to the somatic, and they may not be representations. The psychology literature Freedman cites does not limit post-traumatic responses to the cognitive. Although what interests Freedman are somatic phenomena that seem to the agent to be cognitive, the psychological trauma literature she uses to support her position also addresses non-somatic, subcortical processes in the limbic system that affect behaviors, such as hippocampal or amygdala activation. These non-cognitive relays initiate but do not constitute somatic anxiety responses, leading me to wonder whether Freedman includes them among the phenomena of interest, because they are neither cortical nor somatic. If she is not interested in the non-somatic subcortical events related to anxiety memories, I am curious to hear why not. Philosophically, I have a hard time conceiving representations as anything but cognitive. Whether representations are ideas, propositions, formulas, drawings, or models, they act as cognitive placeholders for lived experiences and perceptions. Representations alone do not provide either reasons for belief or action in the present, or post hoc justifications. But qua representations, they are cognitive experiences. Freedman may be saying that cognitive representations of somatic phenomena have doxastic weight, or lend credibility, or some such, but there seems to be an intermediate step missing from her argument that would link the phenomenological experience to cognitive content. If the experience is somatic it is not cognitive, and if not cognitive it is not representational. My bias may not undermine Freedman’s argument, but I do need to hear how she characterizes non-cognitive representations. These...

Akratic Believing, Psychological Trauma, and Somatic Representations

Current research on psychological trauma has provided key insight into the ways that individuals process and store traumatic experiences. Results coming out of psychology and neuroscience tell us that traumatic stress has a profound impact on our sensorimotor reactions—reactions that are best understood as non-cognitive. This contrast between a somatic or non-cognitive response to trauma, as distinct from a doxastic or cognitive one, has important clinical implications (hence the turn to sensorimotor psychotherapy). It also offers a clear path to dissolving some persistent philosophical puzzles. In this paper I look at one such puzzle, namely, the problem of epistemic akrasia. I argue that if philosophers were to help themselves to the literature on psychological trauma, in particular to the distinction between a somatic response and a doxastic one, we would have a robust explanation of the phenomenon in question and the problem of epistemic akrasia would fade away.

Treatment of persistent pain from torture: review and commentary

Torture and the conditions under which it is inflicted often leave persistent painful disorders. Because there may be no lasting signs, persistent pain is often misconceived as a somatic representation of psychological distress, also common after torture. This serious failure to understand the nature of persistent pain means that pain is largely overlooked and untreated in torture survivors. We carried out a systematic review on treatments for pain from torture, but found few studies and little use of current understanding and evidence. We discuss this in the context of treating pain associated with psychological distress and of the broader problems faced by the refugee and torture survivor that may take priority over pain. We propose clinical and research implications for this neglected field.

Conversion Disorder With Conceptual and Treatment Challenges

Conversion Disorder With Conceptual and Treatment Challenges

The sense of the body in the dream: Diagnostic capacity in the meanings of dreams

Translations of summaryThe author investigates the oneiric representation of somatic states and the diagnostic capacity of dreams. He draws on Freud's hypotheses on the procedures by which somatic stimuli insert themselves in oneiric elaboration and restructures them according to the recent neurobiological discoveries and to analytical experiences. In the representations of certain dreams, with a psychic interpretation agreed upon by the patients, somatic alterations unknown to the analytical couple were discriminated and confirmed by radiological investigations. These representations were linked to the manifestation of one aspect of the bodily Self, neglected in the precocious maternal relation, that entered the organization of the Self consolidated in the relation with the paternal figure. This conjunction gave origin to the double meaning (somatic and psychic) of the dream. The entering of the somatic representation in the oneiric one did not appear to be the figurative effect, but of a condensation of diagnostic capacity into the meaning of the dream. This characteristic manifested itself in the particular styles of the dreamers, interpretable by an analyst countertransferentially oriented. The perception or scotomization of the condensation in the interpretation of the dream and of the moment had an effect on the evolution of the analysis.

Feeling but not caring: Empathic alteration in narcissistic men with high psychopathic traits

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by specific interpersonal–affective deficits and social deviance often marked by reduced empathy and decreased affective response to the suffering of others. However, recent findings in community samples suggest that the somatosensory resonance to other׳s pain measured with electroencephalography (EEG) is increased by psychopathic traits. This study aimed at comparing both the response to physical pain and the observation of pain being inflicted to another person in individuals with clinically significant psychopathic traits, namely patients with severe narcissistic personality disorder (NPD, n=11), and community controls (CC, n=13). The gating of somatosensory responses to a tactile steady-state stimulation (25Hz) during the observation of pain-evoking and non-painful visual stimuli of hands was measured using EEG. Pain thresholds were assessed with a quantitative sensory testing (QST) battery. NPD compared with CC subjects showed similar thermal pain thresholds, but significantly higher pain pressure thresholds (PPT). Significantly greater somatosensory gating (SG) during the anticipation and the observation of pain in others was observed in NPD compared with CC subjects, but this difference was not associated with differences in self-pain perception. SG to pain observation was positively correlated with the Impulsivity–Egocentricity (IE) dimension of psychopathy. These findings demonstrated a stronger somatosensory resonance in the high psychopathic trait NPD group that suggests an increased somatic representation of observed pain despite lower dispositional empathy.

Outcomes Related to a Multimodal Human Anatomy Course With Decreased Cadaver Dissection in a Doctor of Physical Therapy Curriculum

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSECadaver dissection historically has been an indispensable component of teaching and learning human anatomy for most health care professionals, including physical therapists.1'5 More recently, the effectiveness and efficiency of using cadavers has been studied and challenged.1,6 Cost and time have been cited as reasons for decreasing the use of human cadavers in courses.2,3,6 Also, the development and implementation of computer-assisted (CA) and web-based (WB) information technologies have challenged the traditional notion that cadaver dissection is essential for learning, understanding, and applying anatomy in clinical practice.3,7,8 Studies have demonstrated that use of CA and WB are reasonable and viable components of, or alternatives to, traditional cadaver dissection in human anatomy courses.6,9Recent studies provide evidence that learning human anatomy is not adversely affected by the use of CA and WB information technology.9'13 However, challenges still remain with regard to providing cost- and time-efficient anatomy content without compromising optimal standards for learning outcomes.1 There may be no single pedagogy for teaching anatomy that is maximally efficient for all health care disciplines. Physical therapists utilize visual assessment, surface anatomy, and palpation skills when examining patients, and may not need as much time in the cadaver lab as might be the case in other health care disciplines in order to learn clinically relevant anatomy.6 The purposes of this study were to: (1) describe changes to a traditional human gross anatomy course, specifically the use of WB video dissections and reduced time in actual cadaver dissection lab; (2) describe and assess student impressions of the curriculum; and (3) compare, assess, and discuss student outcomes related to changes to the human anatomy course in the entry-level Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) degree program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).Method/Model Description and EvaluationFifty first-year physical therapist students were enrolled in the Human Gross Anatomy course in the Department of Physical Therapy. Forty-four students consented to participate in the study. Students were quasi-randomly assigned to lab groups of 5 students each at the beginning of the semester. During the semester, students viewed online video dissections14 on the Internet (www.youtube.com) for each region of the body studied. Four regions were studied during the semester: abdominal, spine, upper extremity, and lower extremity. Within each region, specific skeletal, muscular, articular, vascular, and neural components were identified and discussed. The course included a general description of the abdominal cavity's visceral components, emphasizing somatic representation of referred pain during surface anatomy labs. (Anatomy of the neck/head, thoracic cavity, and pelvic cavity is covered in the second semester of the curriculum, with 2 groups attending dissection sessions each week over an 8-week period.) The 4-credit hour course consisted of 1-hour lecture sessions, followed by 2-hour palpation/surface anatomy labs, 1-hour video dissection sessions, and cadaver dissection labs distributed over the 15 weeks of the semester. During the semester, each lab group participated in two, 3-hour cadaver dissection labs with the course instructor. Two 5-student groups were in the dissection lab for each session, with 1 cadaver per group. There was a total of 10 dissection sessions.All students participated in the online video dissection labs.14 There was a total of 10 video dissection sessions during the semester. Students viewed the assigned dissection video within their lab groups for approximately 20 minutes. The groups returned to class and viewed the dissection videos a second time with intermittent narration and more indepth discussion with the course instructor, each session totaling 50 minutes.The palpation/surface anatomy labs were 2-hour sessions immediately following each lecture session. …

Violence as a source of pleasure or displeasure is associated with specific functional connectivity with the nucleus accumbens

The appraisal of violent stimuli is dependent on the social context and the perceiver's individual characteristics. To identify the specific neural circuits involved in the perception of violent videos, forty-nine male participants were scanned with functional MRI while watching video-clips depicting Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and Capoeira as a baseline. Prior to scanning, a self-report measure of pleasure or displeasure when watching MMA was collected. Watching MMA was associated with activation of the anterior insula (AI), brainstem, ventral tegmental area (VTA), striatum, medial, and lateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, somatosensory cortex, and supramarginal gyrus. While this pattern of brain activation was not related to participants' reported experience of pleasure or displeasure, pleasurable ratings of MMA predicted increased functional connectivity (FC) seeded in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) (a structure known to be responsive to anticipating both positive and negative outcomes) with the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and anterior insular cortex (AIC) (regions involved in positive feelings and visceral somatic representations). Displeasure ratings of MMA were related to increased FC with regions of the prefrontal cortex and superior parietal lobule, structures implicated in cognitive control and executive attention. These data suggest that functional connectivity is an effective approach to investigate the relationship between subjective feelings of pleasure and pain of neural structures known to respond to both the anticipation of positive and negative outcomes.

Comment représenter la transgression de genre - L'Hermaphrodite dans l'oeuvre de J. K. Huysmans -

By the end of the 19th century one may observe the birth of a particular form of knowledge which would further be known as scientia sexualis as well as the rationalization of the hermaphroditic body. Ernest Martin’s attempt to realize a taxonomy of the different forms of monstrosity (Histoire des monstres depuis l’Antiquité jusqu’à nos jours -1880) from a juridical and clinical perspective is representative for what Jean-Jacques Courtine will call “le désenchantement de l’étrange”.Since the physicians from that period refuse to acknowledge the existence of real hermaphrodites among humans, the pseudo-hermaphrodite will lose his ontological independence and will turn into a simple pathological deviation which will be placed among the other pathological figures which constitute the inventory of degenerationshaunting the imaginary of the fin de siècle. Since the hermaphroditic body, this gender trouble that threatens the dual taxonomy of the society, is denied the ontological independence, this body enters the sphere of invisibility. Given that the transgressive body becomes a simple deviation, the hermaphrodite can only be a secondary representation.How are these mechanisms of the secondary representation applied to the literary productions of that period? The answer to this question could be found in Huysmans’ texts where the ambiguity of the hermaphroditic figure is captured into somatic and psychical representations that seem to confirm the epistemic paradigms of that fin de siècle.