From The New Republic, author and psychologist Martha Stout (The Sociopath Next Door, The Myth of Sanity, The Paranoia Switch) reviews the new book from brothers Joel and Ian Gold, Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness.

This looks like an excellent and important book - we too often neglect the cultural context of "madness."

Is Modern Culture Making Us Crazier?

The science behind America's deepening disturbance

By Martha Stout
July 31, 2014 | The New Republic

A young friend recently shared with me her experience of being stopped by the police on an otherwise uneventful Tuesday morning. With one arm protectively wrapped around her shoulder bag because it had a broken latch, she’d been walking along a city street. Unbeknownst to her at the time, a shooting had occurred the previous day in the same neighborhood. Three police officers, two male and one female, approached her. They demanded to know whether she had a gun under her arm, took her bag from her, and looked inside. No gun. They checked her identification. No record. (As far as I know, this young woman hasn’t so much as a traffic ticket.) She was completely cooperative throughout.

The female officer then patted her down, which my friend said she tolerated by deliberately becoming a little dissociative—“spacing out”—until the stranger’s hands finally finished their journey over her body. Then, though there was no gun in it, the two male officers decided to search her shoulder bag again, item by item. Riffling through her wallet, they found a condom, and that discovery grabbed their attention.

“Oh look. We’ve got a young slut here,” said one, waving the condom. All three officers laughed.

My friend, very scared by now, said nothing.

Finally, they let her go. As she walked away, the female officer called after her, “Guess you came here ready to fuck anyone you wanted to, didn’t you?”

I find this officer’s parting salvo grimacingly ironic.

These days, mind-spinning stories of misogyny assail us from all over our country, and indeed, this account is hardly the worst. But knowing the victim personally, and understanding that she will carry the hateful essence of this ridicule with her for a long time to come, I was especially saddened. And for me, one of the most disheartening features of this incident was the fact that the young woman who endured it was not even taken aback. Far from being shocked and outraged, she was not even surprised. When I asked her about her reaction, she explained, “I was very upset, but no, I wasn’t surprised. If you walk around alone, you kind of expect this sort of thing to happen. It’s really only a matter of time.”

Is this frightening belief about the world a symptom of paranoia on her part? And, as the old saw goes, are you paranoid when they’re really out to get you? Most of her twenty-something years have been spent in a nation beset by furious cultural and political forces on a course to push back the legal standing and social status of women by half a century. As but two illustrations, there are Supreme Court actions such as the recent Hobby Lobby ruling and state-level abortion-restriction laws that are designed to make certain of women’s medical procedures as costly and humiliating as possible.

How much of an influence has the traumatized and reactive culture of a post-September 11 United States had on the mental status of this young citizen—and for that matter, on the mental status of the police officers who bullied her? And in general, how much, and in what ways, do events in the wider world affect our individual personalities? Societal factors clearly influence our observable behavior—what we will and won’t do in public on a day-to-day basis—but can societal, cultural, political, and even technological factors soak into our very psyches, infiltrate our inner cores and make lasting changes to who we are? This is a fascinating and in some cases alarming question, and is the basis of Joel and Ian Gold’s book, Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness.

Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness,
by Joel Gold and Ian Gold. Free Press.

Joel Gold, MD, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine, and his brother, Ian Gold, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy and Psychiatry at McGill University, discuss a number of psychotic patients who all have the same delusion—that the people in their lives are acting out a script, much like the family and friends of Jim Carrey’s character in the 1998 movie, The Truman Show. Juxtaposing recent research on schizophrenia with page-turning case studies of these paranoid patients, the Golds argue that psychotic delusions (not to mention mesmeric movie plots) are the result of interactions between the brain and the sociocultural world, and they bring to light the discipline-altering fact that culture has a role to play in the development of psychopathology generally.

If you happen not to be a psychiatrist or a psychologist, you might reasonably imagine that mental health professionals have written many other books on this crucial and intriguing question: Can zeitgeist have an enduring negative effect on the individual psyche? But the startling fact is that most of the relevant scholarly writings by psychopathologists are quite new (post-2001), and discussions for nonprofessionals are rare. Over the past 40 years or so, psychology has attempted to divvy up the causes of pathological conditions between two now-famous categories, “nature” (as transmitted genetically) and “nurture” (environmental influences). For various psychopathologies, including paranoid schizophrenia, and also normal “personality traits” (introversion/extraversion, conservatism/liberalism, rigidity/adaptability, and several dozen more), research has yielded remarkably consistent results, indicating that these differences among human beings are accounted for by genetic and environmental factors in more or less equal measure, with genetics sometimes edging out environment by a point or two (51 versus 49 percent, in some instances). This research has been indispensable to our growing appreciation of the role of genetics both in normal personality and in the mental illnesses.

Contrastingly, our conception of environmental influences has been biased and narrow. We have tended to think of “nurture” only in the familial sense: In mental health research, “environment” tends to mean child-rearing factors, which is to say the personalities and actions of parents and, to a lesser degree, siblings. That an individual’s personality or mental illness might be affected by environmental factors outside the home has been largely overlooked. Take the study of sociopathy, which is another profound form of psychopathology—this one characterized not by delusions but by the complete absence of conscience. Research indicates that the factors involved in sociopathy, like those in many other mental illnesses, are about 50 percent genetic and 50 percent environmental. But researchers have been perplexed because they have been unable to find specific child-rearing variables that would consistently account for the environment’s half in cultivating sociopaths. I maintain (in my book The Sociopath Next Door) that this half consists primarily of larger societal factors, and this idea would seem to be supported by the fact that the incidence of diagnosed sociopathy is significantly lower in certain East Asian countries (most notably Taiwan and Japan) than in North America. It seems likely that, in the United States especially, any genetic predisposition to sociopathy will be nurtured and shaped by a single-mindedly competitive and individualistic culture that regards “winning” and domination as the ultimate goods.

Why have psychologists who study pathology tried to divide up the causality universe between inborn tendencies and the family environment, and turned a mostly blind eye to influences from the wider world? One answer is that a cultural hypothesis frustrates prevention: Though correcting the child-rearing practices of a large group of people would be a tall order, setting out to alter the entrenched belief systems of an entire society is even more daunting and might eventually involve taking a political stance, something many clinical psychologists and psychiatrists are loathe to do.

Gold and Gold make it clear that psychiatry is dispensing with the possibility of cultural factors in mental disorder even more summarily than psychology has done. They write, “The social world is at the heart of our theory of delusions, and this puts us at odds with much of mainstream psychiatry.” Mental illness, they explain, “at least severe mental illness—is nothing more than genetic and neural dysfunction,” according to psychiatric dogma. They point to the large and growing number of psychiatrists who aspire to understand and treat mental disorders as brain disorders, and convincingly illuminate the losses that psychiatry may suffer on account of this new reductionism.

The central argument in Suspicious Minds derives from the increasingly accepted “social brain hypothesis,” the idea that the primary function of enlarged primate (and therefore human) brains is to deal with the cognitive challenges of living in groups. In reference to paranoid disorders in particular, Gold and Gold ask the question—“What sort of cognitive system is required to enable one to be sensitive to social threats?” In answer, they propose that the human brain contains an adaptive “Suspicion System,” which is “the solution that evolution came up with to enable us to pick up evidence of infidelity and other social threats for the purpose of early detection and defense.” In other words, courtesy of natural selection, we are all biologically prepared to be leery. They hypothesize that a healthy Suspicion System makes social life safer through “heightened responses to subtle, uncertain, and ambiguous signs of social danger,” but that a malfunctioning or overloaded Suspicion System “will sound the alarm without good reason and detect evidence poorly—that is, see malign intent where there is none.” Over time, an overreactive Suspicion System may inaugurate “an idiosyncratic belief that is firmly maintained despite rational argument or evidence to the contrary”—i.e., a paranoid delusion. The authors point out that the persecutory delusions of clinical paranoia are by far the most prevalent form of delusion the world over.



Paramount Pictures
The delusions of psychotic patients—that their lives are scripted, and that their friends are mere actors—recall the plot of The Truman Show.

Gold and Gold conclude that the “Truman Show delusions” of their paranoid patients express those patients’ fears of being controlled by what other people know about them: “Truman Show is a delusion of control in the age of surveillance.” They declare, “Reductionism in psychiatry constrains theory to operate within the skull or the skin. Our bet is that the outside world is going to matter as well.”

Suspicious Minds is a contrarian, insightful, and important book. Gold and Gold do not take on the more politically involved and incendiary aspects of our society, such as run-amok individualism—or the abuse of power and the national upsurge in misogyny that plagued my young friend on that demoralizing Tuesday morning. Nonetheless, their analysis of culture-linked paranoia comprises an effective argument that our seemingly endless struggle to align our society with our more enlightened ideals may be a fight for our very minds.


~ Martha Stout, Ph.D., is the author of The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness, The Paranoia Switch: How Terror Rewires Our Brains and Reshapes Our Behavior--and How We Can Reclaim Our Courage, The Sociopath Next Door, and an upcoming book, The Sociopath Files.

This week's episode of The Mind Report (from BloggingHeads.tv) features Laurie Santos (Associate Professor of Psychology at Yale) speaking with Kent Kiehl, author of The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience (and Professor of Psychology at UNM).

The Mind Report - Laurie Santos and Kent Kiehl Discuss The Psychopath Whisperer

Laurie Santos (Yale University) and Kent Kiehl (University of New Mexico, The Mind Research Network, The Psychopath Whisperer)

• Kent’s new book, “The Psychopath Whisperer”    6:14
• Doing neuroscience research on psychopathic prisoners    7:12
• Is there a moral center of the brain?    3:33
• Can psychopathy be treated?    8:34
• Abnormal brains, moral culpability, and free will    4:19
• Kent’s vision for the future of psychopath research    5:51

Play entire video

• Kent’s new book, The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience

The Mind Report | Jun 30, 2014 | Laurie Santos & Kent Kiehl

2014 – The Year in Books (so far)

Halfway through the year, almost, and there have already been some seriously good books published that will appear on a lot of top-ten lists in December. Some of those books are below, but there also a lot of books below no one will have heard of about side of their respective fields, books from academic publishers or other sources not likely to be found at your local bookstores.

Below is a list of the books I have picked up this year (which is not likely to be very mainstream), and I am including the publisher's ad copy for their books. I would love to review each of these, but I seriously do not have that kind of time. Perhaps, if time allows, I will offer some individual reviews of a few of these books.

2014 – The Year in Books (so far)

Jeremy Rifkin – The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism

 

In The Zero Marginal Cost Society, New York Times bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin describes how the emerging Internet of Things is speeding us to an era of nearly free goods and services, precipitating the meteoric rise of a global Collaborative Commons and the eclipse of capitalism.

Rifkin uncovers a paradox at the heart of capitalism that has propelled it to greatness but is now taking it to its death—the inherent entrepreneurial dynamism of competitive markets that drives productivity up and marginal costs down, enabling businesses to reduce the price of their goods and services in order to win over consumers and market share. (Marginal cost is the cost of producing additional units of a good or service, if fixed costs are not counted.) While economists have always welcomed a reduction in marginal cost, they never anticipated the possibility of a technological revolution that might bring marginal costs to near zero, making goods and services priceless, nearly free, and abundant, and no longer subject to market forces.

Now, a formidable new technology infrastructure—the Internet of things (IoT)—is emerging with the potential of pushing large segments of economic life to near zero marginal cost in the years ahead. Rifkin describes how the Communication Internet is converging with a nascent Energy Internet and Logistics Internet to create a new technology platform that connects everything and everyone. Billions of sensors are being attached to natural resources, production lines, the electricity grid, logistics networks, recycling flows, and implanted in homes, offices, stores, vehicles, and even human beings, feeding Big Data into an IoT global neural network. Prosumers can connect to the network and use Big Data, analytics, and algorithms to accelerate efficiency, dramatically increase productivity, and lower the marginal cost of producing and sharing a wide range of products and services to near zero, just like they now do with information goods.

The plummeting of marginal costs is spawning a hybrid economy—part capitalist market and part Collaborative Commons—with far reaching implications for society, according to Rifkin. Hundreds of millions of people are already transferring parts of their economic lives to the global Collaborative Commons. Prosumers are plugging into the fledgling IoT and making and sharing their own information, entertainment, green energy, and 3D-printed products at near zero marginal cost. They are also sharing cars, homes, clothes and other items via social media sites, rentals, redistribution clubs, and cooperatives at low or near zero marginal cost. Students are enrolling in free massive open online courses (MOOCs) that operate at near zero marginal cost. Social entrepreneurs are even bypassing the banking establishment and using crowdfunding to finance startup businesses as well as creating alternative currencies in the fledgling sharing economy. In this new world, social capital is as important as financial capital, access trumps ownership, sustainability supersedes consumerism, cooperation ousts competition, and “exchange value” in the capitalist marketplace is increasingly replaced by “sharable value” on the Collaborative Commons.

Rifkin concludes that capitalism will remain with us, albeit in an increasingly streamlined role, primarily as an aggregator of network services and solutions, allowing it to flourish as a powerful niche player in the coming era. We are, however, says Rifkin, entering a world beyond markets where we are learning how to live together in an increasingly interdependent global Collaborative Commons.

Michio Kaku – The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind

 

The New York Times best-selling author of PHYSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, PHYSICS OF THE FUTURE and HYPERSPACE tackles the most fascinating and complex object in the known universe: the human brain. 

For the first time in history, the secrets of the living brain are being revealed by a battery of high tech brain scans devised by physicists. Now what was once solely the province of science fiction has become a startling reality. Recording memories, telepathy, videotaping our dreams, mind control, avatars, and telekinesis are not only possible; they already exist.
 
THE FUTURE OF THE MIND gives us an authoritative and compelling look at the astonishing research being done in top laboratories around the world—all based on the latest advancements in neuroscience and physics.  One day we might have a "smart pill" that can enhance our cognition; be able to upload our brain to a computer, neuron for neuron; send thoughts and emotions around the world on a "brain-net"; control computers and robots with our mind; push the very limits of immortality; and perhaps even send our consciousness across the universe.
   
Dr. Kaku takes us on a grand tour of what the future might hold, giving us not only a solid sense of how the brain functions but also how these technologies will change our daily lives. He even presents a radically new way to think about "consciousness" and applies it to provide fresh insight into mental illness, artificial intelligence and alien consciousness.

With Dr. Kaku's deep understanding of modern science and keen eye for future developments, THE FUTURE OF THE MIND is a scientific tour de force--an extraordinary, mind-boggling exploration of the frontiers of neuroscience.

Peter Zachar – A Metaphysics of Psychopathology (Philosophical Psychopathology)

 

In psychiatry, few question the legitimacy of asking whether a given psychiatric disorder is real; similarly, in psychology, scholars debate the reality of such theoretical entities as general intelligence, superegos, and personality traits. And yet in both disciplines, little thought is given to what is meant by the rather abstract philosophical concept of "real." Indeed, certain psychiatric disorders have passed from real to imaginary (as in the case of multiple personality disorder) and from imaginary to real (as in the case of post-traumatic stress disorder). In this book, Peter Zachar considers such terms as "real" and "reality" -- invoked in psychiatry but often obscure and remote from their instances -- as abstract philosophical concepts. He then examines the implications of his approach for psychiatric classification and psychopathology. Proposing what he calls a scientifically inspired pragmatism, Zachar considers such topics as the essentialist bias, diagnostic literalism, and the concepts of natural kind and social construct. Turning explicitly to psychiatric topics, he proposes a new model for the domain of psychiatric disorders, the "imperfect community" model, which avoids both relativism and essentialism. He uses this model to understand such recent controversies as the attempt to eliminate narcissistic personality disorder from the DSM-5. Returning to such concepts as real, true, and objective, Zachar argues that not only should we use these metaphysical concepts to think philosophically about other concepts, we should think philosophically about them.

Stephen Finlay – Confusion of Tongues: A Theory of Normative Language (Oxford Moral Theory)

Can normative words like "good," "ought," and "reason" be defined in entirely non-normative terms? Confusion of Tongues argues that they can, advancing a new End-Relational theory of the meaning of this language as providing the best explanation of the many different ways it is ordinarily used. Philosophers widely maintain that analyzing normative language as describing facts about relations cannot account for special features of particularly moral and deliberative uses of normative language, but Stephen Finlay argues that the End-Relational theory systematically explains these on the basis of a single fundamental principle of conversational pragmatics. These challenges comprise the central problems of metaethics, including the connection between normative judgment and motivation, the categorical character of morality, the nature of intrinsic value, and the possibility of normative disagreement. Finlay's linguistic analysis has deep implications for the metaphysics, epistemology, and psychology of morality, as well as for the nature and possibility of normative ethical theory. Most significantly it supplies a nuanced answer to the ancient Euthyphro Question of whether we desire things because we judge them good, or vice versa. Normative speech and thought may ultimately be just a manifestation of our nature as intelligent animals motivated by contingent desires for various conflicting ends.

Howard Rachlin – The Escape of the Mind

The Escape of the Mind is part of a current movement in psychology and philosophy of mind that calls into question what is perhaps our most basic, most cherished, and universally accepted belief--that our minds are inside of our bodies. Howard Rachlin adopts the counterintuitive position that our minds, conscious and unconscious, lie not where our firmest (yet unsupported) introspections tell us they are, but in how we actually behave over the long run. Perhaps paradoxically, the book argues that our introspections, no matter how positive we are about them, tell us absolutely nothing about our minds. The name of the present version of this approach to the mind is "teleological behaviorism."

The approaches of teleological behaviorism will be useful in the science of individual behavior for developing methods of self-control and in the science of social behavior for developing social cooperation. Without in any way denigrating the many contributions of neuroscience to human welfare, The Escape of the Mind argues that neuroscience, like introspection, is not a royal road to the understanding of the mind. Where then should we look to explain a present act that is clearly caused by the mind? Teleological behaviorism says to look not in the spatial recesses of the nervous system (not to the mechanism underlying the act) but in the temporal recesses of past and future overt behavior (to the pattern of which the act is a part). 

But scientific usefulness is not the only reason for adopting teleological behaviorism. The final two chapters on IBM's computer, Watson (how it deviates from humanity and how it would have to be altered to make it human), and on shaping a coherent self, provide a framework for a secular morality based on teleological behaviorism.

Robert J. Wicks – Perspective: The Calm Within the Storm

For generations, classic wisdom literature has taught that a healthy perspective can replenish our thirst for a meaningful and rewarding life. From its inception clinical psychology has followed suit, revealing that how we see ourselves and the world is more important than what we see or have-in essence, that a healthy perspective is tantamount to possessing the psychological "pearl of great price."

Robert J. Wicks, world-renowned psychologist and author of Bounce: Living the Resilient Life, has written a powerful guide for discovering and regaining a balanced and healthy perspective. Combining classic wisdom with cutting-edge research in cognitive behavioral therapy and positive psychology, his new book, Perspective, offers concrete steps for overcoming doubt and resistance to openness, so that beneficial life changes become possible. Drawing on the psychology of mindfulness, gratitude, and happiness, Dr. Wicks also reveals how a healthy perspective makes us more aware of the beneficial things already present in our lives.

Perspective teaches us to see ourselves more completely and will inspire us to become the calm within the storm, better able to enjoy our experiences, maintain balance in our professional and personal lives, and reach out to others without being pulled down in the process.

Barbara Ehrenreich – Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything

From the New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed comes a brave, frank, and exquisitely written memoir that will change the way you see the world.

Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the most important thinkers of our time. Educated as a scientist, she is an author, journalist, activist, and advocate for social justice. In LIVING WITH A WILD GOD, she recounts her quest-beginning in childhood-to find "the Truth" about the universe and everything else: What's really going on? Why are we here? In middle age, she rediscovered the journal she had kept during her tumultuous adolescence, which records an event so strange, so cataclysmic, that she had never, in all the intervening years, written or spoken about it to anyone. It was the kind of event that people call a "mystical experience"-and, to a steadfast atheist and rationalist, nothing less than shattering.

In LIVING WITH A WILD GOD, Ehrenreich reconstructs her childhood mission, bringing an older woman's wry and erudite perspective to a young girl's impassioned obsession with the questions that, at one point or another, torment us all. The result is both deeply personal and cosmically sweeping-a searing memoir and a profound reflection on science, religion, and the human condition. With her signature combination of intellectual rigor and uninhibited imagination, Ehrenreich offers a true literary achievement-a work that has the power not only to entertain but amaze.

Nicholas Epley – Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want

You are a mind reader, born with an extraordinary ability to understand what others think, feel, believe, want, and know. It’s a sixth sense you use every day, in every personal and professional relationship you have. At its best, this ability allows you to achieve the most important goal in almost any life: connecting, deeply and intimately and honestly, to other human beings. At its worst, it is a source of misunderstanding and unnecessary conflict, leading to damaged relationships and broken dreams.

How good are you at knowing the minds of others? How well can you guess what others think of you, know who really likes you, or tell when someone is lying? How well do you really understand the minds of those closest to you, from your spouse to your kids to your best friends? Do you really know what your coworkers, employees, competitors, or clients want?

In this illuminating exploration of one of the great mysteries of the human mind, University of Chicago psychologist Nicholas Epley introduces us to what scientists have learned about our ability to understand the most complicated puzzle on the planet—other people—and the surprising mistakes we so routinely make. Why are we sometimes blind to the minds of others, treating them like objects or animals? Why do we sometimes talk to our cars, or the stars, as if there is a mind that can hear us? Why do we so routinely believe that others think, feel, and want what we do when, in fact, they do not? And why do we believe we understand our spouses, family, and friends so much better than we actually do? Mindwise will not turn other people into open books, but it will give you the wisdom to revolutionize how you think about them—and yourself.

The following books are much less mainstream than any of those listed above. All of these books are edited and include a variety of authors presenting their own views on the topics. Most, if not all, are from Springer, and consequently are stupid expensive (which is when it's nice to get review copies).

Brain, Mind and Consciousness in the History of Neuroscience – C.U.M. Smith • Harry Whitaker, Editors

This volume of essays examines the problem of mind, looking at how the problem has appeared to neuroscientists (in the widest sense) from classical antiquity through to contemporary times. Beginning with a look at ventricular neuropsychology in antiquity, this book goes on to look at Spinozan ideas on the links between mind and body, Thomas Willis and the foundation of Neurology, Hooke’s mechanical model of the mind and Joseph Priestley’s approach to the mind-body problem.

The volume offers a chapter on the 19th century Ottoman perspective on western thinking. Further chapters trace the work of nineteenth century scholars including George Henry Lewes, Herbert Spencer and Emil du Bois-Reymond. The book covers significant work from the twentieth century, including an examination of Alfred North Whitehead and the history of consciousness, and particular attention is given to the development of quantum consciousness. Chapters on slavery and the self and the development of an understanding of Dualism bring this examination up to date on the latest 21st century work in the field.

At the heart of this book is the matter of how we define the problem of consciousness itself: has there been any progress in our understanding of the working of mind and brain? This work at the interface between science and the humanities will appeal to experts from across many fields who wish to develop their understanding of the problem of consciousness, including scholars of Neuroscience, Behavioural Science and the History of Science.

Ecopsychology, Phenomenology, and the Environment: The Experience of Nature – Douglas A. Vakoch, Fernando Castrillón, Editors

This book seeks to confront an apparent contradiction: that while we are constantly attending to environmental issues, we seem to be woefully out of touch with nature. The goal of Ecopsychology, Phenomenology and the Environment is to foster an enhanced awareness of nature that can lead us to new ways of relating to the environment, ultimately yielding more sustainable patterns of living. This volume is different from other books in the rapidly growing field of ecopsychology in its emphasis on phenomenological approaches, building on the work of phenomenological psychologists such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This focus on phenomenological methodologies for articulating our direct experience of nature serves as a critical complement to the usual methodologies of environmental and conservation psychologists, who have emphasized quantitative research. Moreover, Ecopsychology, Phenomenology and the Environment is distinctive insofar as chapters by phenomenologically-sophisticated ecopsychologists are complemented by chapters written by phenomenological researchers of environmental issues with backgrounds in philosophy and geology, providing a breadth and depth of perspective not found in other works written exclusively by psychologists.

The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Psychoneuroimmunology – Alexander W. Kusnecov and Hymie Anisman, Editors

The term psychoneuroimmunology was originally coined to acknowledge the existence of functional interactions between the brain, the immune system and the endocrine system. As our understanding deepens of the interplay between the brain and the way bodies function, the field continues to grow in importance. This comprehensive handbook is an authoritative source of information on the history, methodology and development of research into psychoneuroimmunology. 

The interdisciplinary nature of the contributions reflects the fact that the subject is a multifaceted field of research integrating the traditionally separate subjects of biological and behavioral science. Psychoneuroimmunology attains a realistic appreciation of the interplay between different biological systems as they collectively maintain health and combat environmental challenges to health. Background material is balanced by a detailed assessment of emerging topics in psychoneuroimmunological research that focuses on the clinical and practical implications of findings from empirical studies on both humans and animals. While specialist readers will appreciate the coverage of progress made in psychoneuroimmunology, newcomers will gain much from its informed and accessible introduction to the field, as well as its exploration of a variety of methodological approaches.

New Frontiers in Social Neuroscience (Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences) – Jean Decety and Yves Christen, Editors

Traditionally, neuroscience has considered the nervous system as an isolated entity and largely ignored influences of the social environments in which humans and many animal species live. In fact, we now recognize the considerable impact of social structures on the operations of the brain and body. These social factors operate on the individual through a continuous interplay of neural, neuroendocrine, metabolic and immune factors on brain and body, in which the brain is the central regulatory organ, and also a malleable target of these factors. Social neuroscience investigates the biological mechanisms that underlie social processes and behavior, widely considered one of the major problem areas for the neurosciences in the 21st century, and applies concepts and methods of biology to develop theories of social processes and behavior in the social and behavioral sciences. Social neuroscience capitalizes on biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social behavior, and it uses social and behavioral constructs and data to advance theories of neural organization and function. This volume brings together scholars who work with animal and human models of social behavior to discuss the challenges and opportunities in this interdisciplinary academic field.

Handbook of Executive Functioning – Sam Goldstein and Jack A. Naglieri, Editors

Planning. Attention. Memory. Self-regulation. These and other core cognitive and behavioral operations of daily life comprise what we know as executive functioning (EF). But despite all we know, the concept has engendered multiple, often conflicting definitions and its components are sometimes loosely defined and poorly understood.

The Handbook of Executive Functioning cuts through the confusion, analyzing both the whole and its parts in comprehensive, practical detail for scholar and clinician alike. Background chapters examine influential models of EF, tour the brain geography of the executive system and pose salient developmental questions. A section on practical implications relates early deficits in executive functioning to ADD and other disorders in children and considers autism and later-life dementias from an EF standpoint. Further chapters weigh the merits of widely used instruments for assessing executive functioning and review interventions for its enhancement, with special emphasis on children and adolescents.

Featured in the Handbook:

• The development of hot and cool executive function in childhood and adolescence.
• A review of the use of executive function tasks in externalizing and internalizing disorders.
• Executive functioning as a mediator of age-related cognitive decline in adults.
• Treatment integrity in interventions that target executive function.
• Supporting and strengthening working memory in the classroom to enhance executive functioning.

The Handbook of Executive Functioning is an essential resource for researchers, scientist-practitioners and graduate students in clinical child, school and educational psychology; child and adolescent psychiatry; neurobiology; developmental psychology; rehabilitation medicine/therapy and social work.

Brain Theory: Essays in Critical Neurophilosophy – Charles T. Wolfe, Editor

From its beginnings until the present day, neuroscience has always had a special relationship to philosophy. And philosophy has long puzzled over the relation between mind and brain (and by extension, the relation of cerebral processes to freedom, morals, and justice, but also to perception and art). This volume presents some of the state-of-the-art reflections on philosophical efforts to 'make sense' of neuroscience, as regards issues including neuroaesthetics, neuroethics and neurolaw, but also more critical, evaluative perspectives on topics such as the social neuroscience of race, neurofeminism, embodiment and collaboration, memory and pain, and more directly empirical topics such as neuroconstructivism and embodied robotics. Brain theory as presented here is neither mere commentary on the state of the sciences, nor armchair philosophical reflection on traditional topics. It is more pluralistic than current philosophy of neuroscience (or neurophenomenology), yet more directly engaged with empirical, indeed experimental matters than socio-cultural discussions of 'brainhood' or representations of the brain.

Late Modernity: Trajectories towards Morphogenic Society (Social Morphogenesis) – Margaret S. Archer, Editor

 

This volume examines the reasons for intensified social change after 1980; a peaceful process of a magnitude that is historically unprecedented. It examines the kinds of novelty that have come about through morphogenesis and the elements of stability that remain because of morphostasis. It is argued that this pattern cannot be explained simply by ‘acceleration’. Instead, we must specify the generative mechanism(s) involved that underlie and unify ordinary people’s experiences of different disjunctions in their lives. The book discusses the umbrella concept of ‘social morphogenesis’ and the possibility of transition to a ‘Morphogenic Society’. It examines possible ‘generative mechanisms’ accounting for the effects of ‘social morphogenesis’ in transforming previous and much more stable practices. Finally, it seeks to answer the question of what is required in order to justify the claim that Morphogenic society can supersede modernity.

The p Factor: One General Psychopathology Factor in the Structure of Psychiatric Disorders

Using the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study as a data source, researchers Terrie Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi, and their team examined "the structure of psychopathology, taking into account dimensionality, persistence, co-occurrence, and sequential comorbidity of mental disorders across 20 years, from adolescence to midlife."

The researchers initially explained psychopathology using three higher-order factors (Internalizing, Externalizing, and Thought Disorder). However, they found that one General Psychopathology dimension explained psychopathology even better. They called this dimension the p factor. Higher p scores are "associated with more life impairment, greater familiality, worse developmental histories, and more compromised early-life brain function."

This is an interesting approach to understanding psychopathology. However, until researchers discover what many therapists already know (i.e., that most mental illness is due some form of relational trauma), they will still be wandering off into the tall grass and missing the obvious.

General Psychopathology Factor May Describe Structure of Psychiatric Disorders

Mental disorders have traditionally been viewed as distinct categorical entities, but the high incidence of comorbid, or co-occurring, disorders challenges this view.

As researchers Terrie Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi, and colleagues observe in their new article in Clinical Psychological Science, about half of the people who meet diagnostic criteria for one disorder also meet the diagnostic criteria for another disorder at the same time.

“The high rates of comorbidity observed among mental disorders suggest that there may be a more parsimonious structure to psychopathology than implied by current nosologies that identify many separate and distinct disorders,” Moffitt, Caspi, and co-authors write.

To test this hypothesis, the researchers looked at longitudinal data collected from participants in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study who were between the ages of 18 and 38. The researchers examined the participants’ mental health data, testing several possible statistical models to see which model best accounted for the data.

Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the structure of mental disorders could be summarized by three core dimensions: an “internalizing” liability to depression and anxiety, an “externalizing” liability to antisocial and substance-use disorders, and a “thought disorder” liability to symptoms of psychosis.

Furthermore, analyses suggested that the propensity to develop any and all forms of common psychopathologies could be summarized by one general underlying dimension. Higher scores on this dimension, which the researchers call the “p factor,” were associated with greater life impairment, greater familiality, worse developmental histories, and more compromised brain function in early life.

“We propose that p influences present/absent performance on hundreds of psychiatric symptoms, which are typically aggregated into dozens of distinct diagnoses, which further aggregate into two overarching Externalizing versus Internalizing domains, which finally aggregate into one normally distributed dimension of psychopathology from low to high: p,” the researchers conclude.

One way to think about the p factor is in relation to the structure of cognitive abilities:

“These abilities are dissociable into separate abilities, such as verbal skills, visuospatial skills, working memory, or processing speed,” say the researchers. “Nonetheless, the general factor in intelligence (called the g factor) summarizes the observation that individuals who do well on one type of cognitive test tend to do well on all other types of cognitive tests.”

While there are specific factors that account for variation in each test, the g factor accounts for the positive correlation among all test scores, suggesting that there may be a common etiology that influences or contributes in some way to all cognitive functions.

The new findings suggest that, just as there is a general factor of cognitive ability, there may also be a general factor of psychopathology. This general factor may, in turn, help to explain why researchers have had difficulty finding distinct causes, biomarkers, and treatments for individual mental disorders.

Moffitt, Caspi, and colleagues hope that these initial findings generate “further tests, extensions, and discussions about the structure of common mental disorders.”


Caspi, A., Houts, R.M., Belsky, D.W., Goldman-Mellor, S.J., Harrington, HL, Israel, S., Meier, M.H., Ramrakha, S., Shalev, I., Poulton, R., & Moffitt, T.E. (2013, Aug 14). The p Factor: One General Psychopathology Factor in the Structure of Psychiatric Disorders? Clinical Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/2167702613497473

Here is the abstract and some of the introduction to the original article (available here):

Abstract

Mental disorders traditionally have been viewed as distinct, episodic, and categorical conditions. This view has been challenged by evidence that many disorders are sequentially comorbid, recurrent/chronic, and exist on a continuum. Using the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, we examined the structure of psychopathology, taking into account dimensionality, persistence, co-occurrence, and sequential comorbidity of mental disorders across 20 years, from adolescence to midlife. Psychiatric disorders were initially explained by three higher-order factors (Internalizing, Externalizing, and Thought Disorder) but explained even better with one General Psychopathology dimension. We have called this dimension the p factor because it conceptually parallels a familiar dimension in psychological science: the g factor of general intelligence. Higher p scores are associated with more life impairment, greater familiality, worse developmental histories, and more compromised early-life brain function. The p factor explains why it is challenging to find causes, consequences; biomarkers, and treatments with specificity to individual mental disorders. Transdiagnostic approaches may improve research.
 

Introduction

A psychiatric nosology—the classification of mental disorders—is a practical tool. A nosology is useful for research because it is used to integrate and guide empirical studies. A nosology is useful for health-care delivery because it is used to make prognoses and to decide on treatment need and choice of treatment. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) is the current ascendant nosology in clinical psychology and psychiatry. It may not be perfect (Sanislow et al., 2010), but it is what many of us work with in both research and clinical practice (Kupfcr, Kuhl, & Regier, 2013).

A persistent challenge to the DSM and related nosologies is comorbidity, the coexistence of two or more conditions or disorders (Hasin & Kilc-oyne, 2012; Kessler, Chiu, Demler, Merikangas, Sr Walters, 2005). Comorbidity rates are very high in psychiatry and conform roughly to the rule of 50910: Half of individuals who meet diagnostic criteria for one disorder meet diagnostic criteria for a second disorder at the same time half of individuals with two disorders meet criteria for a third disorder, and so forth (Newman, Moffitt, Caspi, & Silva, 1998). The high rates of comorbidity observed among mental disorders suggest that there may be a more parsimonious structure to psychopathology than implied by current nosologies that identify many separate and distinct disorders. This article begins by providing a brief historical review of empirical research on the structure of psychiatric disorders. It then offers an empirical update, suggesting that most common psychiatric disorders are unified by a single psychopathology dimension representing lesser-to-greater severity of psychopathology that is associated with compromised brain integrity.

Soon after the publication of the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 1994), psychological scientists noted the need for research that would examine patterns of comorbidity to "elucidate the broad, higher-order structure of phenotypic psychopathology" (Clark, Watson, & Reynolds, 1995, p. 131). We responded to this call by using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to evaluate alternative hypotheses about the latent structure underlying 10 common mental disorders among young adults, ages 18 to 21 years (Krueger, Caspi, Moffitt, & Silva, 1998) in contrast to the prominence of categorical models in the classification of adult psychopathologies, dimensional models had long enjoyed success in research on the classification of childhood psychopathologies, and empirical studies had converged on two primary dimensions as a way to characterize childhood disorders: Internalizing (including anxious and depression symptoms) and Externalizing (including aggressive, delinquent, and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms; Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1981). We could see no reason why this highly replicable two-dimensional structure of psychopathologies should suddenly vanish when research participants and patients suddenly turned age 18 years. Our data confirmed that a two-factor model accounted for the comorbidity of different young-adult disorders, and it bore a striking similarity to the model of childhood psychopathologies.

On the basis of this initial finding, we put forth the hypothesis that common DSM psychiatric disorders in adulthood may be characterized by two underlying core psychopathological processes: an Internalizing dimension indicating liability to experience mood and anxiety disorders, such as major depression (MDE), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, and social phobia; and an Externalizing dimension indicating liability to experience substance disorders and antisocial disorders. During the past 15 years, multiple studies in different parts of the world, in different age-groups, in general community samples, and in clinical populations (e g , Forbush & Watson, 2013; Kendler, Prescott, Myers, & Neale, 2003; Krueger, 1999; Slade & Watson, 2006; Vollebergh et al., 2001) have replicated this basic finding (Krueger & Markon, 2006, 2011).
 
With the publication of the DSM-5 and debate fomenting over the need for a dimensional nosology (Insel, 2013), now is a good time to take stock of what is known about the structure of psychopathology. We have drawn on insights stemming from six recent findings about the epidemiology of mental disorders.
 
First, life-course epidemiology points to the need for longitudinal research designs to study the course of psychopathology. Previous research on the structure of psychopathology has been carried out using cross-sectional designs, focusing on individuals who report symptoms within a specified period (most often using the past 12 months as the reporting period). However, research has shown that cross-sectional snapshots mix single-episode, one-off cases with recurrent and chronic cases, which are known to differ in the extent of their comorbid conditions, the severity of their conditions, and possibly the etiology of their conditions. This is true for a variety of common disorders, including, for example, depression and alcohol-use disorders (Jackson & Sartor, in press; Monroe & Harkness, 2011), but also for psychotic experiences (van Os, Linscott, Myin-Germeys, Delespaul, & Krabbendam, 2009). That is whether manifested as recurrence or chronicity, some people are more prone than others to have persistent (as well as comorbid and severe) psychopathology. These results underscore the need to take the longitudinal course of mental disorders into account when modeling the higher-order structure of psychopathology.
 
Second, sequential comorbidity points to the need to model multiple disorders over time. Previous research has focused on comorbidity as defined by the co-occurrence of two or more disorders at the same time, but both retrospective (Kessler et al., 2011) and prospective-longitudinal (Copeland, Shanahan, Costello, & Angold, 2011) research has shown that comorbidity is also sequential. For example, longitudinal research has shown that GAD and MDE are linked to each other sequentially such that each disorder increases the likelihood of developing the other disorder in the future among individuals who presented with only one condition at one point in time (Moffitt et al.. 2007). These results underscore the need to take into account both concurrent and sequential comorbidity when evaluating the structure of psychopathology.

Third, psychotic disorders can be included in models of the structure of psychopathology. In most previous studies, researchers have omitted psychotic disorders from their evaluation of the structure of psychopathology. There are practical explanations for this omission (e g , most surveys of psychiatric disorders do not assess psychotic symptoms), but their absence from studies of the structure of psychopathology is conspicuous for three reasons: (a) New research on the dimensional model of psychosis has directed attention to the fact that psychotic symptoms are more commonly experienced in the general population than previously assumed, (b) psychotic disorders are striking in their especially high rates of comorbidity, and (c) psychotic disorders have extraordinary high economic burden. as expressed in the number of years lost due to ill health. disability, or early death (Murray et al., 2012; van Os et al., 2009). A few researchers recently have incorporated psychotic symptoms and symptoms of schizotypal personality disorders into their assessment of the structure of psychopathology, pointing to the existence of a third, distinct Thought Disorder spectrum (Kotov, Chang, et al., 2011; Kotov, Ruggero, et al., 2011). These results underscore the concern that efforts to model the structure of psychopathology without consideration of psychotic symptoms may not capture the true structure in the population.

Fourth, twin studies and risk-factor studies have suggested not only that there are substantial phenotypic correlations among pairs of psychiatric disorders but also that the liability to many disorder pairs (e g , schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; MDE and GAD; and alcohol and cannabis dependence) is influenced by the same genetic factors (Kendler, 1996; Lichtenstein et al., 2009; Sartor et al., 2010) and that many disorder pairs are characterized by shared intermediate phenotypes (Nolen-Hoeksema & Watkins, 2011). These findings imply that the causes of different disorders may be similar, highlighting the potential value of a transdiagnostic approach to psychiatric disorders. The value of a transdiagnostic approach has been further underscored by evidence that different disorders often respond to the same treatments (Barlow et al., 2011).
 
Fifth, symptom variation above and below diagnostic cut points implies modeling disorder data at the level of symptom scales. Researchers in most previous studies of the structure of psychopathology have modeled DSM disorders as dichotomous variables, although the few that have used symptom scales have generated comparable results (e g., Markon, 2010). Diagnostic thresholds increasingly have been acknowledged to be somewhat arbitrary, and it has been recognized that there is meaningful and useful clinical information both above and below diagnostic thresholds (Kessler et al., 2003; Lewinsohn, Shankman. Gau, & Klein, 2004). The DSM-5 also opted to emphasize dimensional conceptualizations of psychiatric disorders.
 
Sixth, the possibility of one General Psychopathology factor should be tested. This issue has arisen from the observation that disorders are positively correlated not just at the disorder level but substantially so at the spectrum level as well; for example, the correlation between the Externalizing and Internalizing spectra is -.5, and the correlation between the Internalizing and Thought Disorder spectra has been estimated at -.6 (Wright et al., 2013). Given high correlations at the spectrum level, Lahey et al. (2012) suggested the intriguing possibility that in addition to propensities to specific forms of psychopathology (e.g., Internalizing vs. Externalizing), there may be one underlying factor that summarizes individuals' propensity to develop any and all forms of common psychopathologies. They used confirmatory factor models to test a hierarchical bifactor model that derives a general factor from the correlation matrix between different mental disorders and found that depression, anxiety, substance use, and conduct/antisocial disorders all loaded strongly on a single factor, in addition to specific Internalizing and Externalizing spectra (Lahey et al. did not include symptoms of psychosis in their work).
 
A useful way to think about the meaning of such a general factor in psychopathology is by analogy in relation to cognitive abilities. These abilities are dissociable into separate abilities, such as verbal skills, visuospatial skills, working memory, or processing speed. Nonetheless, the general factor in intelligence (called the g factor) summarizes the observation that individuals who do well on one type of cognitive test tend to do well on all other types of cognitive tests (Decry, 2001; Jensen, 1998; Spearman, 1904). Although specific factors account for variation in each test, the g factor accounts for the positive correlation among all test scores, suggesting that all cognitive functions, to some extent, are influenced by common etiology. Just as there is a general factor of cognitive ability, it is possible that there also is a general factor of psychopathology.

Given the aforementioned new findings and insights, we used data from a comprehensive prospective longitudinal study of mental disorders; during the past 20 years, we repeatedly assessed symptoms of 11 kinds of common adult mental disorders in a representative birth cohort, from ages 18 to 38 years. The research reported here had four aims. First, we tested alternative models of the structure of psychopathology using data that take into account information about the dimensionality, persistence, co-occurrence, and sequential comorbidity of mental disorders, including psychosis. Second, we evaluated the validity of the structure of psychopathology by testing associations between the factors obtained and independent information about the study members' personality functioning and life impairment. Third, we tested the family histories and developmental histories associated with each of the factors representing the structure of psychopathology. Fourth, we tested the hypothesis that individual differences in severe and impairing psychopathology are associated with compromised brain integrity from early life.

Read the whole article.

Looking for the "Self" in the Brain - Recent Developments

In the title of this post, I purposely placed self in quotation marks, for the simple reason that self (as most people conceive of it) is a transient experience and not an objective, measurable entity.

Despite the fact that neuroscience (aside from Buddhism) has done the most to dispel the self illusion, researchers continue to seek neural correlates of "self" in the brain. Below are the titles and abstracts of four such recent articles, all of which are interesting and informative.

I suspect that the future of this endeavor will move toward looking for the processes that generate the illusion of the singular self, while the various regions of the brain active in the process of "selfing" will become less important.

All of these article come from Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, an open source publisher of scientific research. The third paper below is from Antonio Damasio's lab and deals with the autobiographical self - I will post on this paper individually in the near future.

Self-processing and the default mode network: interactions with the mirror neuron system

Istvan Molnar-Szakacs [1,2] and Lucina Q. Uddin [3,4]

1. Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2. Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
3. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
4. Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA

Recent evidence for the fractionation of the default mode network (DMN) into functionally distinguishable subdivisions with unique patterns of connectivity calls for a reconceptualization of the relationship between this network and self-referential processing. Advances in resting-state functional connectivity analyses are beginning to reveal increasingly complex patterns of organization within the key nodes of the DMN – medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex – as well as between these nodes and other brain systems. Here we review recent examinations of the relationships between the DMN and various aspects of self-relevant and social-cognitive processing in light of emerging evidence for heterogeneity within this network. Drawing from a rapidly evolving social-cognitive neuroscience literature, we propose that embodied simulation and mentalizing are processes which allow us to gain insight into another’s physical and mental state by providing privileged access to our own physical and mental states. Embodiment implies that the same neural systems are engaged for self- and other-understanding through a simulation mechanism, while mentalizing refers to the use of high-level conceptual information to make inferences about the mental states of self and others. These mechanisms work together to provide a coherent representation of the self and by extension, of others. Nodes of the DMN selectively interact with brain systems for embodiment and mentalizing, including the mirror neuron system, to produce appropriate mappings in the service of social-cognitive demands.

Full Citation: 
Molnar-Szakacs I and Uddin LQ. (2013, Sep 11). Self-processing and the default mode network: interactions with the mirror neuron system. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience; 7:571. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00571

* * * * *

Looking for the self in pathological unconsciousness
 
Athena Demertzi [1], Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse [1], Serge Brédart [2], Lizette Heine [1], Carol di Perri [3] and Steven Laureys [1]

1. Coma Science Group, Cyclotron Research Center and Neurology Department, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
2. Department of Psychology, Behavior, and Cognition, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
3. Department of Neuroradiology, National Neurological Institute C. Mondino, Pavia, Italy

There is an intimate relationship between consciousness and the notion of self. By studying patients with disorders of consciousness, we are offered with a unique lesion approach to tackle the neural correlates of self in the absence of subjective reports. Studies employing neuroimaging techniques point to the critical involvement of midline anterior and posterior cortices in response to the passive presentation of self-referential stimuli, such as the patient’s own name and own face. Also, resting state studies show that these midline regions are severely impaired as a function of the level of consciousness. Theoretical frameworks combining all this progress surpass the functional localization of self-related cognition and suggest a dynamic system-level approach to the phenomenological complexity of subjectivity. Importantly for non-communicating patients suffering from disorders of consciousness, the clinical translation of these technologies will allow medical professionals and families to better comprehend these disorders and plan efficient medical management for these patients.

Full Citation: 
Demertzi A, Vanhaudenhuyse A, Brédart S, Heine L, di Perri C and Laureys S. (2013, Sep 3). Looking for the self in pathological unconsciousness. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience; 7:538. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00538

* * * * *

Cortical midline structures and autobiographical-self processes: an activation-likelihood estimation meta-analysis

Helder F. Araujo [1,2,3], Jonas Kaplan [1] and Antonio Damasio [1] 

1. Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2. Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
3. Graduate Program in Areas of Basic and Applied Biology, University of Oporto, Oporto, Portugal

The autobiographical-self refers to a mental state derived from the retrieval and assembly of memories regarding one’s biography. The process of retrieval and assembly, which can focus on biographical facts or personality traits or some combination thereof, is likely to vary according to the domain chosen for an experiment. To date, the investigation of the neural basis of this process has largely focused on the domain of personality traits using paradigms that contrasted the evaluation of one’s traits (self-traits) with those of another person’s (other-traits). This has led to the suggestion that cortical midline structures (CMSs) are specifically related to self states. Here, with the goal of testing this suggestion, we conducted activation-likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses based on data from 28 neuroimaging studies. The ALE results show that both self-traits and other-traits engage CMSs; however, the engagement of medial prefrontal cortex is greater for self-traits than for other-traits, while the posteromedial cortex is more engaged for other-traits than for self-traits. These findings suggest that the involvement CMSs is not specific to the evaluation of one’s own traits, but also occurs during the evaluation of another person’s traits.

Full Citation: 
Araujo HF, Kaplan J and Damasio A. (2013, Sep 4). Cortical midline structures and autobiographical-self processes: an activation-likelihood estimation meta-analysis. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience; 7:548. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00548

* * * * *

A philosophical perspective on the relation between cortical midline structures and the self

Kristina Musholt 

Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

In recent years there has been increasing evidence that an area in the brain called the cortical midline structures (CMSs) is implicated in what has been termed self-related processing. This article will discuss recent evidence for the relation between CMS and self-consciousness in light of several important philosophical distinctions. First, we should distinguish between being a self (i.e., being a subject of conscious experience) and being aware of being a self (i.e., being able to think about oneself as such). While the former consists in having a first-person perspective on the world, the latter requires the ability to explicitly represent one’s own perspective as such. Further, we should distinguish between being aware of oneself “as subject” and being aware of oneself “as object.” The focus of existing studies investigating the relation between CMS and self has been predominantly on the ability to think about oneself (and in particular thinking of oneself “as object”), while the more basic aspects involved in being a self have been neglected. However, it is important to widen the scope of the cognitive neuroscience to include the latter, not least because this might have important implications for a better understanding of disorders of the self, such as those involved in schizophrenia. In order to do so, cognitive neuroscience should work together with philosophy, including phenomenology. Second, we need to distinguish between personal and subpersonal level explanations. It will be argued that although it is important to respect this distinction, in principle, some subpersonal facts can enter into constitutive conditions of personal-level phenomena. However, in order for this to be possible, one needs both careful conceptual analysis and knowledge about relevant cognitive mechanisms.

Full Citation: 
Musholt K. (2013, Sep 2). A philosophical perspective on the relation between cortical midline structures and the self. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience; 7:536. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00536

This article is pretty geeky for the psychology crowd, but it's an interesting examination of how stress-related psychological issues can produce symptoms of somatoform dissociation. For clarification:

Somatoform dissociation is a specific form of dissociation with somatic manifestations represented in the form of 'pseudoneurological' symptoms due to disturbances or alterations of normal integrated functions of consciousness, memory, or identity mainly related to trauma and other psychological stressors.

It's a decent study, and worth the read.

Full Citation:
Bob P, Selesova P, Raboch J, and Kukla, L. (2013, May 25). ‘Pseudoneurological’ symptoms, dissociation and stress-related psychopathology in healthy young adults. BMC Psychiatry, 13:149. doi:10.1186/1471-244X-13-149

'Pseudoneurological' symptoms, dissociation, and stress-related psychopathology in healthy young adults 

Petr Bob, Petra Selesova, Jiří Raboch, and Lubomir Kukla

For all author emails, please log on.

BMC Psychiatry 2013, 13:149, doi:10.1186/1471-244X-13-149

Published: 25 May 2013

Abstract (provisional) 

Background

Somatoform dissociation is a specific form of dissociation with somatic manifestations represented in the form of 'pseudoneurological' symptoms due to disturbances or alterations of normal integrated functions of consciousness, memory or identity mainly related to trauma and other psychological stressors. With respect to the distinction between psychological and somatoform manifestations of dissociation current data suggest a hypothesis to which extent mild manifestations of 'pseudoneurological' symptoms in healthy young population may be linked to stress-related psychopathological symptoms or whether these symptoms more likely could be attributed to unexplained somatic factors. 

Methods

With this aim we have assessed the relationship between somatoform dissociation and stress-related psychopathology (i.e. anxiety, depression, symptoms of traumatic stress, alexithymia) in a group of 250 healthy non-psychiatric and non-clinical young adults. 

Results

Results of this study show that the symptoms of somatoform dissociation are significantly linked to stress-related psychopathology. 

Conclusions

Findings of this study show that the 'pseudoneurological' symptoms may be linked to stress-related psychopathological processes which indicate that also mild levels of stress may influence somatic feelings and may lead to various somatoform dissociative symptoms.

Background

Somatoform dissociation has been proposed as a concept describing specific forms of dissociative symptoms experienced as somatic disturbances due to alterations of normal integrative functions of consciousness, memory or identity related to stressful experiences [1-4]. Frequently these stressors are linked to an exposition of a trauma in childhood and related to physical, sexual or emotional abuse [5-8]. The somatic manifestations of dissociation are likely caused by a lack of integration of somatoform components of experience, reactions and functions and represented by various forms of pseudoneurological symptoms [8-11] involving bodily functions such as motor inhibition or loss of motor control, gastrointestinal symptoms, dissociative seizures, painful symptoms, alterations in perception or alterations in sensation of pain (analgesia, kinesthetic anesthesia) such as unability to register pain or painful affect during traumatic event [12-14]. Several studies have shown that the concept of somatoform dissociation may explain various somatic disturbances in psychiatric patients and also in patients with pain disorders that in many cases have unexplained etiology and in principle it could be related to stress exposure and related processes of mental disintegration [2,4,6,8-10,14]. As expected from the psychological theory and clinical data several findings also show that symptoms of somatoform dissociation have close relationship to psychologically experienced dissociative symptoms [6]. For example a recent study of young population of students strongly suggests that various stress factors related to dissociation may have direct and continuous relationship to somatic symptoms that may be explained within the concept of somatoform dissociation [15].

Although the concept of somatoform dissociation seems to be clinically relevant, the distinction between psychological and somatic forms of dissociation represents a fundamental problem whether dissociative symptoms, reflecting disorders of conscious awareness, are always “psychological” in nature or they may have somatic manifestations mediated by somatization or conversion mechanisms [6-8]. With respect to brain-mind reductionism that rejects mental causation the problem whether stress and traumatic experiences may cause only psychological or also somatic symptoms is still controversial [2,5-9,12]. This discussion in principle suggests clinically relevant empirical question and hypothesis whether mild manifestations of pseudoneurological symptoms linked to the concept of somatoform dissociation in general population may be  attributed to stress-related psychopathological symptoms. Within this context, in somatically healthy people these symptoms likely cannot be explained by various underlying somatic factors.

With the aim to test the hypothesis we have assessed the relationship between ‘pseudoneurological’ symptoms represented by somatoform dissociation questionnaire, and stress-related psychopathological symptoms (i.e. anxiety, depression, symptoms of traumatic stress, alexithymia) in a group of 250 non-psychiatric and non-clinical healthy young adults, who represent population particularly vulnerable to stress influences.

Read the whole article.