final exam- self and self knowledge

Asomatognosia

• The inability to identify one’s own limbs as one’s own 

• Coupled with hemispatial neglect patient neglects anything outside of their open affected visual field 

• Might consider their limbs someone else's

Anosognosia

• not restricted to hemiplegia. It could be related to vision (i.e Anton’s syndrome) or their senses in relation to body function 

• The causes are multifaceted 

• Patient is unaware of their neurological condition 

• neglect , does not necessarily entail, asomatognosia

Depersonalization

• loss of mineness or painful absence of feeling 

  • Sense of ownership 

  • Richness or familiarity of sensations is missing or impoverished

Schizophrenia

• disruption of the World-Brain relationship 

• Brain, body, and world input confusion

personal identity

• The identification or persistence of one’s own sense of personhood as one and  the same across time 

Time

• We experience a continuous flow with everything inside and out changing 

Mineness

• The contents of our experience are experienced as belonging to a particular self, they are experienced as mine.

Derealization

• Affects your ability to see your surroundings accurately 

• Disconnected from your surroundings or environment

Amygdala

• Region of brain that controls the emotions 

• And hyperactive in people with depersonalization 

Insula

• seems to mediate the attentional balance between internal and external inputs 

• Receives (interoceptive) input from subcortical regions and five senses: auditory, tactile, gustatory, somatosensory and olfactory 

• Mediates (as a subjective feeling) our bodily relation with our interoceptive and exteroceptive environments 

Psychological trip switch

• A defense mechanism caused by chronic depersonalization which triggers a numbing effect in times of stress

Ego trick

• Explores the concept of the self and argues that it is merely an illusion created by our brains 

Anicca

• Impermanence: nothing stays the same 

• Thought to be essential to reach enlightenment

Dukkha

• Dissatisfaction: thought that life is this because everything is impermanent and satisfaction does not last  

• Thought to be essential to reach enlightenment

Anatta

• Not- self/egolessness: there is no unchanging, permanently existing self that inhabits our bodies 

• Thought to be essential to reach enlightenment

Emotional feeling

• are embodies: sensorimotor and behavioural output

• a representation of the relation of neurocognitive, interoceptive and exteroceptive inputs 

• Our relation to the world and ourselves at the same time 

• The subjective experience of emotions 

The neural correlates of emotion

• Research into how one spot in the brain can be associated with emotions and disorders 

Darwin

• Believed that motor behaviours like facial expressions and posture convey an organism’s response to events and to objects in the environment

James-Lange theory

• feelings are perceptions of physiological changes in body 

• Anxiety: racing heart 

• Depression: abnormal somatic perception of body and interoceptive input as pain and anxiety, while heart rate is normal 

Sensorimotor

• Having or involving both sensory, and motor functions or pathways 

Vegetative functions

• Bodily processes most directly concerned with maintenance of life 

Damasio

• Viewed feelings as perceptions of bodily changes 

• (unconscious) Emotions: first-order neural representations in brainstem and midbrain (e.g periaqueductal gray, tectum, amygdala) of bodily inputs to brain 

• (consciousness emotional feelings) second-order representations: cingulate 

• feelings not directly related to body 

• 1st order-> brain-> environment 

• 2nd order(how brain relates to itself) -> brain-> brain (interpret)-> emotion-> brain representation  

•  emotional feelings represent how the brain generates subjective feelings based on first-order representations. This tells us more about the brain than the brain’s relations to its immediate environment 

First-order neural structures

• Physiological bodily changes such as fluctuations of the heart are reported to be registered in specific brain regions in the deeper parts of the subcortex. 

• Like the brainstem, midbrain regions, and amygdala 

Second-order neural structures

• Incorporates and reprocesses the activity from the first-order structures, which assigns a feeling of an emotion. 

• Regions like the cingulate gyrus, thalamic nuclei, the somatosensory cortex, and the superior colliculi 

Two-stage process of emotions

• Physical arousal and cognitive label 

• The experience of emotion involves first having some kind of physiological response which the mind then identifies 

Panksepp

• First-order neuronal representations: enough to trigger emotional feelings 

• Somatic and environmental input linked to motor output 

• Any neuronal representation based on sensory input from body and environment generates feelings 

• feelings directly related to body and vegetative states 

  • Emotional feelings represent the relation between brain, body and brain

Primary subcortical regions

• Thalamus, basal ganglia, hippocampus, amygdala, nucleus accumbens 

Dasein

• When emotional feelings signify our existence within our world 

• Can be the backdrop of the world 

• Being in the world 

Heidegger

• Believed emotional feelings are key to world 

• Saw emotional feelings as existential

Schachter and singer

• epinephrine + actors (context) determine emotional state or emotions

  • Gave students  adrenaline then put them in a room

  • In one room there was an actor who was happy and an actor that is angry: then recorded the reactions of the student 

  • Findings: it is not the drugs that dictate the emotions but the environment that depends whether or not they were happy or not 

Arousal

• how do you distinguish emotions based on vegetative or bodily input 

Rolls and Ledoux

• Argued that primarily the brain constructs an emotion which is then taken up by cognitive functions. The cognitive functions further elaborate the objective emotions in such a way that they are associated with a subjective feeling, the emotional feeling

Working memory

• Ledoux considered it crucial for consciousness

• When cognitive emotions associate emotional feelings with abstract cognitive functions

Cognitive function

• higher-order processing (in prefrontal and parietal lobes) lifts unconscious neuronal processing (e.g amygdala) to consciousness via cognitive functions, such as working memory, language and attention 

Higher-order processing

• Cognitive operations more complex than primary processing that occurs in any sensory domain 

Appraisal theory of emotions

• The different kinds of emotional feelings reflect our appraisal processes and their associated cognitive functions 

Interoceptive awareness

• The ability to be aware of internal sensations in the body i.e heart rate, respiration, hunger etc

DACC (Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex)

• Region of brain that subserves cognition and motor control 

Bud Craig

• Believes that that the right insula is critically involved in the experience of feelings: it receives autonomic and visceral input from lower centers and reprocess the interoceptive body state in an integrated way 

Right insula

Low activity during depression

Material me

• What is the source of emotion is it material or bodily me

Interoceptive attention

when attention is turned inwards

Exteroceptive attention

When attention is turned outwards

Somatoform disorder

• A form of a mental illness that causes one or more bodily symptoms, including pain

Relational self in relation to emotions

• The aspect of the self associated with one’s relationships with significant others 

Existential feelings

• A kind of feeling of lacking a connectedness to the world, an absence of warming familiarity 

Being in the world

• Existential concept that emphasises human existence as a state of living with a highly meaningful orientation 

Schizophrenia

• Disruption of the world brain relationship 

• Symptoms: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, trouble with thinking and lack of motivation

Raphe nucleus

• Helps secrete a biochemical substance  called serotonin that plays a role in depression. 

• It sends serotonin to the rest of the brain especially the upper parts 

• And serotonin regulates the cortex’s level of neural activity. 

GABA

• A neurotransmitter, a chemical messenger in your brain 

• Slows down your brain by blocking specific signals in your central nervous system 

Social deafferentation

• Theory that social withdraw triggers the initial phase of schizophrenia 

Resting state

• Healthy: ongoing activity changes or variability 

• Functional connectivity: overly synchronized in aCMS, PCC and precuneus 

PACC (perigenual anterior cingulate cortex)

• Function: contributes to cognitive function such as social cognition 

Delusion

• attribution of abnormal meanings to environment (e.g people’s eyes), an internal process 

Hallucination

• False perception of objects or events involving your senses: sight, sound, smell, touch and taste 

Thought disorder

• Include derailment, pressured speech, poverty of speech, thought blocking etc. 

Sensory flooding

• People with schizophrenia are prone to sensory overload because they cannot divert their attention from repetitive and unimportant sensory stimuli 

Parfit

• survival mediates identity 

  • Psychological continuity based on survival 

  • Or: psychological connectedness: memories 

  • Parfit disagrees with Nagel’s “I am my brain” claim too

Personal identity

• linking self to time

Diachronic identity

• Accounts for psychological continuity over time 

Synchronic identity

• Accounts for personal identity at a single time 

Psychological discontinuity

• Development occurs in distinct stages or steps with qualitative changes taking place at certain points in time 

Psychological continuity

• Development is a gradual and cumulative process

World-based time

• Time in the world 

• The construction of time by the resting-state, the brain based time, is coupled with the time of the world

Brain-based time

• Time in the brain 

• It is in tune with world-based time 

Dynamic flow

• A continuum between different discrete points in our consciousness 

Nagel

• Dual aspect theory:Argued that the mind is an aspect of the body but not identical with or to it. I.e the mind is the consciousness and the brain (electrical signals) is correlated to the mind but they are not identical

World-brain disruption

• When schizophrenia causes the brain to no longer relate the person to the world in a normal way, with reciprocal balance between internal and external inputs from body and world 

• World, brain, body internal and external inputs are confused

paradox of personal identity over time versus constant change

• What makes a person stay the same person overtime 

VMPFC (ventromedial prefrontal cortex) 

• Function: a region for binding together large-scale networks that subserve emotional processing, decision making, memory, self-perception, and social cognition 

• Involved in the processing of self specific stimuli 

DMPFC (dorsal medial prefrontal cortex) 

• A conduit between cognitive control areas an effect-triggering regions that play a role in both generating and regulating emotion 

• Involved in the processing of self specific stimuli 

SACC (Supragenual anterior cingulate cortex) 

• Function: regulating emotion, 

• Degeneration in this area correlates to depressed mood

PCC (posterior cingulate cortex) 

• Function: imaging the future and spatial navigation and scene processing

• Involved in the processing of self specific stimuli  

MOPFC ( medial orbital prefrontal cortex)

• Function: has claimed to be involved with decision making or retrieval of remote long term memory 

PREC (precuneus) 

• Involved in the processing of self specific stimuli 

RSC (retrosplenial cortex) 

• Function: underpins a range of cognitive functions, including episodic memory, navigation, imagination and planning for the future 

Cross-frequency coupling

• Describes how the change in one frequency range is related time-wise to the change in another frequency range. 

Low frequency fluctuations

• Reflect the strength of brain activity 

Lived body (christoff and Thompson)

• Believed that the body and self are distinct from each other rather than being identical 

• They thought the self and body are subjective and can be experienced in a subjective way, conceptualized as the lived body my merleau-ponty 

Serotonin

• A biochemical substance prominent in depression, originates from subcortical brain regions, mostly in the raphe nucleus. It goes to the brain (mostly the upper part) and modulates the cortex’s level of neural activity. 

Glutamate

• A biochemical substance relevant in depression. It increases neural activity; it produces excitation. 

Nucleus Suprachiasmaticus

• Regulates the circadian rhythm in the brain.

• It is seen as abnormal in patients with depression.

Ketamine

• A chemical substance that modulates glutamate 

• It blocks the receptors stopping glutamate from entering and exciting neurons 

Mania

• A disorder where patients are abnormally happy and excited 

• Can be seen when there is an increased environment focus and a decrease in self- and body focus

Promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR)

• Patients with depression have higher incidences of polymorphism coding for a specific substance that transports serotonin, this has an impact on neural activity

Environment focus

• When patients with dementia have an increased self focus there is a decreased environment focus. The perception is shifted to the self at the expense of the relations in/to the environment 

Self-focus

• In depressed patients their self is altered and the they show an increased self focus and association of the self with negative emotions, and increased cognitive processing of the self 

• They are no longer able to readily shift their focus to others

• Attention focus on contents that stem from internal sources  (e.g body,mind) rather than an external origin (e.g the environment) 

Reciprocal influence and connection

• A theory that a person’s behaviour can influence their environment and vice versa 

reciprocal balance(or lack of it) in resting state activity and as it manifests itself in depression or symptoms of MDD. 

• Reciprocal balance concerns the balance between different kinds of mental contents: contents in the mind as related to self, body  or environment