What is the self? This is a question that has long been discussed in (Western) philosophy where the self is traditionally conceived a higher-order function at the apex or pinnacle of all functions. ...This tradition has been transferred to recent neuroscience where the self is often considered to be a higher-order cognitive function reflected in memory and other high-level judgements. However, other lines of research demonstrate a close and intimate relationship between self-specificity and more basic functions like perceptions, emotions and reward. This paper focuses on the relationship between self-specificity and other basic functions relating to emotions, reward and perception. I propose the basis model that conceives self-specificity as a fundamental feature of the brain's spontaneous activity. This is supported by recent findings showing rest-self overlap in midline regions as well as findings demonstrating that the resting state can predict subsequent degrees of self-specificity. I conclude that such self-specificity in the brain's spontaneous activity may be central in linking the self to either internal or external stimuli. This may also provide the basis for coding the self as subject in relation to internal (i.e., self-consciousness) or external (i.e., phenomenal consciousness) mental events.
Abstract Psychopathology as the investigation and classification of experience, behavior and symptoms in psychiatric patients is an old discipline that ranges back to the end of the 19th century. ...Since then different approaches to psychopathology have been suggested. Recent investigations showing abnormalities in the brain on different levels raise the question how the gap between brain and psyche, between neural abnormalities and alteration in experience and behavior can be bridged. Historical approaches like descriptive (Jaspers) and structural (Minkoswki) psychopathology as well as the more current phenomenological psychopathology (Paarnas, Fuchs, Sass, Stanghellini) remain on the side of the psyche giving detailed description of the phenomenal level of experience while leaving open the link to the brain. In contrast, the recently introduced Research Domain Classification (RDoC) aims at explicitly linking brain and psyche by starting from so-called ‘neuro-behavioral constructs’. How does Spatiotemporal Psychopathology, as demonstrated in the first paper on depression, stand in relation to these approaches? In a nutshell, Spatiotemporal Psychopathology aims to bridge the gap between brain and psyche. Specifically, as demonstrated in depression in the first paper, the focus is on the spatiotemporal features of the brain’s intrinsic activity and how they are transformed into corresponding spatiotemporal features in experience on the phenomenal level and behavioral changes, which can well account for the symptoms in these patients. This second paper focuses on some of the theoretical background assumptions in Spatiotemporal Psychopathology by directly comparing it to descriptive, structural, and phenomenological psychopathology as well as to RDoC.
Current neuroscience applies a bi-dimensional model to consciousness. Content and level of consciousness have been distinguished from each other in their underlying neuronal mechanisms. This though ...leaves open the role of the brain's intrinsic activity and its particular temporal and spatial structure in consciousness. I here review and investigate the spatial and temporal features of the brain's intrinsic activity in detail and postulate what I describe as spatiotemporal structure that implies a virtual (e.g., statistically based) spatiotemporal continuity. Such spatiotemporal continuity is supposed to structure and organize the neural processing of the incoming extrinsic stimuli and their potential association with consciousness. I therefore conclude that the current bi-dimensional view of consciousness focusing only on content and level may need to be complemented by a third dimension, the form, e.g., spatiotemporal structure, as provided by the intrinsic activity. In short, I here opt for tri-rather than bi-dimensional view of consciousness.
Four neuronal mechanisms account for different dimensions of consciousness.
•Temporo-spatial nestedness accounts for level/state of consciousness.•Temporo-spatial alignment accounts for content/form ...of consciousness.•Temporo-spatial expansion accounts for phenomenal consciousness.•Temporo-spatial globalization accounts for cognitive features of consciousness.
Time and space are the basic building blocks of nature. As a unique existent in nature, our brain exists in time and takes up space. The brain’s activity itself also constitutes and spreads in its own (intrinsic) time and space that is crucial for consciousness. Consciousness is a complex phenomenon including different dimensions: level/state, content/form, phenomenal aspects, and cognitive features. We propose a Temporo-spatial Theory of Consciousness (TTC) focusing primarily on the temporal and spatial features of the brain activity. We postulate four different neuronal mechanisms accounting for the different dimensions of consciousness: (i) “temporo-spatial nestedness” of the spontaneous activity accounts for the level/state of consciousness as neural predisposition of consciousness (NPC); (ii) “temporo-spatial alignment” of the pre-stimulus activity accounts for the content/form of consciousness as neural prerequisite of consciousness (preNCC); (iii) “temporo-spatial expansion” of early stimulus-induced activity accounts for phenomenal consciousness as neural correlates of consciousness (NCC); (iv) “temporo-spatial globalization” of late stimulus-induced activity accounts for the cognitive features of consciousness as neural consequence of consciousness (NCCcon).
•Shows the relationships between measures of neural activity and mental features.•Neuro-mental relationships are characterized by an inverted-U shaped curve.•Intermediate or average values seen in ...healthy states with optimal mental function.•Extreme values indicate poor function of the same mental feature across disorders.•Sub-optimal mental function and at-risk state between average and extreme values.
Traditionally, studies emphasize differences in neural measures between pathological and healthy groups, assuming a binary distinction between the groups, and a linear relationship between neural measures and symptoms. Here, we present four examples that show a continuous relation across the divide of normal and pathological states between neural measures and mental functions. This relation can be characterized by a non-linear inverted-U shaped curve. Along this curve, mid-range or average expression of a neural measure is associated with optimal function of a mental feature (in healthy states), whereas extreme expression, either high or low, is associated with sub-optimal function, and occurs in different neural disorders. Neural expression between the optimal or intermediate and pathological or extreme values is associated with sub-optimal function and at-risk mental states. Thus, this model of neuro-mental relationship can be summarized as “average is good, extremes are bad”. By focussing on neuro-mental relationships, this model can facilitate the transition of psychiatry from a categorical to a dimensional and individualized approach needed in the era of precision medicine.
The problem of the self has been of increasing interest in recent neuroscience. Brain imaging studies have raised the question of whether neural activity in cortical midline regions is self-specific ...and whether self-specific activity is related to resting state activity (RSA). A quantitative meta-analysis that included 87 studies, representing 1433 participants, was conducted to discuss these questions. First, the specificity of the self (e.g. hearing one's own name, seeing one's own face) was tested and compared across familiar (using stimuli from personally known people) and other (non-self–non-familiar, i.e. strangers and widely-known figures) conditions. Second, the relationship between the self and resting state activity, as reflected by the default-mode network (DMN), was tested. The results indicated that the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (PACC) is specifically involved in self-processing when compared to familiarity, other, and task/stimulus effects. On the contrary, other midline regions, i.e., medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) were functionally unspecific as they were recruited during the processing of both self-specific and familiar stimuli. Finally, the PACC was recruited during self-specific stimuli and this activity overlapped with DMN activity during resting state, thus distinguishing the self-related processing from both that of the familiar and other conditions. Taken together, our data suggest that our sense of self may result from a specific kind of interaction between resting state activity and stimulus-induced activity, i.e., rest–stimulus interaction, within the midline regions.
►Neuronal specificity of self vs. familiarity and non-self. ►Relationship between self and neural activity in the cortical midline structures. ►Relation between self and resting state activity in the default-mode network.
Abstract Background The question of the self has intrigued philosophers and psychologists for a long time. More recently distinct concepts of self have also been suggested in neuroscience more ...specifically in neuroimaging. Aims The aim here is to apply these findings to abnormalities of the self in depression and to develop neuropsychiatric hypothesis. Methods and results Patients with depression suffer from an increased self-focus, attribution of negative emotions to the self, and increased cognitive processing of the own self. We assume that in major depressive disorder (MDD), the abnormal self-focus may be related to altered neural activity in the ventral cortical midline structures (CMS), the one-sided attribution of negative emotions to the self with neural activity in the amygdala and the ventral striatum/N. accumbens, and the abnormal cognitive processing of one's self with reciprocal modulation between ventral CMS and lateral prefrontal cortical regions. Conclusions It is concluded that the transdisciplinary investigation of the self between neuroscience, psychiatry and philosophy yields novel insights into the psychopathology and pathophysiology of the self in depression as well as into the neurophilosophical concept of the self in general.
Abstract
Schizophrenia is a complex psychiatric disorder exhibiting alterations in spontaneous and task-related cerebral activity whose relation (termed “state dependence”) remains unclear. For ...unraveling their relationship, we review recent electroencephalographic (and a few functional magnetic resonance imaging) studies in schizophrenia that assess and compare both rest/prestimulus and task states, ie, rest/prestimulus–task modulation. Results report reduced neural differentiation of task-related activity from rest/prestimulus activity across different regions, neural measures, cognitive domains, and imaging modalities. Together, the findings show reduced rest/prestimulus–task modulation, which is mediated by abnormal temporospatial dynamics of the spontaneous activity. Abnormal temporospatial dynamics, in turn, may lead to abnormal prediction, ie, predictive coding, which mediates cognitive changes and psychopathological symptoms, including confusion of internally and externally oriented cognition. In conclusion, reduced rest/prestimulus–task modulation in schizophrenia provides novel insight into the neuronal mechanisms that connect task-related changes to cognitive abnormalities and psychopathological symptoms.
The search for the subjective nature of our self is intensely debated in philosophy and neuroscience. However, despite all progress, the subjectivity of self and how it fits into the seemingly ...objective world remains elusive. Drawing on recent empirical data, we show how the self is shaped by the brain’s scale-free activity, that is, long-range temporal correlation (LRTC) and the world’s ecological context. We assume that the scale-free LRTC of the world–brain relation provides the ontological basis for the point of view as the foundation of subjectivity within the world. We conclude that the temporal, that is, scale-free based point of view through the world–brain relation provides the ontologically necessary a posteriori condition for the subjectivity of self on a deeper neuro-ecological level. This extends phenomenological concepts like subjectivity and world beyond both Heidegger’s fundamental ontology and Sartre’s phenomenological ontology: it complements their subjectivity-based ontologies with a truly world-based ontology.
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