The relationship between puberty and social emotion processing

The social brain undergoes developmental change during adolescence, and pubertal hormones are hypothesized to contribute to this development. We used fMRI to explore how pubertal indicators (salivary concentrations of testosterone, oestradiol and DHEA; pubertal stage; menarcheal status) relate to brain activity during a social emotion task. Forty‐two females aged 11.1 to 13.7 years underwent fMRI scanning while reading scenarios pertaining either to social emotions, which require the representation of another person’s mental states, or to basic emotions, which do not. Pubertal stage and menarcheal status were used to assign girls to early or late puberty groups. Across the entire sample, the contrast between social versus basic emotion resulted in activity within the social brain network, including dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), the posterior superior temporal sulcus, and the anterior temporal cortex (ATC) in both hemispheres. Increased hormone levels (independent of age) were associated with higher left ATC activity during social emotion processing. More advanced age (independent of hormone levels) was associated with lower DMPFC activity during social emotion processing. Our results suggest functionally dissociable effects of pubertal hormones and age on the adolescent social brain.     

The Enhancement of Creativity*

Upon submission of this article, Dr. Hughes wrote the following acknowledgement: “With gratitude, I wish to record my debt to the Director of the Creative Science Program at New York University and my longtime friend, Myron A. Coler, who first made me aware of the importance of creativity.”     

The voice of experience

Whistleblowing is recognized as an important function in promoting scientific integrity, and there is a recognized need to protect whistleblowers. There is not much information available in the literature about scientific whistleblowing. Because it appears that frequently scientific misconduct is uncovered by a whistleblower, it is useful to obtain more information about the activity. This paper is about whistleblowing from the perspective of the person blowing the whistle. Information about a few selected cases of whistleblowing is presented in an attempt to augment the experiential aspect of the activity. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the symposium entitled “Damned If You Do. Damned If You Don’t: What the Scientific Community Can Do About Whistleblowing” held during the Annual Meeting of the AAAS, Seattle, Washington, 15 February, 1997.     

The mineness of experience

In this paper I discuss the nature of the “I” (or “self”) and whether it is presupposed by the very existence of conscious experiences (as that which “has” them) or whether it is, instead, in some way constituted by them. I argue for the former view and try to show that the very nature of experience implies a non-constituted synchronic and diachronic transcendence of the experiencing “I” with regard to its experiences, an “I” which defies any objective characterization. Finally I suggest that the self, though irreducible to inter-experiential relations, is not a “separately existing entity”, but should be conceived of as a dimension, namely the dimension of first-personal manifestation of the experiences.