The anatomy of loneliness

Loneliness is a potent but little understood risk factor for broad-based morbidity and mortality. We review five social neurobehavioral mechanisms that may account for this association. The evidence suggests that different mechanisms explain short-term and long-term effects, and that the long-term effects operate through multiple pathways. Implications for the design of interventions are discussed.     

The anatomy of free recall

The relative importance of various covert cues used in free recall is inferred on the basis of conditional probabilities of free recall given success vs failure of cued recall of the same material. Thirty-six names associated with pictures arranged in a 6 by 6 matrix were learned. A free recall test of names was followed by cued recall of names, with pictures, positions, or joint pictures and positions used as cues. Matching tests based on these cues were also administered. The tests were given at one of two stages of training, immediately or after 2 days. Pictorial and position cues are equally well encoded, but pictorial cues are less accessible and, therefore, relatively more useful in cued recall than in free recall. Position and pictorial information related to the names appears to be encoded and forgotten independently, and there is no evidence for summation of subthreshold encoding effect.     

The anatomy of the cerebellum

Vertebrate cerebella occupy a position in the rostral roof of the 4th ventricle and share a common pattern in the structure of their cortex. They differ greatly in their external form, the disposition of the neurons of the cerebellar cortex and in the prominence of their afferent, intrinsic and efferent connections.     

The anatomy of a hostage situation

The authors have attempted to exemplify the social-psychological interplay between hostage and hostage taker and to dissect the impact of this type of event by focusing on one hostage-taking incident. The event described is representative of many incidents in which the hostage taker acts alone, without a supporting organization, and is primarily motivated by expressive needs. The hostages suffered many common emotions and symptoms. Each hostage also suffered in an individual way, determined in part by preceding events and dynamics and in part by the roles they assumed within the hostage situation. The more common Hostage Response Syndrome included the overt appearance of the Stockholm Syndrome in only one of the hostages.     

THOG: The anatomy of a problem

Summary Three experiments are reported on the attempts to solve a novel hypothetico-deductive problem. Its solution demands both the postulation of hypotheses about its structure and a combinatorial analysis upon the consequences of these hypotheses. The majority of subjects (students) failed to solve the problem because they argued from the properties of stimuli rather than from hypotheses about their conceptual status. The results suggest that a familiarity with the logical structure of the problem and the elicitation of appropriate hypotheses failed to correct this intuitive approach. These findings are discussed in relation to Piaget's theory of formal operations, and (very tentatively) in relation to habitual styles of thought.     

The functional anatomy of a hysterical paralysis

The concept of a conversion disorder (such as hysterical paralysis) has always been controversial (Ron, M.A. (1996). Somatization and conversion disorders. In: B.S. Fogel, R.S. Schiffer & S.M. Rao (Eds.), Neuropsychiatry. Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore, MD). Although the diagnosis is recognised by current psychiatric taxonomies, many physicians still regard such disorders either as feigned or as failure to find the responsible organic cause for the patient's symptoms. We report a woman with left sided paralysis (and without somatosensory loss) in whom no organic disease or structural lesion could be found. By contrast, psychological trauma was associated with the onset and recurrent exacerbation of her hemiparalysis. We recorded brain activity when the patient prepared to move and tried to move her paralysed (left) leg and when she prepared to move and did move her good (right) leg. Preparing to move or moving her good leg, and also preparing to move her paralysed leg, activated motor and/or premotor areas previously described with movement preparation and execution. The attempt to move the paralysed leg failed to activate right primary motor cortex. Instead, the right orbito-frontal and right anterior cingulate cortex were significantly activated. We suggest that these two areas inhibit prefrontal (willed) effects on the right primary motor cortex when the patient tries to move her left leg.     

Marxist perspectives on abnormality

Two traditions within Marxist theory, based on the empirical work on physiological reactivity of the “Warsaw School” and social relations effects on personality, are explored as orthogonal continua offering a novel perspective on psychopathology. Individual differences in reactivity are examined in the context of the extent of communality-individuality inherent in the social relations characteristic of a society. The argument is advanced that considerable variance in abnormal behavior is intrinsic to the dialectic relation of the two variables—culture and temperament—and specific psychopathologies are related to given structures of social relations. The diagnoses of psychopathic personality, hysteria, and organization neurosis are discussed within this interactive framework.     

The functional anatomy of word comprehension and production

This review describes the functional anatomy of word comprehension and production. Data from functional neuroimaging studies of normal subjects are used to determine the distributed set of brain regions that are engaged during particular language tasks and data from studies of patients with neurological damage are used to determine which of these regions are necessary for task performance. This combination of techniques indicates that the left inferior temporal and left posterior inferior parietal cortices are required for accessing semantic knowledge; the left posterior basal temporal lobe and the left frontal operculum are required for translating semantics into phonological output and the left anterior inferior parietal cortex is required for translating orthography to phonology. Further studies are required to establish the specific functions of the different regions and how these functions interact to provide our sophisticated language system.     

The anatomy of auditory word processing: individual variability

This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural substrate underlying the processing of single words, comparing activation patterns across subjects and within individuals. In a word repetition task, subjects repeated single words aloud with instructions not to move their jaws. In a control condition involving reverse speech, subjects heard a digitally reversed speech token and said aloud the word "crime." The averaged fMRI results showed activation in the left posterior temporal and inferior frontal regions and in the supplementary motor area, similar to previous PET studies. However, the individual subject data revealed variability in the location of the temporal and frontal activation. Although these results support previous imaging studies, demonstrating an averaged localization of auditory word processing in the posterior superior temporal gyrus (STG), they are more consistent with traditional neuropsychological data, which suggest both a typical posterior STG localization and substantial individual variability. By using careful head restraint and movement analysis and correction methods, the present study further demonstrates the feasibility of using overt articulation in fMRI experiments.     

The humanities and gross anatomy: Forgotten alternatives

Researchers in medical education have extensively studied negative reactions to gross anatomy, sometimes grouped under the term “the cadaver experience.” Although there has been disagreement about the extent and importance of such phenomena, several attempts at curricular reform have been designed to “humanize” the student-cadaver encounter. However, some obvious sources linking gross anatomy and the humanities have been consistently overlooked. Such sources—from the history of art, the history of anatomy, and autobiographical and imaginative literature—not only bear witness to the “cadaver experience” for anatomists of the past, but also offer forgotten alternatives for placing present-day reactions in perspective. Former methods of teaching which used such material might serve as models for reintegrating the humanities into the study of gross anatomy as a possible humanizing force.     

The anatomy of object processing: The role of anteromedial temporal cortex

How objects are represented and processed in the brain remains a key issue in cognitive neuroscience. We have developed a conceptual structure account in which category-specific semantic deficits emerge due to differences in the structure and content of concepts rather than from explicit divisions of conceptual knowledge in separate stores. The primary claim is that concepts associated with particular categories (e.g., animals, tools) differ in the number and type of properties and the extent to which these properties are correlated with each other. In this review, we describe recent neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies in which we have extended our theoretical account by incorporating recent claims about the neuroanatomical basis of feature integration and differentiation that arise from research into hierarchical object processing streams in nonhuman primates and humans. A clear picture has emerged in which the human perirhinal cortex and neighbouring anteromedial temporal structures appear to provide the neural infrastructure for making fine-grained discriminations among objects, suggesting that damage within the perirhinal cortex may underlie the emergence of category-specific semantic deficits in brain-damaged patients.     

The treatment of tension headache—I. Muscular abnormality and biofeedback

The specificity and efficacy of a short EMG biofeedback treatment were assessed in a selected group of chronic tension-headache cases—those having significantly elevated levels of muscle tension. The effects of training patients to raise/maintain EMG levels were compared to those obtained from patients who were trained to lower tension levels. The results showed little evidence of increased self-control of the muscle despite successful EMG control during six bio-feedback sessions. A progressive and significant reduction in resting level was found only in the groups trained to reduce EMG levels. The treatment proved ineffectual in reducing headache. The implications of the dissociation of muscle tension and headache are discussed both with respect to current views of tension headaches and the role of biofeedback in their treatment.     

The anatomy of violence: A study of the literature

This review of the literature is a cross-disciplinary and systematic analysis of the concept of violence in human societies. The article provides a framework for understanding the phenomenon of violence in such areas as: sociology, political science, anthropology, and philosophy. Two main concept types of violence definitions were differentiated, described, and examined: the narrow and the broad. The narrow definition of violence is characteristic mainly in the political science field, where violence is defined as the unauthorized (illegal, unlawful) use of physical force. The broad definition of violence is associated with sociology, anthropology, and philosophy. The broad concepts are strongly varied in scope and content, including numerous phenomena, such as hate speech, structural and cultural violence, and other manifestations of latent violence, including: iconic violence, media and symbolic violence. Politically motivated violence is a special kind of violence. This is a paradoxical phenomenon — condemned and at the same time indispensable in contemporary political systems and democratic regimes. The review gives rise to different ideas and ways of defining the concept of violence.     

The anatomy of madness: Psychosis as functional hippocampal afterdischarge

Psychosis is viewed theoretically as hippocampal seizure and afterdischarge resulting from conditions of stressful stimulation and/or inhibitory disinhibition. Key anatomical structures involved and their dynamic interrelationships in health and psychosis are discussed. Several pathological physical conditions as well as certain autostimulatory behavior are seen as contributory or perpetuating to this condition.