HOMO RELIGIOSUS AND ITS BRAIN: REALITY, IMAGINATION, AND THE FUTURE OF NATURE

Abstract. “Daddy, is God real or is he a part of people's imagination?” The brain constructs reality by bottom-up, genetically programmed mechanisms. Nature selected the human holistic, symbolically thinking, aesthetic brain using a mechanism of brain-language coevolution. Our religious nature and moral capabilities are rooted in this brain, and in the real images it constructs.     

Traumatic brain injury: Implications for practice

This article presents a brief overview of the prevalence and history of traumatic brain injury (TBI), discusses the multidimensional effects of TBI, describes the current focus of TBI rehabilitation, and summarizes outcomes from (re)habilitation work with individuals with traumatic brain injury. The importance of this critical area to rehabilitation personnel is discussed, along with suggestions for future research and evaluation studies.     

Biology and a Theology of Evolution

The challenge and stimulus to theology that is constituted by the scientific version of Genesis which will prevail for the foreseeable future is expounded in relation to the significance of the succeeding stages of the life process and to the general features of biological evolution. A responsive theology of evolution is discerned as involving a renewal of insights associated with the themes of immanence, panentheism, the Wisdom and Word of God, and a sacramental universe. Such a revitalized theology allows one to conceive of humanity and Jesus the Christ in a fully evolutionary perspective without loss of an emphasis on the particularity of the Incarnation.     

Can Science Help Construct a New Global Ethic? The Development and Implications of Moral Transformation Theory

This paper reports the results of a ten-year search for consensus among scientific findings on the nature of the origin and development of moral sensitivity and morality. Significant agreement on six underlying factors was found. Based on these foundations, a new theory of moral transformation and a scientific "global ethic" relating to the global ethic of Hans Kung and the Parliament of the World's Religions is proposed. Fields surveyed include psychology, sociology, political science, economics, history, and gender and feminist studies in social science; physics and biology in natural science; and brain research, archaeology, and both old and new evolutionary studies and theory, including chaos, self-organizing, and other nonlinear theories, in systems science.     

The relations between neuroscience and human behavioral science.

Neuroscience seeks to understand how the human brain, perhaps the most complex electrochemical machine in the universe, works, in terms of molecules, membranes, cells and cell assemblies, development, plasticity, learning, memory, cognition, and behavior. The human behavioral sciences, in particular psychiatry and clinical psychology, deal with disorders of human behavior and mentation. The gap between neuroscience and the human behavioral sciences is still large. However, some major advances in neuroscience over the last two decades have diminished the span. This article reviews the major advances of neuroscience in six areas with relevance to the behavioral sciences: (a) evolution of the nervous system; (b) visualizing activity in the human brain; (c) plasticity of the cerebral cortex; (d) receptors, ion channels, and second/third messengers; (e) molecular genetic approaches; and (f) understanding integrative systems with networks and circadian clocks as examples.     

NATURE AS THE IMAGE OF GOD: REFLECTIONS ON THE SIGNS OF THE SACRED

Abstract. This is a brief survey of aspects of the modern scientific view of nature to see if implied therein are signs or traces of the sacred–as early religious apprehension surely supposed. Nature's power and order are discussed as is the strange dialectic of death and life, evident in modern biology as it also is in all early religion.     

THE RELIGION OF A SCIENTIST: EXPLORATIONS INTO REALITY (RELIGIO PHILOSOPHI NATURALIS)

Abstract. Sir Thomas Browne's reflection on the synthesis between his Christian religion and his practice as a medical doctor, made over three centuries ago, leads into reflections on the present relation between religion and science in the personal experience of the writer. An account is given of how the actual practice of scientific investigation led the author to theistic inferences and how the study of DNA provoked questions concerning reductionism and emergence. This evoked the need for a map of knowledge, and an attempt is presented in a figure which also serves to clarify what kind of realistic reference is involved in both scientific and humanistic contexts–especially with respect to personal language. Theological investigations thereby receive at least provisional legitimization and, with this encouragement, the article pursues the questions of the nature of the divine Source ("God") of the world's being and becoming, of God's interaction and communication with the world, especially with human beings in that world. The penultimate section outlines why the writer considers an explicit communication from God to humanity in Jesus of Nazareth is coherent with the foregoing and what this implies for human fulfillment, individually and corporately. The article concludes with a plea for humility before God and nature in our inquiries in the spirit both of Sir Thomas Browne and of the arch "agnostic" T. H. Huxley.     

Emotional behavior as an agenda in neuropsychological evaluation

In an effort to objectify neuropsychologic evaluations, consideration of a patient's emotional behavior has often been neglected. An extensive literature review is undertaken in an effort to document lateralized emotional behaviors commonly found in brain injury populations. This evidence is contrasted with the psychiatric symptoms and lateralized neuropsychologic impairments seen in major depression and schizophrenia. A theoretical model is then proposed that attempts to integrate these functional vs. organic symptoms based upon reciprocal inhibition of lateralized emotional functioning in brain injury and psychiatric disorders. This opponent process model not only seems to account for some of the discrepant findings in the literature, but additionally provides a cogent and useful marker to neurophychologically differentiate neuronal vs. metabolic disorders. The model further suggests new ways of envisioning treatment and recovery from both psychiatric illness and brain injury.     

Psychological stress,work satisfaction,and brain injury nursing

The psychological stress and work satisfaction of two groups of nurses working with clients having brain injuries were assessed and compared with norm groups of people working with other types of injuries and disabilities. Contrary to previously published reports, there was no evidence that the groups in this study were higher on measures of burnout than the selected norm groups. However, work satisfaction was found to be significantly lower for one of the groups when compared not only with the other group but also with the selected norm groups. This lower work satisfaction was associated with significantly lower scores on certain aspects of the work environment when compared with the other group. Results from semi-structured interviews in the study confirmed the importance of the work environment and provided additional information concerning causes of the lower work satisfaction and possible solutions.     

线方向判断测验在神经内,外科临床的应用与评价

对200名正常人及168例脑损害病人分别进行了线方向判断测验的测查。发现在对照组中,年龄、性别、文化水平对测验成绩均有一定的影响,尤以文化水平的影响最为显著。各病种组与对照组比较,发现脑梗塞组与脑肿瘤组成绩比外伤组和血管畸形组为差。同时还发现所有病种组右脑损害患者分数均低于左脑损害患者。