Treatment of developmental stress disorder: mind,body and brain – analysis and pharmacology coupled

The schism between psychiatry, psychology and analysis, while long present, has widened even more in the past half‐century with the advances in psychopharmacology. With the advances in electronic brain imaging, particularly in developmental and post‐traumatic stress disorders, there has emerged both an understanding of brain changes resulting from severe, chronic stress and an ability to target brain chemistry in ways that can relieve clinical symptomatology. The use of alpha‐1 adrenergic brain receptor antagonists decreases many of the manifestations of PTSD. Additionally, this paper discusses the ways in which dreaming, thinking and the analytic process are facilitated with this concomitant treatment and hypervigilence and hyper‐arousal states are signficiantly decreased.     

Influence of Motor Cortex Stimulation During Motor Training on Neuroplasticity as a Potential Therapeutic Intervention

Rehabilitation options to promote neuroplasticity may be enhanced when patients are engaged in motor practice during repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Twelve participants completed 3 separate sessions: motor practice, motor practice with rTMS, and rTMS only: motor practice consisted of 30 isometric contractions and subthreshold rTMS was 30, 3-s trains at 10 Hz. Assessments included the Box and Block Test (BBT), force steadiness (10% of the maximum voluntary contraction), and TMS (cortical excitability, intracortical inhibition, and intracortical facilitation). Participants significantly increased BBT scores following the combined condition. Force steadiness improved after all 3 conditions (p < .05). TMS outcomes depended on intervention condition with significant increases in facilitation following the motor practice plus rTMS condition. All interventions influenced motor control, yet are likely modulated differently when combining motor practice plus rTMS. These results help guide the clinical utility of rTMS as an intervention to influence motor control.     

Metamemory following childhood brain injury: A consequence of executive impairment

In this study, we investigated the influence of children’s level of executive functioning on two types of metamemory knowledge following a traumatic brain injury (TBI). For this purpose, 22 children (aged 7 to 14 years) who had sustained a moderate to severe TBI and 44 typically developing children were recruited. The children with TBI were divided into two groups according to the severity of their executive impairment. Injury severity was determined by the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score on admission or by the duration of unconsciousness. All children were then tested on both their knowledge of general memory functioning and their level of memory self-awareness, respectively assessed using the total number of correct responses on an adapted version of a metamemory interview and a self-other discrepancy score on a questionnaire evaluating everyday memory abilities. Data analyses revealed that participants with TBI who suffered impaired executive functions demonstrated less general metamemory knowledge, and underestimated the frequency of their memory problems, compared with children with TBI who had preserved executive functions and with control participants. Considering the well-established effect of metamemory knowledge on people’s spontaneous implementation of strategies, the interest and the importance of these findings on both theoretical and clinical grounds are discussed.     

Folded Futurity: Epigenetic Plasticity,Temporality, and New Thresholds of Fetal Life

The life sciences are generating a transformative view of the biological body not as fixed and innate but as permeable to its environment and, therefore, plastic: development is open and malleable. Emblematic of these new sciences is environmental epigenetics, which investigates environmental factors that come into the body to shape expression of genes across the life course; prominent are environmental exposures during fetal development, which epigeneticists propose influence not only birth outcomes but also lifelong health. How does this new emphasis on permeability and plasticity during fetal development change how the fetus and fetal vulnerability are understood in the current scientific literature? Perspectives on genomic and reproductive temporality help conceptualize environmental epigenetics as a dynamic relationship between plasticity and determinism. This epigenetic temporality links past, present, and future in way that gives the fetus a keystone role as the vulnerable space-time of environmental epigenetics. Epigenetic temporality produces a new, folded futurity that brings multiple, future generations into the present, influenced by current environmental conditions. In doing this, epigenetics shifts thresholds of fetal vulnerability and intervention to incorporate other entities, including reproductive cells (gametes and primordial germ cells) and very young children. Epigenetic temporality folds in on itself, producing new versions of vulnerable, plastic life that require protection now, in the enduring present, even as the future toward which epigenetics is oriented constantly recedes.     

Missing piece of the puzzle in the science of consciousness: Resting state and endogenous correlates of consciousness

Consciousness still stands as one of the most interesting and the most elusive problems of neuroscience. Finding its correlates is the first step toward its satisfactory explanation. Several theories have proposed its correlates but none of them seem to be generally accepted even though most of them share some very similar elements. These elements are the activity of the thalamus, which is considered by some as the central region for consciousness, and gamma synchronization, which should be the general principal for the emergence of conscious experience. However, all of these proposed theories share one characteristic and that is that they do not take into consideration the recently discovered endogenous activity of the brain, which is generally associated with the default mode network. Although the activity of this large scale brain network is in correlation with various levels of consciousness it is still missing in discussions of consciousness. This review recognizes the importance of endogenous activity and points out the important discoveries of endogenous activity that could be an important step toward a satisfactory explanation of consciousness.     

音乐表演训练对神经可塑性的影响:元分析研究

音乐表演是人类最复杂和精细的技能之一。通过激活似然性评估元分析,对音乐表演训练所诱发的神经可塑性进行探究。结果发现,音乐表演者与非音乐家在左侧小脑、双侧中央前回、双侧颞上回、左侧额下回、双侧顶下小叶以及右侧脑岛等脑区存在差异。这些脑区与听觉、运动以及多通道信息整合等加工有关。未来研究应从不同音乐表演训练诱发的神经适应性出发,进一步探究音乐表演训练与大脑可塑性之间的关联。     

人类的判断为什么不精确：进化论和脑科学的解释

人类的判断并非十分精确,而且人类还无法清醒认识到自己判断并不准。进化心理学理论认为看似不精确的判断最小化了人类付出的生存代价,从而使个体具有更大的收益,在竞争资源中具有适应优势;而脑科学领域运用fMRI、TMS等技术发现了前额叶的某些区域与判断的精确性有关。未来的研究有待结合进化发展心理学的角度、进化适应的现实解释性角度和认知神经科学发现临床应用的角度展开。     

情绪调节脑机制的研究现状与展望

随着脑成像等新技术的运用,关于情绪调节脑机制的研究有了很大进展。近期国外情绪调节脑机制的研究在理论模型上有了新发展;研究关注的情绪调节从有意情绪调节扩展到自动情绪调节;研究针对的情绪、情绪调节策略以及目标群体都有了进一步的扩展和深化;情绪调节脑机制的个体差异研究也有了新进展。本文试图对近期国外情绪调节脑机制研究的发展状况进行梳理,并展望未来研究方向,以期为国内研究提供参考。     

情绪加工的脑时空动态机制

本文综述了罗倩博士及其同事在近年来开展的情绪研究工作。他们通过认知行为和脑成像技术(包括fMRI、MEG), 系统考察了情绪刺激的自动化、优先加工的神经机制, 具体包括三个方面的研究内容：(1)阈下情绪加工(相对于阈上水平)的神经机制; (2)参与情绪加工的脑区之间的动态时空关系及功能联结; (3)情绪与注意之间的交互作用。     

音乐绝对音高信息加工的脑机制

音乐绝对音高(absolute pitch, AP)一直是音乐心理学者感兴趣的问题。AP能力是一种特殊的音乐能力。ERP研究表明具有AP能力的群体只需较少的认知资源进行音高加工, 同时不同AP能力的加工机制也不同; 功能神经成像研究表明大脑左侧额叶背侧后部和左侧颞叶平面对AP加工发挥重要作用; 脑结构研究发现AP群体的某些脑区皮层厚度低于没有绝对音高能力(Non-AP)群体, 这可能与AP特殊的加工机制有关。AP能力形成需要先天遗传和后天环境的共同作用, 其相互作用的脑机制需结合行为遗传学的研究方法及成果。