Key word "default mode network"
Garrison K. A., Scheinost D., Worhunksy P. D., Elwafi H. M., Thornhill IV T. A., Thompson E., Clifford Saron, Gaëlle Desbordes, Hedy Kober, Michelle Hampson, Gray J. R. R. T. C., Xenephon Papademtris & Brewer J. A. (2013) Real-Time fMRI Links Subjective Experience with Brain Activity During Focused Attention,. Neuroimage 81: 110–118. https://cepa.info/2339
Garrison K. A., Scheinost D., Worhunksy P. D., Elwafi H. M., Thornhill IV T. A., Thompson E., Clifford Saron, Gaëlle Desbordes, Hedy Kober, Michelle Hampson, Gray J. R. R. T. C., Xenephon Papademtris & Brewer J. A.
(
2013)
Real-Time fMRI Links Subjective Experience with Brain Activity During Focused Attention,.
Neuroimage 81: 110–118.
Fulltext at https://cepa.info/2339
Recent advances in brain imaging have improved the measure of neural processes related to perceptual, cognitive and affective functions, yet the relation between brain activity and subjective experience remains poorly characterized. In part, it is a challenge to obtain reliable accounts of participant’s experience in such studies. Here we addressed this limitation by utilizing experienced meditators who are expert in introspection. We tested a novel method to link objective and subjective data, using real-time fMRI (rt-fMRI) to provide participants with feedback of their own brain activity during an ongoing task. We provided real-time feedback during a focused attention task from the posterior cingulate cortex, a hub of the default mode network shown to be activated during mind-wandering and deactivated during meditation. In a first experiment, both meditators and non-meditators reported significant correspondence between the feedback graph and their subjective experience of focused attention and mind-wandering. When instructed to volitionally decrease the feedback graph, meditators, but not non-meditators, showed significant deactivation of the posterior cingulate cortex. We were able to replicate these results in a separate group of meditators using a novel step-wise rt-fMRI discovery protocol in which participants were not provided with prior knowledge of the expected relationship between their experience and the feedback graph (i.e., focused attention versus mind-wandering). These findings support the feasibility of using rt-fMRI to link objective measures of brain activity with reports of ongoing subjective experience in cognitive neuroscience research, and demonstrate the generalization of expertise in introspective awareness to novel contexts.
Ikegami T. (2013) The Self-moving Oil Droplet as a Homeostat. Constructivist Foundations 9(1): 114–114. https://constructivist.info/9/1/114
Ikegami T.
(
2013)
The Self-moving Oil Droplet as a Homeostat.
Constructivist Foundations 9(1): 114–114.
Fulltext at https://constructivist.info/9/1/114
Open peer commentary on the article “Homeostats for the 21st Century? Simulating Ashby Simulating the Brain” by Stefano Franchi. Upshot: Using the example of chemical oil droplets, the paper discusses the idea of a homeostat in terms of a default mode network.
Khachouf O. T., Poletti S. & Pagnoni G. (2013) The embodied transcendental: A Kantian perspective on neurophenomenology. Frontiers in Human Neurosciences 7: 611. https://cepa.info/4773
Khachouf O. T., Poletti S. & Pagnoni G.
(
2013)
The embodied transcendental: A Kantian perspective on neurophenomenology.
Frontiers in Human Neurosciences 7: 611.
Fulltext at https://cepa.info/4773
Neurophenomenology is a research programme aimed at bridging the explanatory gap between first-person subjective experience and neurophysiological third-person data, through an embodied and enactive approach to the biology of consciousness. The present proposal attempts to further characterize the bodily basis of the mind by adopting a naturalistic view of the phenomenological concept of intentionality as the a priori invariant character of any lived experience. Building on the Kantian definition of transcendentality as “what concerns the a priori formal structures of the subject’s mind” and as a precondition for the very possibility of human knowledge, we will suggest that this transcendental core may in fact be rooted in biology and can be examined within an extension of the theory of autopoiesis. The argument will be first clarified by examining its application to previously proposed elementary autopoietic models, to the bacterium, and to the immune system; it will be then further substantiated and illustrated by examining the mirror-neuron system and the default mode network as biological instances exemplifying the enactive nature of knowledge, and by discussing the phenomenological aspects of selected neurological conditions (neglect, schizophrenia) In this context, the free-energy principle proposed recently by Karl Friston will be briefly introduced as a rigorous, neurally-plausible framework that seems to accomodate optimally these ideas. While our approach is biologically-inspired, we will maintain that lived first-person experience is still critical for a better understanding of brain function, based on our argument that the former and the latter share the same transcendental structure. Finally, the role that disciplined contemplative practices can play to this aim, and an interpretation of the cognitive processes taking place during meditation under this perspective, will be also discussed.
Export result page as:
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·