Brain Resilience: Shedding Light into the Black Box of Adventure Processes

Understanding of the active beneficial processes of adventure learning remains elusive. Resilience may provide one foundation for understanding the positive adaptation derived from Outdoor Adventure Education (OAE) and Adventure Therapy (AT) programming. From a neurological perspective, resilience may be explained by the brain’s innate capability to adapt its structure (growth of new cells) and function (re-wiring of existing cells) directly in response to environmental exposure. This paper explores the role of known brain responses to experiences analogous to adventure programming based on themes from a key literature review. The fundamental paradigm of ‘stress and recovery’ contends that a balance of neurobiological processes help realign psychosocial equilibrium in the short term and over time. Through progressive, repeated exposure to custom-built outdoor challenges, the concept of brain resilience may provide a scientific platform for understanding the mechanisms of achieving meaningful, authentic and healthy outcomes. It could also help to begin to illuminate a section of the black box of adventure processes

Solving the Mind-Body Problem through Two Distinct Concepts: Internal-Mental Existence and Internal Mental Reality

In a previous published paper, we initiated in this journal discussion about new perspectives regarding the organization and functioning of the mind, as a premise for addressing the mind-body problem. In this article, we continue focussing discussion on two distinct but interrelated concepts, internal-mental existence/ entity and internal-mental reality. These two psycho-physiological subunits of the mind interact each other in the form of an internal-mental interaction, having no sense if one is isolated/ studied separately from the other. In other words, the mind (as a dynamic psycho-physiological construction) has no sense in the absence of this internal mental interaction that which takes places between internal-mental existence and internal-mental reality. In the case of the `mind-body problem`, the tendency until now was to assign extremely complex functions of the mind (abstract ideas, consciousness, colors) to simplistic physiological/ neuronal structures. We hope that this paper opens a new perspective, in respect to complex/ interrelated neuronal structures that construct the mind through their interaction, a process that is both physiologically (transmission of neural impulses) and psychologically (transmission of information), and that requires time (an immaterial component) to occurs

The New Ledoux: Survival Circuits and the Surplus Meaning of ‘Fear’

ABSTRACT LeDoux's pioneering work on the neurobiology of fear has played a crucial role in informing debates in the philosophy of emotion. For example, it plays a key part in Griffiths’ argument for why emotions don’t form a natural kind. Likewise, it is employed by Faucher and Tappolet to defend pro-emotion views, which claim that emotions aid reasoning. LeDoux, however, now argues that his work has been misread. He argues that using emotion terms, like ‘fear’, to describe neurocognitive data adds a ‘surplus meaning’: it attributes phenomenal properties to survival circuits which they don’t possess. This paper aims to explore LeDoux's new proposal, and examine the potentially devastating consequences that ensue for the aforementioned views. I end by addressing the worry that these lessons are conditional on LeDoux's own higher-order theory of emotional consciousness being true

Phonological processing deficit - a culprit behind developmental dyslexia?

Udostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu „Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia”. Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00

"Consciousness". Selected Bibliography 1970 - 2001

This is a bibliography of books and articles on consciousness in philosophy, cognitive science, and neuroscience over the last 30 years. There are three main sections, devoted to monographs, edited collections of papers, and articles. The first two of these sections are each divided into three subsections containing books in each of the main areas of research. The third section is divided into 12 subsections, with 10 subject headings for philosophical articles along with two additional subsections for articles in cognitive science and neuroscience. Of course the division is somewhat arbitrary, but I hope that it makes the bibliography easier to use. This bibliography has first been compiled by Thomas Metzinger and David Chalmers to appear in print in two philosophical anthologies on conscious experience (Metzinger 1995a, b). From 1995 onwards it has been continuously updated by Thomas Metzinger, and now is freely available as a PDF-, RTF-, or HTML-file. This bibliography mainly attempts to cover the Anglo-Saxon and German debates, in a non-annotated, fully formatted way that makes it easy to "cut and paste" from the original file. To a certain degree this bibliography also contains items in other languages than English and German - all submissions in other languages are welcome. Last update of current version: July 13th, 2001

Perspectives on the Neuroscience of Cognition and Consciousness

The origin and current use of the concepts of computation, representation and information in Neuroscience are examined and conceptual flaws are identified which vitiate their usefulness for addressing problems of the neural basis of Cognition and Consciousness. In contrast, a convergence of views is presented to support the characterization of the Nervous System as a complex dynamical system operating in the metastable regime, and capable of evolving to configurations and transitions in phase space with potential relevance for Cognition and Consciousness

Fear and the human amygdala

We have previously reported that bilateral amygdala damage in humans compromises the recognition of fear in facial expressions while leaving intact recognition of face identity (Adolphs et al., 1994). The present study aims at examining questions motivated by this finding. We addressed the possibility that unilateral amygdala damage might be sufficient to impair recognition of emotional expressions. We also obtained further data on our subject with bilateral amygdala damage, in order to elucidate possible mechanisms that could account for the impaired recognition of expressions of fear. The results show that bilateral, but not unilateral, damage to the human amygdala impairs the processing of fearful facial expressions. This impairment appears to result from an insensitivity to the intensity of fear expressed by faces. We also confirmed a double dissociation between the recognition of facial expressions of fear, and the recognition of identity of a face: these two processes can be impaired independently, lending support to the idea that they are subserved in part by anatomically separate neural systems. Based on our data, and on what is known about the amygdala's connectivity, we propose that the amygdala is required to link visual representations of facial expressions, on the one hand, with representations that constitute the concept of fear, on the other. Preliminary data suggest the amygdala's role extends to both recognition and recall of fearful facial expressions

The Nature of Legal Dispute Bargaining

The longstanding debate over the relative merits of adversarial and communitarian theories of legal dispute bargaining has been in somewhat of a holding pattern for several years, but recent research in the field of cognitive neuroscience may break the logjam. Laboratory experiments and case studies in that field have shown how dispositions and capacities for social cooperation inherited from natural selection and evolution predispose humans to configure disputing as a mixture of argument over factual reality, disagreement over the interpretation of normative standards, and a search for impartial resolutions that protect the interests of everyone involved equally. This neurobiological inheritance can be difficult to appreciate, resist, and control, but it is something all dispute bargaining theory, adversarial and communitarian alike, must take into account. Theories that ignore it are limited to telling only part of the dispute bargaining story

Outcomes of Randomized Clinical Trials of Interventions to Enhance Social, Emotional, and Spiritual Components of Wisdom: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

ImportanceWisdom is a neurobiological personality trait made up of specific components, including prosocial behaviors, emotional regulation, and spirituality. It is associated with greater well-being and happiness.ObjectiveTo evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to enhance individual components of wisdom.Data sourcesMEDLINE and PsycINFO databases were searched for articles published through December 31, 2018.Study eligibility criteriaRandomized clinical trials that sought to enhance a component of wisdom, used published measures to assess that component, were published in English, had a minimum sample size of 40 participants, and presented data that enabled computation of effect sizes were included in this meta-analysis.Data extraction and synthesisRandom-effect models were used to calculate pooled standardized mean differences (SMDs) for each wisdom component and random-effects meta-regression to assess heterogeneity of studies.Main outcomes and measuresImprovement in wisdom component using published measures.ResultsFifty-seven studies (N = 7096 participants) met review criteria: 29 for prosocial behaviors, 13 for emotional regulation, and 15 for spirituality. Study samples included people with psychiatric or physical illnesses and from the community. Of the studies, 27 (47%) reported significant improvement with medium to large effect sizes. Meta-analysis revealed significant pooled SMDs for prosocial behaviors (23 studies; pooled SMD, 0.43 [95% CI, 0.22-0.3]; P = .02), emotional regulation (12 studies; pooled SMD, 0.67 [95% CI, 0.21-1.12]; P = .004), and spirituality (12 studies; pooled SMD, 1.00 [95% CI, 0.41-1.60]; P = .001). Heterogeneity of studies was considerable for all wisdom components. Publication bias was present for prosocial behavior and emotional regulation studies; after adjusting for it, the pooled SMD for prosocial behavior remained significant (SMD, 0.4 [95% CI, 0.16-0.78]; P = .003). Meta-regression analysis found that effect sizes did not vary by wisdom component, although for trials on prosocial behaviors, large effect sizes were associated with older mean participant age (β, 0.08 [SE, 0.04]), and the reverse was true for spirituality trials (β, -0.13 [SE, 0.04]). For spirituality interventions, higher-quality trials had larger effect sizes (β, 4.17 [SE, 1.07]), although the reverse was true for prosocial behavior trials (β, -0.91 [SE 0.44]).Conclusions and relevanceInterventions to enhance spirituality, emotional regulation, and prosocial behaviors are effective in a proportion of people with mental or physical illnesses and from the community. The modern behavioral epidemics of loneliness, suicide, and opioid abuse point to a growing need for wisdom-enhancing interventions to promote individual and societal well-being

Schizophrenia, social practices and cultural values: A conceptual introduction

Schizophrenia is usually described as a fragmentation of subjective experience and the impossibility to engage in meaningful cultural and intersubjective practices. Although the term schizophrenia is less than 100 years old, madness is generally believed to have accompanied mankind through its historical and cultural ontogeny. What does it mean to be “mad”? The failure to adopt social practices or to internalize cultural values of common sense? Despite the vast amount of literature and research, it seems that the study of schizophrenia and of the psychoses is suffering from a generic disintegration. In this introduction, we offer an historical overview of the variety of theories and approaches to schizophrenia. We also provide an overview of how the authors in this volume attempt an integrative account where training, practice, theory and research are considered as parts of a larger whole. This is a varied and pluralistic volume, and it is up to the readers to make use of different chapters according to their own needs