Neurobiological substrates of cognitive rigidity and autonomic inflexibility in generalized anxiety disorder

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is characterized by difficulties in inhibiting both perseverative thoughts (worry and rumination) and autonomic arousal. We investigated the neurobiological substrates of such abnormal inhibitory processes, hypothesizing aberrant functional coupling within ‘default mode’ (DMN) and autonomic brain networks. Functional imaging and heart rate variability (HRV) data were acquired from GAD patients and controls during performance of three tracking tasks interspersed with a perseverative cognition (PC) induction. After detection of infrequent target stimuli, activity within putative DMN hubs was suppressed, consistent with a redirection of attentional resources from internal to external focus. This magnitude of activity change was attenuated in patients and individuals with higher trait PC, but was predicted by individual differences in HRV. Following the induction of PC in controls, this pattern of neural reactivity became closer to that of GAD patients. Results support, at a neural level, the association between cognitive inflexibility and autonomic rigidity

Re:Connection: exercises in unplugging and mindfully reconnecting

How can architecture encourage focused attention and mindfulness in an increasingly distracted and distractible world? As a primary means of connectivity in the 21st century, smartphones and social media have provided unparalleled efficiencies, connectivity and entertainment. However, constant engagement with richly-pixelated virtual worlds has also brought about mass addiction to devices as college students log more compulsive “screen time” than ever before. Mental health issues such as crippling anxiety, diminished attention spans, and unhappiness, are on the rise as students disconnect from the physical world and are consumed by their virtual one. This thesis is comprised of a series of architectural interventions created for unplugging and reconnecting the body with the physical world: analog spaces that prioritize attentiveness and consciousness over instant gratification and compulsion. As concentrated sensory environments, these retreats from technology exist to reintroduce awareness into everyday life and quiet hyperstimulated minds. Taking the Merchants Bank Building in Providence, Rhode Island, as a model location to demonstrate these concepts, this thesis demonstrates the power of mindfulness in everyday life. As a building that has historically worked to serve capitalistic and transactional goals at the juncture of downtown and major universities, the architectural interventions work to bring mindfulness to students who would otherwise pass unconsciously through this liminal space between academia and commerce. Through framing and magnifying meaningful aspects of the local environment (e.g. human connections, high-rise silhouettes, bodies of water, natural and artificial light, earth, and the sky) while softening peripheral stimuli with architectural filters and barriers, these mindful exercises in observing and participating serve as powerful aids for achieving a healthier mind, body, and life. While existential threats loom in today’s world, ranging from systemic inequalities and a worldwide pandemic to war abroad and global warming, the inward pursuit of mindfulness serves as an accessible yet imperative aid in healing not only individual minds and communities, but these large-scale issues

Developing a Choice-Based Digital Fiction for Body Image Bibliotherapy

Body dissatisfaction is so common in the western world that it has become the norm, especially among women and girls. Writing New Body Worlds is a transdisciplinary research-creation project that aims to address these issues by developing an interactive digital fiction for body image bibliotherapy. It is created with the critical co-design participation of a group of young women and non-binary individuals (aged 18–25) from diverse backgrounds, who are representative of its intended audience. This article discusses how our participant research influenced the creative development of the digital fiction, its characters and its novel ludonarrative or story-game design. It theorizes how the specific affordances of a choice-based interactive narrative, that situates the reader-player in the mind of the fictional protagonist, may lead to enhanced empathic identification and agency and, therefore, a more profoundly immersive and potentially transformative experience. This process of “diegetic enactment” is where we postulate the therapeutic value lies: an ontological oscillation between the reader-player’s mind and the fictional mind, which may induce the reader-player to reflect upon, and perhaps subtly alter, their own body image.publishedVersio

Music and art : an analogical approach

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Footprints in Paradise

In Okinawa, the southernmost prefecture of Japan, “ecotourism” promises to provide employment for a dwindling population of rural youth while preserving the natural environment and bolstering regional pride. Footprints in Paradise centers on how Okinawans’ sense of place is transforming rapidly, along with language, landscapes, cultural traditions, and wildlife: from marginalized and exoticized island phenomena into global heritage resources worth cherishing by insiders and outsiders. Footprints in Paradise is intended for readers interested in the anthropology of US-Japan-Okinawa relations, tourism and island environments, the politics of ecological sustainability, and the shifting ethics of human-animal relationships in the early twenty-first century

Gettysburg: Our College\u27s Magazine Spring 2019

From the Board Chair David Brennan ’75, P’00 Table of Contents News @ Gettysburg: A Home For Curious Creations, Gettysburg College\u27s Innovation Lab (Tyler Mitchell \u2720, Orrin Wilson \u2720, Just Hoang Anh \u2721, Alyssa Kaewwilai ’20) Prof Notes: Amy Evrard, Anthropology Ask Ellis: An entrepreneurial approach to simplifying immigration (Maneesha Mukhi ’04) The 411 (Terri L. P’15 and Devin Garnick ’15) Preserving History, Shaping the Future (Ashley Sonntag ’19, Rev. Victor A. Myers, Charles E. Liebegott, Class of 1912, Mary Wootton, Geoffrey Jackson ’91, Barbara Holley ’54, Marion L. Hobor, Mike Hobor ’69, Nancy H. Dewing, Jim ’63 and Susan Vinson and Lauren Ashley Bradford ’18) Reading Notes: Alum’s book illuminates impact of experimental learning on classroom experience (Joshua R. Eyler ’00) Snapshots (Lincoln Prize, Jerry Spinelli ’63 movie, 75th anniversary of D-Day, Faculty books, Awarded fellowship to Prof. McKinley Melton) Big Picture: Meet me at the JMR Student Center Conversations Meet Our 15th President: Robert W. Iuliano, Mike Baker Digital Footprints, Katelyn Silva Creativity: A Calling Cultivated, Devan White ’11 What Students Do: Conversations from the Margins (Emily Vega ’19) What Makes Gettysburg Great: Global Reach (Prof. Rimvydas Baltaduonis) Work That Makes a Difference: Seats for Life (President Janet Morgan Riggs ’77 and Ed Riggs ’77 Save the Dates Class Notes In Memory Parting Shot: Gettysburg\u27s Gift, Jerry K. Robbins ’57 Experience a Send - Offhttps://cupola.gettysburg.edu/gburgmag/1016/thumbnail.jp

Dance Theater—The Physical Art of Perception

This research analyzes the inner energy of human perception and the invisible effect and influence between perception and physical dance theatre. Not only the insight and interpretation of the relationship between the psychological and physical area, but also the analysis of aesthetics, thinking, and concept from a perceptual process to physical language in different works of physical dance theatre. In this way we come to understand how artists create works as a perceptual process, and how audiences perceive expression in terms of artists’ intention and intuition. Through physical movement in the theater and the language on the stage, people perceive creative thought as a reflection of the historical or current state of a society and changeable world. My thesis is a study of physical language in dance theatre with both psychological and physical analysis. Therefore, in the form of physical dance theatre, we feel the spirit inside their movement language, much like the conversation of a human self through the perception of a physical, theatrical, spiritual, psychological, and unknown world