Exploring function in the hallucinating brain

For many patients with schizophrenia 'hearing voices’ is frightening and severely disruptive symptom of their illness. Recent analysis techniques now offer the possibility to study the complex brain as a communicating network, and in this way develop more realistic models on the origin of hallucinations, which is desperately needed in our search for targeted interventions for hallucinations. In this thesis we present an integrated network model in which we show how the same mathematical principles can be used to explain psychotic symptoms on different levels of human functioning (from nerve cells to brain areas to social networks). In this way we put an end to a fixation on one or several causes of schizophrenia, and we embrace a multi-factorial or (eco)systems approach to this disorder. Derived from data-driven analysis of fMRI data from patients with schizophrenia, we comprehensively describe the neural circuit involved in hallucinations. Specifically, our findings show that miscommunications between two functional networks are central in the occurrence of hallucinations, i.e. linguistic content from the right-sided area of Broca is assigned false salience in the insula. This mechanical insight directly informs us where we can effectively intervene into the hallucination network

An integrated network model of psychotic symptoms

FSW - Self-regulation models for health behavior and psychopathology - ou

An integrated network model of psychotic symptoms

AbstractThe full body of research on the nature of psychosis and its determinants indicates that a considerable number of factors are relevant to the development of hallucinations, delusions, and other positive symptoms, ranging from neurodevelopmental parameters and altered connectivity of brain regions to impaired cognitive functioning and social factors. We aimed to integrate these factors in a single mathematical model based on network theory. At the microscopic level this model explains positive symptoms of psychosis in terms of experiential equivalents of robust, high-frequency attractor states of neural networks. At the mesoscopic level it explains them in relation to global brain states, and at the macroscopic level in relation to social-network structures and dynamics. Due to the scale-free nature of biological networks, all three levels are governed by the same general laws, thereby allowing for an integrated model of biological, psychological, and social phenomena involved in the mediation of positive symptoms of psychosis. This integrated network model of psychotic symptoms (INMOPS) is described together with various possibilities for application in clinical practice

Vrij Verkeer van Gigolo’s. Rechtsvraag (337) Europees recht

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