Midterm Notes: Week 1 - 5
Mind Body Problem: The mind-body problem is the problem of understanding what the
relation between the mind and body is, or more precisely, whether mental experiences are a
subset of physical experiences or not.
World Brain problem: the existence and reality of mental features. We are better off, he
contends, by addressing consciousness and other mental features in terms of the relationship
between world and brain
Gene Brain problem: A genetic brain disorder is caused by a variation or a mutation in a
gene. A variation is a different form of a gene. A mutation is a change in a gene. Genetic
brain disorders affect the development and function of the brain.
Vegetative state/UWS: One of the worst outcomes of acquired brain injury is the vegetative
state, recently renamed 'unresponsive wakefulness syndrome' (VS/UWS). A patient in
VS/UWS shows reflexive behaviour such as spontaneous eye opening and breathing, but no
signs of awareness of the self or the environment
Minimally conscious state: A person who shows clear but minimal or inconsistent
awareness is classified as being in a minimally conscious state. They may have periods where
they can communicate or respond to commands, such as moving a finger when asked. A
person may enter a minimally conscious state after being in a coma or vegetative state.
Coma: A coma is a lengthy deep state of unconsciousness. People in a state of coma are alive
but are unable to move or be aware of or respond to their surroundings. They lose their
thinking abilities but retain non-cognitive function and normal sleep patterns.
Resting State: The concept of resting state refers to the neural activity that is generated
within the brain in the absence of any specific stimuli or tasks and represents a measure of the
brain's intrinsic activity
Consciousness: the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings
Subjectivity: the quality of being based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or
opinions.
Self-consciousness: Self-consciousness is a heightened sense of awareness of oneself. It is
not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. Historically,
"self-consciousness" was synonymous with "self-awareness", referring to a state of awareness
that one exists and that one has consciousness
Content of consciousness: Whereas typical examples of contents of consciousness include
“the taste of coffee,” “feelings of pain,” or “the experience of redness”
level or state of consciousness: The more aware we are of our thoughts, feelings,
perceptions and surroundings, the higher the level of consciousness. Our level of awareness
of internal events and external surroundings is known as a state of consciousness.
Aristotle: Aristotle was the first to develop a formal system for reasoning. He observed that
the deductive validity of any argument can be determined by its structure rather than its
content The mind or soul
Chalmers: Chalmers likes the idea that consciousness can serve as the basis for morality and
value. “A system has to be conscious to have any value. The more consciousness, the more
value. But beyond that, and how they are connected, I really don't have any clear idea.
problem of consciousness"
"
hard
Northoff: Georg Northoff is a German philosopher who decided to investigate the major
philosophical questions of brain and mind by immersing himself in neuroscience and
neuropsychiatry NCC Resting State & Sense of Self External
, ,
world
Neisser: Neisser revolutionised the discipline by challenging behaviourist theory and
endeavouring to discover how the mind thinks and works. He was particularly interested in
memory and perception. neurophilosophy (Cognitive psych )
Descartes: argued that the natures of mind and body are completely different from one
another and that each could exist by itself. "Treatise of man"
Hume: his argument that human actions must be prompted by passion, and never can be
motivated by reason. Reason, he argues, is completely inert when it comes to motivating
conduct, and without some emotion we would not engage in any action.
Empiricism , problem of causation
Metzinger: The geometric aspects of Cubism appealed to his academic side and he would go
on to play key roles in events that brought Cubism to the forefront of the public’s attention.
nature of Consciousness Ex : Self model theory
James: which sought causal relationships between internal states and external behaviours. In
1890 James published a highly influential, two-volume synthesis and summary of
psychology, Principles of Psychology.
Stream of consciousness
Nagel: Nagel is known for his critique of material reductionist accounts of the mind
mind body problems , subjective nature "What's It like to ,
be a bat"
Zahavi: presented trait must constitute an honest indicator of the future offspring viability
(Zahavi, 1975), i.e., if an individual carrying “bad genes” could produce equally attractive
signals, the connection between preference for the signal and offspring
Cortical midline structure:
middle of cerebral
cortex
Metaphysics: the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including
abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.
interactive substance dualism: mind and body are capable of causally affecting each other.
This form of substance dualism is known as interactionism.
Ex - Column One is labelled “physical” and Column Two is labelled “non-physical.” If you
are a substance dualist, you think that some things belong in Column One (for example, your
body, Neptune, and Trump's hair) while other things belong in Column Two (for example,
God, souls, and minds).
Materialism: a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more
important than spiritual values.
The “hard problem”: The hard problem of consciousness in philosophy is the claim that
there is currently no adequate explanation for how and why humans (and other organisms)
have phenomenal consciousness
Intrinsic activity: Intrinsic brain activity (also known as resting state activity) refers to the
neural states that are produced spontaneously by the brain and not as responses to stimulation
or immediate reactions to the environment.
Cognitive neuroscience: Cognitive neuroscience is the study of how the brain enables the
mind. Brain science explores how individual neurons operate and communicate to form
complex neuronal architectures that comprise the human brain.
Stimulus induced activity: incoming stimuli evoke activity in sensory brain regions that are
also subject to spontaneous fluctuations.
Rest stimulus interaction: the rest-stimulus interaction is relevant to predicting subsequent
behavioural and mental states
substance dualism: Substance dualists typically argue that the mind and the body are
composed of different substances
Interoception: Interoception is a lesser-known sense that helps you understand and feel
what's going on inside your body.
exteroception : the perception of environmental stimuli originating outside of the body, e.g.,
visual, acoustic, or tactile stimuli.
Proprioception: your body's ability to sense movement, action, and location.
Five kinds of self knowledge:
- Ecological : physical environment
- Interpersonal self: social self
- Extended self: memories
- Private self: subjective
- Conceptual self: ideas of ourselves (knowledge of ourselves)
person perspectives:
- First: in which the experience in the memory is seen through the individual's own
eyes
- Second: direct perception of the other person's actions is all that is required for mutual
understanding in social interactions.
- Third: an elicitation tool used to discover what people really think about sensitive
topics
neural correlates of consciousness: the minimal neural mechanisms that are together
necessary and sufficient for experiencing any conscious percept
theories of consciousness:
- Cyclic: short term memory
- Reentrant:involve the simultaneous exchange of signals in a coordinated manner
among multiple dispersed neuronal populations
- feedback neural processing: to the feedback connection between the visual cortex
Information integration theory: a cognitive theory that is primarily concerned with how an
individual integrates information from two or more stimuli to derive a quantitative value.
Functional connectivity: Functional connectivity is a measure of how regions of the brain
interact with each other
Global neuronal workspace: The global workspace is the seat of a particular kind of
“brain-scale” activity state characterised by the spontaneous activation, in a sudden, coherent
and exclusive manner, of a subset of workspace neurons, the rest of workspace neurons being
inhibited.
Prefrontal: thought of as the “personality center” and is the cortical region that makes us
uniquely human.
parietal cortices: the association area of the brain. This term refers to the fact that
associations appear to be made in this region of the brain, often between disparate sources of
information such as sights and sounds, sights and touches, or movements and their sensory
consequences.
content NCC: directly contribute to phenomenal distinctions (e.g., low-level visual features,
faces, or places) within consciousness
Level NCC: The neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) refer to the relationships between
mental states and neural states and constitute the minimal set of neuronal events and
mechanisms sufficient for a specific conscious percept.
Neural prerequisites: the coordination of temporal locations of three events (past, present,
future)
neural predisposition: The approach is predicated on understanding and restructuring
"neural predispositions": the ruts in which our brains have gotten used to operating.
organisational template(or grid): a model of behavioural leadership developed in the 1960s
to measure concern for production against concern for people
default-mode network: The default mode network is active during passive rest and
mind-wandering which usually involves thinking about others, thinking about one's self,
remembering
spatial-temporal continuity: that a thing A is the same as the thing B if A and B are
connected by a continuous path through space-time.
dynamic flow: Flow is the melting together of action and consciousness; the state of finding
a balance between a skill and how challenging that task is
self-reference effect: The self-reference effect is a tendency for people to encode information
differently depending on whether they are implicated in the information.
Self-specific: characterises the subjective perspective, which is not intrinsically
self-evaluative but rather relates any represented object to the representing subject.
Non-self-specific: characterises the objective perspective (not influenced by anyone)
fusiform area: The fusiform face area is a part of the human visual system that is specialised
for facial recognition.
self-model(Metzinger): comprises experiences of ownership, of first person perspective,
and of a long-term unity of beliefs and attitudes. These features are instantiated in the
prefrontal cortex.
PACC: perigenual anterior cingulate cortex
VMPFC: Ventro medial prefrontal cortex
DMPFC: Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex
SACC: supragenual anterior cingulate cortex
PCC: posterior cingulate cortex
MOPFC: medial orbital prefrontal cortex
PREC: precuneus
RSC: retrosplenial cortex
relational self: highlights one's interpersonal side. It consists of attributes that are shared
with close others (e.g., partners, friends, family members) and define roles within the
relationship. This self-representation reflects valued interpersonal attachments
Embeddedness: the degree to which an activity, an organisation, a relationship, etc. is
influenced by the social or cultural environment in which it occurs or exists.
Embodiment: the representation or expression of something in a tangible or visible form
Neuro -social: neural, hormonal, cellular, and genetic mechanisms and, relatedly, to the study
of the associations and influences between social and biological levels of organisation.
raphe nucleus: responsible for the release of serotonin to other parts of the brain.
lived body(Christoff and Thompson: the lived body is both physical and mental.
Serotonin: Serotonin is a chemical that carries messages between nerve cells in the brain and
throughout your body. Serotonin plays a key role in such body functions as mood, sleep,
digestion, nausea, wound healing, bone health, blood clotting and sexual desire
Glutamate: Glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter (blocks) with several types of
receptors found throughout the central nervous system, and its metabolism is important to
maintaining optimal levels within the extracellular space. As such, it is important for
memory, cognition, and mood regulation.
nucleus suprachiasmaticus: regulating day-to-day oscillations of the internal milieu and
synchronising them to the changing cycles of day and night and of body state.
Katamine: It is also used as a treatment for depression, a pain management tool, and as a
recreational drug.
Mania: a state of mind characterised by high energy, excitement, and euphoria over a
sustained period of time.(opposite of depression)
Promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR): A polymorphism in the promoter region of the
serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) has been found to affect the transcription rate of the
gene, with the short (s) allele transcriptionally less efficient that the alternate long (l)
allele.5-HTTLPR-s modifies the serotonergic systems that support emotion and behavioural
regulation by reducing gene expression, which slows the reuptake of serotonin.
Environment focus: studies the moral relationship between human beings and nature, as
well as the value and moral status of the environment and its non-human content
Self focus: Self-focus is the idea that a control system only compares or “tests” – for a
discrepancy when an individual's attention is directed inward (i.e., at the “self”).
Reciprocal connection: when two or more people can influence and benefit from each other
in different ways, depending on the needs or wants of the parties involved.
Reciprocal influence: a person's behaviour both influences and is influenced by personal
factors and the social environment.
reciprocal balance(or lack of it) in resting state activity: to give or take mutually but not
necessarily equally.in the sleep-deprived state, there is unstable reciprocal inhibition between
task-related FPN activity and DMN activity, and erratic ascending.
manifests itself in depression or symptoms of MDD: low or depressed mood, anhedonia or
decreased interest in pleasurable activities, feelings of guilt or worthlessness, lack of energy,
poor concentration, appetite changes, psychomotor retardation or agitation, sleep
disturbances, or suicidal thoughts
