Search results for "Meditation"

S153. WHERE IS THE ABNORMAL BRAIN ACTIVITY IN FIRST EPISODE PSYCHOSIS?

2018

Abstract Background Recent review about functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in first episode psychosis (FEP) concluded that there is an abnormal connectivity involving the frontal temporal pathway similar to found in chronic schizophrenia (Mwansisya et al., 2017). Besides, thalamic circuits were also altered in chronic schizophrenia patients (Li et al., 2017). The present work gives a wider review of studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques (fMRI) on first-episode psychotic patients, specifically focus on the main areas involved. Methods The review was made in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines (Moher et al., 2009). For each study, the following factors wer…

Seeing and Touching: The Optic and the Haptic in Merleau-Ponty’s Thought

2020

It is well known that Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy developed remarkably between the Structure of Behaviour, which appeared in 1942, and the later working notes of The Visible and the Invisible, written in 1960–1961. More precisely, through a self-criticism that started immediately after the publication of the Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy progressed from a meditation on embodied consciousness – which was still anchored to the ontological dualism that it tried to overcome – to a radically different reflection on the status of flesh as the “element” of Being, and on Being itself as “true negative,” or as “Being of deflection” and as Wesen, in the verbal sense of this t…

The Minimal Phenomenal Experience questionnaire (MPE-92M): Towards a phenomenological profile of “pure awareness” experiences in meditators

2021

Objective To develop a fine-grained phenomenological analysis of “pure awareness” experiences in meditators. Methods An online survey in five language versions (German, English, French, Spanish, Italian) collected data from January to March 2020. A total of 92 questionnaire items on a visual analogue scale were submitted to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Results Out of 3627 submitted responses, 1403 were usable. Participants had a median age of 52 years (range: 17–88) and were evenly split between men and women (48.5% vs 50.0%). The majority of meditators practiced regularly (77.3%), were free of diagnosed mental disorders (92.4%) and did not regularly use any psychoactive s…

Natural world physical, brain operational, and mind phenomenal space–time

2010

Concepts of space and time are widely developed in physics. However, there is a considerable lack of biologically plausible theoretical frameworks that can demonstrate how space and time dimensions are implemented in the activity of the most complex life-system - the brain with a mind. Brain activity is organized both temporally and spatially, thus representing space-time in the brain. Critical analysis of recent research on the space-time organization of the brain's activity pointed to the existence of so-called operational space-time in the brain. This space-time is limited to the execution of brain operations of differing complexity. During each such brain operation a particular short-te…

Timbre Similarity: Convergence of Neural, Behavioral, and Computational Approaches

1998

The present study compared the degree of similarity of timbre representations as observed with brain recordings, behavioral studies, and computer simulations. To this end, the electrical brain activity of subjects was recorded while they were repetitively presented with five sounds differing in timbre. Subjects read simultaneously so that their attention was not focused on the sounds. The brain activity was quantified in terms of a change-specific mismatch negativity component. Thereafter, the subjects were asked to judge the similarity of all pairs along a five-step scale. A computer simulation was made by first training a Kohonen self-organizing map with a large set of instrumental sounds…

Fifth Cartesian Meditation (§§ 55–64): The Schema »Unity-Multiplicity« as the (Not-So) Hidden Metaphysics in Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations

2023

The paper analyzes the last of the Husserlian Meditations with a focus on the metaphysical issue of unity and multiplicity.

Passo a passo lungo le tappe fondamentali: esercizio di clinica n. 1

2010

In questo scritto provo a raccontare della mia prima paziente e dei “primi passi” che, in assoluto, muovo all’interno di una relazione clinica. Vacillando. Non a caso ho scelto d’intitolare il lavoro: “Passo a passo lungo le tappe fondamentali”. Come se ogni passo - ogni riflessione, ogni momento - avesse bisogno del suo particolare assestamento. Così, a partire dal primo colloquio e dall’analisi della domanda, riferirò alcuni frammenti delle conversazioni con gli altri curanti (il neurologo e lo psichiatra); mi soffermerò in una riflessione sul linguaggio diagnostico; proverò ad accennare alcune considerazioni sulle dinamiche co-transferali tra me e la sig.ra Noto ed, infine, parlerò di un…

Il silenzio come pratica di cura nella relazione educativa

2014

In un tempo, come quello in cui agiamo e viviamo, consegnato all’effimero e alla fugacità, il silenzio si riafferma come bisogno formativo e acquista un ruolo di primo piano all’interno del dialogo educativo, come una pratica di cura attraverso cui l’uomo contemporaneo possa contrastare la banalità della chiacchiera e di un’esistenza vissuta in modo inautentico. Se il Novecento pedagogico ha riscoperto il valore educativo del silenzio, oggi tale pratica viene riproposta non solo come atto di tacere, ma anche come apertura di un nuovo orizzonte di senso dentro cui accogliere l’altro, cioè ospitarlo. Vincendo la paura del vuoto, da sempre identificato col nulla, il silenzio non viene più inte…

2020

Learning to associate written letters with speech sounds is crucial for the initial phase of acquiring reading skills. However, little is known about the cortical reorganization for supporting letter-speech sound learning, particularly the brain dynamics during the learning of grapheme-phoneme associations. In the present study, we trained 30 Finnish participants (mean age: 24.33 years, SD: 3.50 years) to associate novel foreign letters with familiar Finnish speech sounds on two consecutive days (first day ​~ ​50 ​min; second day ​~ ​25 ​min), while neural activity was measured using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Two sets of audiovisual stimuli were used for the training in which the graphe…

Action Observation Network Activity Related to Object-Directed and Socially-Directed Actions in Adolescents

2020

The human action observation network (AON) encompasses brain areas consistently engaged when we observe other's actions. Although the core nodes of the AON are present from childhood, it is not known to what extent they are sensitive to different action features during development. Because social cognitive abilities continue to mature during adolescence, the AON response to socially-oriented actions, but not to object-related actions, may differ in adolescents and adults. To test this hypothesis, we scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) male and female typically-developing teenagers (n= 28; 13 females) and adults (n= 25; 14 females) while they passively watched videos of…