Evaluation of the legal consequences of action affects neural activity and emotional experience during the resolution of moral dilemmas

AbstractSpiritual practices are gaining an increasingly wider audience as a means to enhance positive affect in healthy individuals and to treat neurological disorders such as anxiety and depression. The current study aimed to examine the neural correlates of two different forms of love generated by spiritual practices using EEG; love generated during a loving kindness meditation performed by Buddhist meditators, and love generated during prayer, in a separate group of participants from a Christian-based faith. The loving kindness meditation was associated with significant increases in delta, alpha 1, alpha 2 and beta power compared to baseline, while prayer induced significant increases in power of alpha 1 and gamma oscillations, together with an increase in the gamma: theta ratio. An increase in delta activity occurred during the loving kindness meditation but not during prayer. In contrast increases in theta, alpha 1, alpha 2, beta and gamma power were observed when comparing both types of practice to baseline, suggesting that increases in these frequency bands are the neural correlates of spiritual love, independent of the type of practice used to attain the state of this type of love. These findings show that both spiritual love practices are associated with widespread changes in neural activity across the brain, in particular at frequency ranges that have been implicated in positive emotional experience, integration of distributed neural activity, and changes in short-term and longterm neural circuitry.

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Moral Dilemmas and Personality Traits

Psychology and Law ◽

10.17759/psylaw.2019090210 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 141-155

Author(s):

S.N. Enikolopov ◽

T.I. Medvedeva ◽

O.Yu. Vorontsova

Keyword(s):

Emotional Intelligence ◽

Iowa Gambling Task ◽

Emotional Experience ◽

Personal Characteristics ◽

Moral Dilemmas ◽

Negative Consequences ◽

Moral Choice ◽

Pathological Narcissism ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship

The study examines the relationship of moral choice and emotional intelligence, personal characteristics, implicit preferences, the ability to rely on emotional experience. The study involved 74 subjects: 40 healthy subjects and 34 patients of the MHRC. All subjects performed the following tests: "Moral dilemmas", Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), The Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT V2.0), Ich-Struktur-Test nach Ammon (ISTA), Implicit Association Test (IAT). It is demonstrated that the number of utilitarian choices in "personality" dilemmas increases with a deterioration in the ability to recognize the emotions of other people as well as with a decrease in ambivalence in assessing one's own state and reducing the ability to control emotions. When making decisions, people who make utilitarian choices rely on the experience of delayed negative consequences, their immediate emotional effect is reduced. Utilitarian personality choices increased with the reduction of capability to attack in a constructive way, to perceive personal fear and the fear of others with pathological narcissism, destructive internal and external restrictions. The preference of practical decisions is related to the implicit preference of "depth".

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Chasing Pain

10.1093/med/9780190880231.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Kenneth L. Casey

Keyword(s):

Nervous System ◽

Cognitive Processes ◽

Medical Practice ◽

Neural Activity ◽

Clinical Evidence ◽

Conceptual Models ◽

Neurological Diseases ◽

Emotional Experience ◽

Pain Modulation ◽

System Research

By several measures, no human experience is more important than pain. Chasing Pain discusses the evolution of scientific and clinical evidence that supports contemporary concepts of how pain is created by the nervous system. These concepts influence medical practice, neuroscientific research, and philosophical ideas about pain and other neurological functions. Historically, pain has been conceived as emerging either from an undefined pattern of neural activity or from anatomically localized and physiologically unique structures in the nervous system. Research during the early and middle 20th century showed that pain normally requires both sensory detectors of noxious events (nociceptors) and brain mechanisms that generate emotional experience. Realistic models of pain neurobiology must also consider that the normally tight link between pain and tissue damage is strongly affected by several neurological diseases, emotionally compelling circumstances, complex cognitive processes, and pain itself. As one example of physiological pain modulation, readers may access the author’s videos of surgery performed with acupuncture as the sole analgesic method. Chasing Pain reviews the neuroscientific research and clinical experience that has, over time, greatly enriched our understanding of pain neurobiology, guided medical practice, and influenced contemporary concepts of neurological functions. The limitations of our current conceptual models of pain are exemplified by considering several common, clinically challenging conditions that remain very poorly understood.

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Changes in the Electrical Activity of the Brain in the Alpha and Theta Bands during Prayer and Meditation

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph17249567 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 (24) ◽

pp. 9567

Author(s):

Paweł Dobrakowski ◽

Michal Blaszkiewicz ◽

Sebastian Skalski

Keyword(s):

Neural Activity ◽

Emotional Experience ◽

Focused Attention ◽

Eeg Signal ◽

Alpha Wave ◽

Spiritual Transcendence ◽

Eyes Closed ◽

Activity Integration ◽

The Brain ◽

Eeg Pattern

Focused attention meditation (FAM) is a category of meditation based on an EEG pattern, which helps the wandering mind to focus on a particular object. It seems that prayer may, in certain respects, be similar to FAM. It is believed that emotional experience correlates mainly with theta, but also with selective alpha, with internalized attention correlating mainly with the synchronous activity of theta and alpha. The vast majority of studies indicate a possible impact of transcendence in meditation on the alpha wave in EEG. No such reports are available for prayer. Seventeen women and nineteen men aged 27–64 years with at least five years of intensive meditation/prayer experience were recruited to participate in the study. We identified the two largest groups which remained in the meditation trend originating from the Buddhist system (14 people) (Buddhist meditators) and in the Christian-based faith (15 people) (Christian meditators). EEG signal was recorded with open eyes, closed eyes, during meditation/prayer, and relaxation. After the EEG recording, an examination was conducted using the Scale of Spiritual Transcendence. Buddhist meditators exhibited a statistically significantly higher theta amplitude at Cz during meditation compared to relaxation. Meanwhile, spiritual openness favored a higher theta amplitude at Pz during relaxation. Our study did not reveal statistically significant differences in frontal areas with regard to alpha and theta, which was often indicated in previous studies. It seems necessary to analyze more closely the midline activity in terms of dispersed neural activity integration.

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Social odors (even when masked) make you more emotional: behavioral and neural insights

10.31234/osf.io/h6f23 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Cinzia Cecchetto ◽

Elisa Lancini ◽

Domenica Bueti ◽

Raffaella I Rumiati ◽

Valentina Parma

Keyword(s):

Emotional Experience ◽

Moral Dilemmas ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Social Contexts ◽

Angular Gyrus ◽

The Social ◽

Neural Underpinnings ◽

Moral Choices ◽

Social Odor ◽

Social Odors

Moral rules evolved within specific social contexts that are argued to shape moral choices. In turn, moral choices are hypothesized to be affected by social odors as they powerfully convey socially-relevant information. We thus investigated the neural underpinnings of the effects that social odors operate on the participants’ decisions. In an fMRI study we presented to healthy individuals 64 moral dilemmas divided in incongruent (real) and congruent (fake) moral dilemmas, using different types of harm (intentional: instrumental dilemmas, or inadvertent: accidental dilemmas). Participants were required to choose between deontological or utilitarian actions under the exposure to a neutral fragrance (masker) or social odors concealed by the same masker. Smelling the masked social odor while processing incongruent (but not congruent) dilemmas activates the supramarginal gyrus, consistent with an increase in prosocial attitude. When processing accidental (but not instrumental) dilemmas, smelling the social odor activates the angular gyrus, an area associated with the processing of people’s presence, supporting the hypothesis that social odors enhance the saliency of the social context in moral scenarios. These results suggest that social odors can influence moral choices by increasing the emotional experience during the decision process, and further explain how sensory unconscious biases influence human behavior.

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Neural correlates of heart-focused interoception: a functional magnetic resonance imaging meta-analysis

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2016.0018 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 371 (1708) ◽

pp. 20160018 ◽

Cited By ~ 63

Author(s):

Stefan M. Schulz

Keyword(s):

Neural Activity ◽

Emotional Experience ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Neural Correlates ◽

Hemispheric Dominance ◽

Time Interval ◽

Precentral Gyrus ◽

Functional Models ◽

Density Analysis ◽

Kernel Density Analysis

Interoception is the ability to perceive one's internal body state including visceral sensations. Heart-focused interoception has received particular attention, in part due to a readily available task for behavioural assessment, but also due to accumulating evidence for a significant role in emotional experience, decision-making and clinical disorders such as anxiety and depression. Improved understanding of the underlying neural correlates is important to promote development of anatomical-functional models and suitable intervention strategies. In the present meta-analysis, nine studies reporting neural activity associated with interoceptive attentiveness (i.e. focused attention to a particular interoceptive signal for a given time interval) to one's heartbeat were submitted to a multilevel kernel density analysis. The findings corroborated an extended network associated with heart-focused interoceptive attentiveness including the posterior right and left insula, right claustrum, precentral gyrus and medial frontal gyrus. Right-hemispheric dominance emphasizes non-verbal information processing with the posterior insula presumably serving as the major gateway for cardioception. Prefrontal neural activity may reflect both top-down attention deployment and processing of feed-forward cardioceptive information, possibly orchestrated via the claustrum. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Interoception beyond homeostasis: affect, cognition and mental health’.

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Moral Dilemmas of Modern War

10.1017/cbo9780511811562 ◽

2009 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Michael L. Gross

Keyword(s):

Moral Dilemmas ◽

Modern War

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Proximal deep venous thrombosis following PTA of the superficial femoral artery – an obligation to disclose a complication that is rarely taken into account

VASA ◽

10.1024/0301-1526.35.1.41 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 35 (1) ◽

pp. 41-44 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Klein-Weigel ◽

Pillokat ◽

Klemens ◽

Köning ◽

Wolbergs ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Venous Thrombosis ◽

Deep Venous Thrombosis ◽

Femoral Artery ◽

Superficial Femoral Artery ◽

Rare Complication ◽

Femoral Vein ◽

Vein Thrombosis ◽

Explicit Information ◽

Life Threatening ◽

Legal Consequences

We report two cases of femoral vein thrombosis after arterial PTA and subsequent pressure stasis. We discuss the legal consequences of these complications for information policies. Because venous thrombembolism following an arterial PTA might cause serious sequel or life threatening complications, there is a clear obligation for explicit information of the patients about this rare complication.

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The Acute Effect of Alcohol on Various Memory Processes

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027/0269-8803/a000038 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 24 (4) ◽

pp. 249-252 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Márk Molnár ◽

Roland Boha ◽

Balázs Czigler ◽

Zsófia Anna Gaál

Keyword(s):

Low Dose ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Acute Effect ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Term Memory ◽

Memory Processes ◽

Different Types ◽

The Brain ◽

Legal Consequences

This review surveys relevant and recent data of the pertinent literature regarding the acute effect of alcohol on various kinds of memory processes with special emphasis on working memory. The characteristics of different types of long-term memory (LTM) and short-term memory (STM) processes are summarized with an attempt to relate these to various structures in the brain. LTM is typically impaired by chronic alcohol intake but according to some data a single dose of ethanol may have long lasting effects if administered at a critically important age. The most commonly seen deleterious acute effect of alcohol to STM appears following large doses of ethanol in conditions of “binge drinking” causing the “blackout” phenomenon. However, with the application of various techniques and well-structured behavioral paradigms it is possible to detect, albeit occasionally, subtle changes of cognitive processes even as a result of a low dose of alcohol. These data may be important for the consideration of legal consequences of low-dose ethanol intake in conditions such as driving, etc.

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