scholarly journals Neurophenomenology of near-death experience memory in hypnotic recall: a within-subject EEG study

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Martial ◽  
Armand Mensen ◽  
Vanessa Charland-Verville ◽  
Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse ◽  
Daniel Rentmeister ◽  
...  

Abstract The neurobiological basis of near-death experiences (NDEs) is unknown, but a few studies attempted to investigate it by reproducing in laboratory settings phenomenological experiences that seem to closely resemble NDEs. So far, no study has induced NDE-like features via hypnotic modulation while simultaneously measuring changes in brain activity using high-density EEG. Five volunteers who previously had experienced a pleasant NDE were invited to re-experience the NDE memory and another pleasant autobiographical memory (dating to the same time period), in normal consciousness and with hypnosis. We compared the hypnosis-induced subjective experience with the one of the genuine experience memory. Continuous high-density EEG was recorded throughout. At a phenomenological level, we succeeded in recreating NDE-like features without any adverse effects. Absorption and dissociation levels were reported as higher during all hypnosis conditions as compared to normal consciousness conditions, suggesting that our hypnosis-based protocol increased the felt subjective experience in the recall of both memories. The recall of a NDE phenomenology was related to an increase of alpha activity in frontal and posterior regions. This study provides a proof-of-concept methodology for studying the phenomenon, enabling to prospectively explore the NDE-like features and associated EEG changes in controlled settings.

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-26
Author(s):  
Hans Goller

Neuroscientists keep telling us that the brain produces consciousness and consciousness does not survive brain death because it ceases when brain activity ceases. Research findings on near-death-experiences during cardiac arrest contradict this widely held conviction. They raise perplexing questions with regard to our current understanding of the relationship between consciousness and brain functions. Reports on veridical perceptions during out-of-body experiences suggest that consciousness may be experienced independently of a functioning brain and that self-consciousness may continue even after the termination of brain activity. Data on studies of near-death-experiences could be an incentive to develop alternative theories of the body-mind relation as seen in contemporary neuroscience.


Author(s):  
Martin Aranguren

Abstract Background In the context of the COVID-19 emergency, the concern has been raised that people may compensate the reduction in risk ensured by mask use with an increase in risk induced by lower adherence to physical distancing rules. Purpose The paper investigates if people compensate risk in this manner when their interaction partner wears a face mask, examining if risk compensation further depends on gender, signaled social status and perceived race. Methods An experiment was conducted in two waves (June, n = 1396 and September 2020, n = 1326) in front of the traffic lights of four busy roads in Paris. A confederate asked a randomly selected pedestrian for directions following a script and keeping the recommended distance. Confederates were locally recognizable as Blacks or Whites and alternatively presented themselves with a costume indicative of high or low social status. An observer recorded whether the pedestrian kept the recommended distance. Results Both in June and September, men are less likely to comply with the distancing rule when the confederate wears the face mask, and particularly so when the confederate signals high status. When the confederate wears the mask, female pedestrians observe less the one-meter rule in September than in June. Conclusions Men’s risk compensatory behavior is constant over time. In contrast, women’s depends on the time period.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Boi ◽  
Nikolas Perentos ◽  
Aziliz Lecomte ◽  
Gerrit Schwesig ◽  
Stefano Zordan ◽  
...  

AbstractThe advent of implantable active dense CMOS neural probes opened a new era for electrophysiology in neuroscience. These single shank electrode arrays, and the emerging tailored analysis tools, provide for the first time to neuroscientists the neurotechnology means to spatiotemporally resolve the activity of hundreds of different single-neurons in multiple vertically aligned brain structures. However, while these unprecedented experimental capabilities to study columnar brain properties are a big leap forward in neuroscience, there is the need to spatially distribute electrodes also horizontally. Closely spacing and consistently placing in well-defined geometrical arrangement multiple isolated single-shank probes is methodologically and economically impractical. Here, we present the first high-density CMOS neural probe with multiple shanks integrating thousand’s of closely spaced and simultaneously recording microelectrodes to map neural activity across 2D lattice. Taking advantage from the high-modularity of our electrode-pixels-based SiNAPS technology, we realized a four shanks active dense probe with 256 electrode-pixels/shank and a pitch of 28 µm, for a total of 1024 simultaneously recording channels. The achieved performances allow for full-band, whole-array read-outs at 25 kHz/channel, show a measured input referred noise in the action potential band (300-7000 Hz) of 6.5 ± 2.1µVRMS, and a power consumption <6 µW/electrode-pixel. Preliminary recordings in awake behaving mice demonstrated the capability of multi-shanks SiNAPS probes to simultaneously record neural activity (both LFPs and spikes) from a brain area >6 mm2, spanning cortical, hippocampal and thalamic regions. High-density 2D array enables combining large population unit recording across distributed networks with precise intra- and interlaminar/nuclear mapping of the oscillatory dynamics. These results pave the way to a new generation of high-density and extremely compact multi-shanks CMOS-probes with tunable layouts for electrophysiological mapping of brain activity at the single-neurons resolution.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Baule ◽  
Hannes Wilke

This paper bridges two recent studies on the role of analysts to provide new and relevant information to investors. On the one hand, the contribution of analysts to long-term price discovery on the US market is rather low. Considering earnings per share forecasts as the main output of analysts’ reports, their information share amounts to only 4.6% on average. On the other hand, trading strategies set up on these EPS forecasts are quite profitable. Self-financing portfolios yield excess returns of more than 5% over the S&P 100 index for a time period of 36 years, which is persistent after controlling for the well-known risk factors. In this paper, we discuss the link between the low information shares and the high abnormal returns. We argue that information shares of analysts cannot be higher, because otherwise their forecasts would lead to excessively profitable trading strategies which are very unlikely to persist over such a long period of time.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-35
Author(s):  
D. A. Chegodaev ◽  
N. V. Pavlova ◽  
O. A. Lvova ◽  
L. V. Shalkevich

This study was aimed to assess electrophysiological brain activity in newborns of various gestational ages using electroencephalography (EEG). We summarized the data on the main EEG characteristics of premature infants and their dynamics and described the most common pathological EEG changes that can be identified at this age. We also discussed prognostic value of various neonatal EEG patterns (including their proportion and location), which allow verification of functional brain disorders at early stages.


Author(s):  
Giovanni Camurati ◽  
Aurélien Francillon ◽  
François-Xavier Standaert

Recently, some wireless devices have been found vulnerable to a novel class of side-channel attacks, called Screaming Channels. These leaks might appear if the sensitive leaks from the processor are unintentionally broadcast by a radio transmitter placed on the same chip. Previous work focuses on identifying the root causes, and on mounting an attack at a distance considerably larger than the one achievable with conventional electromagnetic side channels, which was demonstrated in the low-noise environment of an anechoic chamber. However, a detailed understanding of the leak, attacks that take full advantage of the novel vector, and security evaluations in more practical scenarios are still missing. In this paper, we conduct a thorough experimental analysis of the peculiar properties of Screaming Channels. For example, we learn about the coexistence of intended and unintended data, the role of distance and other parameters on the strength of the leak, the distortion of the leakmodel, and the portability of the profiles. With such insights, we build better attacks. We profile a device connected via cable with 10000·500 traces. Then, 5 months later, we attack a different instance at 15m in an office environment. We recover the AES-128 key with 5000·1000 traces and key enumeration up to 223. Leveraging spatial diversity, we mount some attacks in the presence of obstacles. As a first example of application to a real system, we show a proof-of-concept attack against the authentication method of Google Eddystone beacons. On the one side, this work lowers the bar for more realistic attacks, highlighting the importance of the novel attack vector. On the other side, it provides a broader security evaluation of the leaks, helping the defender and radio designers to evaluate risk, and the need of countermeasures.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 131-139
Author(s):  
Behramand Durrani ◽  
◽  
Riffat Alam

This present study analyzes the role played by the media during the controversy between Government of Pakistan and its Supreme Court in 2012. This study is particularly focused on the issues pertinent to the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) case. It employed content analysis as research study and quantitatively examined the columns in the Pakistani newspapers; including, Dawn and Daily Jang for the one year time period in the year 2012. A conflicting relationship has been found between the government and judiciary concerning the National reconciliation ordinance (NRO). It was concluded that Dawn and Daily Jang, both newspapers, follow the same agenda about the NRO issue as both of these newspapers offered negative coverage of this issue. Compared to Jang, Dawn was more inclined to the negative framing of judiciary, and Jang was inclined to the negative reporting of government performance. Hence, the Pakistani Print media has framed the issues negatively between the government and the judiciary. Frequent negative slants were observed in Urdu newspaper as compared to English newspaper.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Krunoslav Puškar

This thesis deals with the analysis and description of the historical and contemporary anthroponymy of the Kalnik area of the Prigorje region on the basis of both archival and field research carried out throughout a longer period of time. Since there has not been any extensive onomastic reasearch in the very area to date, our goal was to determine the influence of linguistic and extralinguistic changes in the reaserched onomastic categories. The introduction of this thesis provides the geographical, sociohistorical, demographical and linguistic context of the researched area, whereas the subsequent chapters provide a list and analysis of confirmed first names, personal and family nicknames, as well as family names of the reaserched area. First names were researched during nine time periods with a duration of five years, beginning from 1802 and ending in 2014. Because of a wide researched area, we limited our research on the anthroponymic repertoire of the city of Križevci, in which 3020 first names (1579 male and 1441 female names) were confirmed. In the 19th century, during five analysed time periods, 1519 first names were confirmed, out of which 814 male and 705 female names, which were mostly simple based on their structure (91.64%). Concerning the provenance of the first names, we established that almost all names were either Christian names or translated Christian names and that national names occur very rarely and sporadically, only in the second half of the 19th century. By comparison, in the 20th and 21st century, during the last four time periods, 1501 first names have been confirmed, out of which 765 were male and 736 female names. Concerning their structure, they turned out to be mostly compound first names in the 1946- 1950 time period (55.69%), whereas in the 2010-2014 time period they turned out to be predominantly single (97.02%). Concerning their provenance, in the 1946-1950 time period 48.39% of male and 57.58% of female national names were confirmed, whereas in the last time period male national names amount to 4.05%, and female national names to only 1.27%. Personal nicknames are a special anthroponymic category which has not been researched in the Kalnik area. Having limited our field research on 13 places throughout the area, we confirmed 288 real personal nicknames, 245 male and 43 female nicknames, of mostly simple structure (95.14%), which are still mostly used in oral and informal communication. The motivation behind the nicknames has faithfully shown us the extralinguistic reality of the researched area. The most frequent motivational group of nicknames is the one of unknown motivation (23.96%), while the other confirmed groups are nicknames motivated by a first name (12,15%), a physical characteristic of the owner (12.15%), another characteristic of the owner (11,81%), a specific word used by the owner (8.33%), an animal (6.94%), a family name (6.60%), an occupation (6.25%), an ethnonym or toponym (4.51%), a family or social role (2.78%), a professional designation (1.38%), food (1.04%), a name for a plant (1.04%), a subject (0.69%), and another nickname (0.35%). The high frequency of nicknames of unknown motivation shows us the importance of future research of this anthroponymic category because, due to the passage of time, it is difficult to determine the real motivation of every nickname. We came to the same conclusion during our research of family nicknames, another specific anthroponymic category, still quite present in the Kalnik area. Having limited our field research on 12 places throughout the wide researched area, we managed to confirm 173 real family nicknames, whose designated motivational groups provided us with important sociolinguistic pieces of information. Concerning their structure, the majority of family nicknames turned out to be simple (N = 129), whereas concerning their motivation, the majority of family nicknames were of unknown motivation (N = 33). Other motivational groups were the following: a first name (N = 27), an occupation (N = 27), a family name (N = 25), a personal nickname (N = 22), a certain characteristic (N = 13), an ethnonym (N = 10), a toponym (N = 6), a certain subject (N = 6), and an animal (N = 4). All these mentioned different anthroponymic categories (first names, personal and family nicknames) can be confirmed profusely in the last anthroponymic category researched and analysed in this thesis – family names. Having employed the criterion of their minimum continuity of 100 years in the researched area, we have managed to confirm 1360 family names with centuries old continuity, since the 14th century to this very day. With this criterion we also managed to reduce a significant number of over 3000 family names with mostly no continuity, as well as to confirm those last names which had left their trace in the researched area. Of course, not all family names confirmed by this criterion are necessarily connected to the researched area, but are only detected in it. Out of 1360 confirmed family names, we succeeded in determining 189 family names which occur exclusively or mostly in the researched area, 100 family names which do not occur in contemporary anthroponymy of the area, and 97 family names which could also become extinguished in near future. Concerning their structure, the majority of all family names occur without a suffix (N = 681). All the confirmed family names were analysed according to their structure and motivation and listed in our Lexicon of family names at the end of this very thesis.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Renz

Spinoza's ethics is grounded by a conviction which is as simple as it is programmatic: Subjective experience can be explained, and its successful explanation is of ethical relevance. For it makes us smarter, freer and happier. This is the programmatic conviction behind Spinoza's ethics and motivates many of the theses it puts forward. Ursula Renz shows which kind of a theory of the human mind informs this program. The systematic differentiation of theory parts in the architecture of ethics proves to be a decisive move: A theory part that deals with questions of the ontology of the mental is followed by a definition of the human mind as a kind of subject theory, which in turn is separated from a theory part dealing with the constitution of content. This structure makes it possible to deal separately with different problems that arise in the course of the explanation of experience. In the end, Spinoza succeeds in avoiding both reductionisms and skepticisms right from the start. In this way, two intuitions are brought together that are often considered incompatible: on the one hand, the view that experience is something irreducibly subjective, and on the other hand, the assumption that there are better and worse explanations of experience.


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