On the Other Hand: Left and Right Brain, Mental Disorder and History

It is not uncommon for patients with mental disorders to have symptoms with religious or spiritual (R/S) contents, and, on the other hand, spiritual experiences often involve psychotic-like phenomena. This frequently creates difficulties in differentiating between a non-pathological R/S experience and a mental disorder. Clinical differentiation between a non-pathological R/S experience and a mental disorder with R/S content brings risks in both extremes: to pathologize normal R/S experience (promoting iatrogenic suffering) or neglecting pathological symptoms (delaying proper treatment). In order to mitigate these risks, this chapter will gather the best current scientific evidence and propose clinical guidelines to help the distinction between R/S experiences and mental disorders with R/S content. Scientific studies in people who have spiritual experiences should be encouraged, especially investigations of the phenomenology, neurobiology, precipitants, and outcomes in order to enlarge the empirical base needed to advance the criteria for this differential diagnosis.

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ON THE OTHER HAND: THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF LEFT-HANDEDNESS

Acta Neuropsychologica ◽

10.5604/01.3001.0013.1689 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

pp. 69-86

Author(s):

Sarah A. Fritsche ◽

Annukka K. Lindell

Keyword(s):

Substance Abuse ◽

The Other ◽

Costs And Benefits ◽

Fitness Costs ◽

Left Handedness ◽

Left Handed ◽

Other Hand ◽

Lecture Room ◽

Increased Risk ◽

Left And Right

Left-handers have been persecuted by right-handers for millennia. This right bias is evident cross-culturally, linguistically (right is literally and figuratively ‘right’, with lefties being described as ‘gauche’, ‘sinister’ and ‘cack-handed’), and environmentally (e.g., equipment design, including power tools, ticket machines, and lecture-room desks). Despite this, the proportion of left-handers has remained constant at approximately 10% of the hominid population, implying that though there are costs associated with left-handedness (if there were not, the proportions of left- and right-handers would be 50:50), left handers must also enjoy fitness advantages that maintain the genes for left-handedness in the population. This paper reviews the costs and benefits of being left-handed, exploring research examining the effects of handedness on brain structure, cognitive function, and human behaviour. The research confirms a variety of left-hander advantages, including some cognitive superiorities, higher wages, and greater sporting and fighting prowess. On the other hand, left-handedness is also associated with significant fitness costs, including an increased risk of accidents, higher substance abuse susceptibility, and earlier death, in comparison with right-handers. In sum, left-handedness confers both costs and benefits, with the latter outweighing the former, maintaining the genes for left-handedness in the population.

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Rings with Boolean Lattices of One-Sided Annihilators

Symmetry ◽

10.3390/sym13101909 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (10) ◽

pp. 1909

Author(s):

Małgorzata Jastrzębska

Keyword(s):

Complete Lattice ◽

Associative Ring ◽

The Other ◽

Nilpotent Ring ◽

Other Hand ◽

Complemented Lattices ◽

Reduced Ring ◽

Boolean Lattices ◽

Left And Right

The present paper is part of the research on the description of rings with a given property of the lattice of left (right) annihilators. The anti-isomorphism of lattices of left and right annihilators in any ring gives some kind of symmetry: the lattice of left annihilators is Boolean (complemented, distributive) if and only if the lattice of right annihilators is such. This allows us to restrict our investigations mainly to the left side. For a unital associative ring R, we prove that the lattice of left annihilators in R is Boolean if and only if R is a reduced ring. We also prove that the lattice of left annihilators of R being two-sided ideals is complemented if and only if this lattice is Boolean. The last statement, in turn, is known to be equivalent to the semiprimeness of R. On the other hand, for any complete lattice L, we construct a nilpotent ring whose lattice of left annihilators coincides with its sublattice of left annihilators being two-sided ideals and is isomorphic to L. This construction shows that the assumption of R being unital cannot be dropped in any of the above two results. Some additional results on rings with distributive or complemented lattices of left annihilators are obtained.

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Narcissism: Groundwork for Sectarian Misdemeanors

10.36811/ijpmh.2020.110008 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 08-16

Author(s):

Saeed Shoja Shafti

Keyword(s):

Mental Disorder ◽

Present Article ◽

Social Factors ◽

Forensic Psychiatry ◽

The Other ◽

Violent Crimes ◽

Dsm 5 ◽

Other Hand ◽

State Of Mind

In DSM-5, the sector of ‘Other Conditions That May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention’, has discussed about cults. The said section covers all conditions and problems that are a focus of clinical attention or that may otherwise affect the diagnosis, course, prognosis, or treatment of a patient's mental disorder. While cults are usually led by charismatic leaders, who offer acceptance and guidance to troubled followers, cult followers are strongly controlled and forced to dissolve commitment to family and others to serve the cult leader's directives and personal needs. On the other hand, there were many cult leaders, who have been convicted of violent or non-violent crimes, as a commander or committer, before, during or after their period as a cult leader. While many bio-psycho-social factors involve in the grouping and formation of sects or cults, numerous dynamics, too, may prepare the group’s state of mind for perpetrating crime. Among a number of conceivable historical, cultural, or radical causes, while psychopathy, at all times, have had a firm position in forensic psychiatry, narcissism, whether as a primary trait or as a misleadingly stirred quality, have been generally over looked. Interrelationship between narcissism and psychopathy, from one hand, and the scarce set of circumstances, on the other hand, may create a situation, full of mix-ups, which can be continued melancholically and hazardously. In the present article, the likely role of narcissism, among numerous mechanisms that may involve in establishment of sectarian misbehavior, will be discussed in more detail. Keywords: Cult; Sect; Narcissism; Psychopathy; Crime

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The Haptic ‘Oblique Effect’ in Children's and Adults' Perception of Orientation

Perception ◽

10.1068/p240631 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 24 (6) ◽

pp. 631-646 ◽

Cited By ~ 51

Author(s):

Edouard Gentaz ◽

Yvette Hatwell

Keyword(s):

Horizontal Plane ◽

Haptic Perception ◽

Sagittal Plane ◽

Oblique Effect ◽

The Other ◽

Older Children ◽

Other Hand ◽

Left And Right ◽

Plane Scanning ◽

Effect Of Age

The haptic perception of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal orientations was studied in children (aged 7 and 9 years) and in adults. The purpose was to test the hypothesis that the haptic oblique effect results from the different scanning movements at work when one hand explores an oblique standard and the other hand sets the response rod. In experiment 1, blindfolded subjects reproduced the orientation of a standard rod presented in either the frontal, the horizontal, or the sagittal plane, and this task was achieved either ipsilaterally (the same hand explored the standard and set the response rod) or contralaterally (one hand explored the standard and the other hand set the response rod). Since, in the sagittal plane, scanning movements are analogous when the left and right hands explore oblique orientations, no oblique effect should be observed in this condition if the hypothesis is valid. Moreover, a development effect should be observed, since young children generally rely more on movement coding than do older children and adults. Results did not support these predictions: the same oblique effect appeared in the frontal and the sagittal planes both in the ipsilateral and in the contralateral condition, and the effect of age was not in the direction predicted by the hypothesis. The results were consistent with the hypothesis in the horizontal plane only. Experiments 2 and 3 provided further tests of this hypothesis but both failed to support it. Taken together, the results of these three experiments did not support the assumption and it is suggested that the haptic oblique effect may be linked to the gravitational cues provided by the arm—hand system when it acts in the three spatial planes.

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