scholarly journals A theory inspired proposal for a novel medical treatment in autism. The cerebellar model of autism and the hypothesis of dorsal stream dysfunction: evidence from idiopathic and syndromic cases.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Costa Vakalopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Sensory Modality ◽  
Dorsal Stream ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Medical Intervention ◽  
Efference Copy ◽  
Attentional Deficits ◽  
Component Theory ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Mind

The cerebellum figures prominently in the pathophysiology of idiopathic autism. Many syndromic comorbid cases and animal studies also highlight cerebellar involvement. The role of the cerebellum is implicated in cognitive and affective disorders. However, there remains a profound gap in understanding the route from genes, the effect of mutations on Purkinje cells and ultimately the behavioural phenotype. Given that conditions like autism are disorders of consciousness it is likely that progress will be made beyond the data generating enterprise, by improved theoretical models of the mind-body gap. A way forward is the proposal of consciousness as embodiment of a process of world discovery through motor efference copy. The cerebellum and basal ganglia are essential to a component theory of motor efference copy, providing a heuristic for understanding the structure of cortical dorsal and ventral stream pathways of a sensory modality. This then, further suggests that autism results from a selective dorsal stream dysfunction with all the attendant and hierarchical features that follow such a model and lead to both high level social and attentional deficits as well as lower level motor and restrictive interests. The paper aims to present evidence for dorsal stream dysfunction and how it may relate to a primary cerebellar pathology. The involvement of the cerebellum in most if not all syndromic cases of comorbid ASD is then presented. Finally, it is shown how such insights can be used to propose a general medical intervention based on the use of cerebellar rTMS across the disorder spectrum.

scholarly journals A theory inspired proposal for a novel medical treatment in autism. The cerebellar model of autism and the hypothesis of dorsal stream dysfunction: evidence from idiopathic and syndromic cases.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Costa Vakalopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Sensory Modality ◽  
Dorsal Stream ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Medical Intervention ◽  
Efference Copy ◽  
Attentional Deficits ◽  
Component Theory ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Mind

The cerebellum figures prominently in the pathophysiology of idiopathic autism. Many syndromic comorbid cases and animal studies also highlight cerebellar involvement. The role of the cerebellum is implicated in cognitive and affective disorders. However, there remains a profound gap in understanding the route from genes, the effect of mutations on Purkinje cells and ultimately the behavioural phenotype. Given that conditions like autism are disorders of consciousness it is likely that progress will be made beyond the data generating enterprise, by improved theoretical models of the mind-body gap. A way forward is the proposal of consciousness as embodiment of a process of world discovery through motor efference copy. The cerebellum and basal ganglia are essential to a component theory of motor efference copy, providing a heuristic for understanding the structure of cortical dorsal and ventral stream pathways of a sensory modality. This then, further suggests that autism results from a selective dorsal stream dysfunction with all the attendant and hierarchical features that follow such a model and lead to both high level social and attentional deficits as well as lower level motor and restrictive interests. The paper aims to present evidence for dorsal stream dysfunction and how it may relate to a primary cerebellar pathology. The involvement of the cerebellum in most if not all syndromic cases of comorbid ASD is then presented. Finally, it isshown how such insights can be used to propose a general medical intervention based on the use of cerebellar rTMS across the disorder spectrum.

Similarity of Computations Across Domains Does Not Imply Shared Implementation: The Case of Language Comprehension

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 526-534
Author(s):  
Evelina Fedorenko ◽  
Cory Shain
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Fluid Intelligence ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Cognitive Operations ◽  
High Level ◽  
General Circuits ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Language Network

Understanding language requires applying cognitive operations (e.g., memory retrieval, prediction, structure building) that are relevant across many cognitive domains to specialized knowledge structures (e.g., a particular language’s lexicon and syntax). Are these computations carried out by domain-general circuits or by circuits that store domain-specific representations? Recent work has characterized the roles in language comprehension of the language network, which is selective for high-level language processing, and the multiple-demand (MD) network, which has been implicated in executive functions and linked to fluid intelligence and thus is a prime candidate for implementing computations that support information processing across domains. The language network responds robustly to diverse aspects of comprehension, but the MD network shows no sensitivity to linguistic variables. We therefore argue that the MD network does not play a core role in language comprehension and that past findings suggesting the contrary are likely due to methodological artifacts. Although future studies may reveal some aspects of language comprehension that require the MD network, evidence to date suggests that those will not be related to core linguistic processes such as lexical access or composition. The finding that the circuits that store linguistic knowledge carry out computations on those representations aligns with general arguments against the separation of memory and computation in the mind and brain.

scholarly journals Redundancy and reducibility in the formats of spatial representations

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sami Ryan Yousif
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Spatial Behavior ◽  
Polar Coordinates ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Spatial Representations ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Mind

Mental representations are the essence of cognition. Yet, to understand how the mind works, we must understand not just the content of mental representations (i.e., what information is stored), but also the format of those representations (i.e., how that information is stored). But what does it mean for representations to be formatted? How many formats are there? Is it possible that the mind represents some pieces of information in multiple formats at once? To address these questions, I discuss a ‘case study’ of representational format: the representation of spatial location. I review work (a) across species and across development, (b) across spatial scales, and (c) across levels of analysis (e.g., high-level cognitive format vs. low-level neural format). Along the way, I discuss the possibility that the same information may be organized in multiple formats simultaneously (e.g., that locations may be represented in both Cartesian and polar coordinates). Ultimately, I argue that seemingly ‘redundant’ formats may support the flexible spatial behavior observed in humans, and that we should approach the study of all mental representations with this possibility in mind.

scholarly journals [Review] Peter Godfrey-Smith. Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind. New York: Farar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. 336 pp.

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 290-297
Author(s):  
David Herman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
The Mind

Animal Studies Journal 2021 10(1): [Review] Peter Godfrey-Smith. Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind. New York: Farar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. 336 pp.

Reading Ngũgĩ Reading Conrad

2018 ◽  
pp. 55-80
Author(s):  
Mark Wollaeger
Keyword(s):  
Joseph Conrad ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o ◽  
Postcolonial Criticism ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Center Periphery

This chapter considers points of intersection between Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Joseph Conrad. By Ngũgĩ’s own account, his rewriting of Conrad’s Under Western Eyes (1911) as A Grain of Wheat (1967) triggered a crisis of audience that ultimately led him to abandon English for his native Gikuyu. To further complicate the question of influence, Wollaeger also examines the relationship between two works of nonfiction: Conrad’s A Personal Record (1912) and Ngũgĩ’s Decolonizing the Mind (1986). At the heart of Ngũgĩ’s attempt to fashion premodern tribalism into a utopian space are two problems that still animate critical discussion. What is the status of the local and the indigenous? Does attention to influence reinstate a center-periphery model in postcolonial criticism? This chapter shows the extent to which Conrad and Ngũgĩ both anticipate and generate theoretical models later used to articulate modernism and postcolonialism as fields of inquiry.

THE PROTECTIVE EFFECT OF ACYLATI0N ON THE STABILITY OF EMINASE (APSAC) IN HUMAN PLASMA

1987 ◽  
Author(s):  
R Fears ◽  
H Ferres ◽  
R Standring
Keyword(s):  
Protective Effect ◽  
Human Plasma ◽  
Fibrinolytic Activity ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Active Form ◽  
Α2 Macroglobulin ◽  
The Stability ◽  
High Level ◽  
Activator Complex

Clinical and animal studies indicate that APSAC (anisoylated plasminogen.streptokinase activator complex, Eminase) circulates longer in the bloodstream in an active form than the other thrombolytics. In the present studies in vitro u/e have found that functional activity of APSAC is maintained in human plasma longer than that of SK.plasmin(ogen): the relative stability half-lives are similar to the plasma clearance haif-lives in patients. Some of the loss of activity of SK at early times can be attributed to neutralisation by inhibitors. Thus, the survival of fibrinolytically-active SK was promoted in plasma depleted in α2-antiplasmin (α2AP) and α2AP-SK.plasmin complexes (detected by immunoblotting) formed rapidly in normal plasma. Corresponding studies with α2 macroglobulin-depleted plasma suggested a slight, late influence on SK activity but the inhibitor complex has not been detected unequivocally. In addition, loss of SK activity can be attributed, in part, to. rapid degradation to low molecular products. The degradation of SK in APSAC was much slower. In other comparative studies, the stability of APSAC was found to be similar to the stability of prourokinase and much superior to that of SK which is similar to UK; t-PA is intermediate in stability.Maintenance of fibrinolytic activity vivo depends on the stability of the thrombolytic, its rate of clearance and mode of administration. The protective effect of acylation, demonstrated in these experiments, explains why the objective of maintaining a high level of fibrinolytic activity after intravenous bolus injection of APSAC is less compromised by opposing inactivation processes.

Intervention research, theoretical mechanisms, and causal processes related to externalizing behavior patterns

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 789-818 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHEN P. HINSHAW
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Externalizing Behavior ◽  
Statistical Power ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Feedback Mechanism ◽  
Intervention Research ◽  
Clinical Theory ◽  
Attentional Deficits ◽  
Research With Children ◽  
Yield Information

Intervention research with children and adolescents has suffered from a dearth of relevant theoretical grounding and from the lack of a reciprocal “feedback” mechanism by which clinical trials can inform relevant theorizing and conceptualization. There are hopeful signs, however, of increasing confluence between clinical efforts and theoretical models. Indeed, the key issue I discuss is how intervention studies can yield information about developmental and clinical theory as well as mechanisms related to psychopathology. Specific research examples in the field, particularly those emanating from the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (MTA study), reveal that probes of moderator and mediator variables can clearly enhance our knowledge of relevant processes and mechanisms. In fact, recent MTA findings have relevance for models of genetic and epigenetic influence on symptomatology related to attentional deficits and hyperactivity. It would be overzealous, however, to make premature claims regarding etiologic variables from intervention research, as treatment studies typically address variables that are causally far “downstream” from primary causal factors and most clinical trials have statistical power that is barely sufficient for main outcome questions, much less mediational linkages. Overall, the field has severely underutilized experimental intervention research to subserve the dual ends of improving the lives of youth and advancing theoretical conceptualization regarding development and psychopathology.

scholarly journals The Effect of the Glossary on the Reliability and Performance of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Toloza-Muñoz ◽  
Jean González-Mendoza ◽  
Ramón D. Castillo ◽  
Diego Morales-Bader
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Secondary Task ◽  
Temporal Stability ◽  
Mental States ◽  
The Self ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Before And After ◽  
And Performance ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Mind

AbstractThe Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) is used to measure high-level Theory of Mind. RMET consists of images of the regions surrounding the eyes and a glossary of terms that defines words associated with the gazes depicted in the images. People must identify the meaning associated with each gaze and can consult the glossary as they respond. The results indicate that typically developed adults perform better than adults with neurodevelopmental disorders. However, the evidence regarding the validity and reliability of the test is contradictory. This study evaluated the effect of the glossary on the performance, internal consistency, and temporal stability of the test. A total of 89 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to three conditions. The first group used the original glossary (Ori-G). The second group developed a self-generated glossary of gazes (Self-G). Finally, the third group developed a glossary that did not define gazes, but unrelated words instead (No-G). The test was administered before and after participants drew a randomly assigned image as a secondary task. The findings show that the number of correct answers was similar among the three conditions before and after the secondary task. However, the Self-G and No-G groups took less time to finish the test. The type of glossary affected the consistency and stability of the test. In our case, the Self-G condition made the responses faster, more consistent, and more stable. The results are discussed in terms of levels of processing and the detection of mental states based on gazes.

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