Job's Final Insight, Narratives, and the Brain

In continental philosophy of religion, the hermeneutics of narratives takes a central role. Analytic philosophy of religion, on the other hand, considers religious statements mostly as assertions of fact. It examines the logical form and semantics of religious statements, addresses their logical commitments, and examines their epistemological status. Using the example of a passage in the Book of Job, it is investigated whether the methods of analytic philosophy are also suitable for analyzing religious narratives. The question is explored whether there is a genuine form of knowledge, besides propositional factual knowledge, which is bound to the form of narration. Particular attention will be paid to the inter-personal pragmatic embeddedness of narratives. The connection between second-personal knowledge and narratives is examined. Using the historical example of Ignatius of Loyola's theory of religious knowledge, it is argued that propositional argumentative knowledge is only one form of religious knowledge among others. The others are second-personal and narrative in character. Having thus established this distinct form of knowledge, it is asked whether our best empirical knowledge of the neurophysiological basis of intuitive and non-argumentative cognition provides a foundation for better understanding inter-personal religious cognition within narratives.

What Neural Oscillations Can(not) Do for Syntactic Structure Building

Understanding what someone says requires relating words in the sentence to one another as instructed by grammatical rules of language. In recent years, a neurophysiological basis for this process has become a prominent topic of discussion in cognitive neuroscience. Current proposals about the neural mechanisms of syntactic structure building converge in assigning a key role to neural oscillations but differ in the exact function assigned to them. We discuss two types of approaches – oscillations for chunking and oscillations for multi-scale information integration – and evaluate their merits and limitations considering a fundamentally hierarchical nature of syntactic representations in natural language. We highlight insights that can provide a tangible starting point for a wide-scope neurocognitive model of syntactic structure building.

Neural Oscillation Associated with Contagious Itch in Patients with Atopic Dermatitis

Objective: Itch is an unpleasant sensation associated with an urge to scratch and is a major health care issue associated with atopic dermatitis (AD). Contagious itch, i.e., subjective feelings of itchiness induced by watching others’ scratching behavior, is common in patients with AD. Using electroencephalography, we examined alpha (8–13 Hz) oscillations in sensorimotor areas associated with the desire to scratch in patients with AD. Methods: Thirty-six patients with AD and 34 healthy controls (HCs) participated in this study. They evaluated their itch levels after watching short videos of a model scratching or tapping parts of his body. Neural oscillations were recorded from nine electrodes, including those placed over sensorimotor areas. Time–frequency analysis was used to compare mu rhythm suppression over the sensorimotor areas in response to these videos between patients with AD and HCs. Results: The behavioral test showed that the visual stimuli induced increased feelings of itchiness in patients with AD relative to HCs under the tapping and scratching conditions. The time–frequency analysis revealed that mu rhythm suppression in response to scratching images was significantly prominent in patients with AD, but not in HCs. Conclusion: Patients with AD exhibited increased susceptibility to contagious itch. This phenomenon might be related to enhanced mu rhythm suppression in sensorimotor areas of the brain in these patients. Our findings provide new insight into the neurophysiological basis of itch sensations in patients with AD.

More on Brain and Semiosis: Can We Find a Point in Neuronets?

The paper discusses semiotic aspects of higher human functions and a possibility and relevance of traditional search for their neurophysiological basis. The state of the art on the subject is reviewed and the lack of data on anthropological specificity for reasoning, thinking, language and its AI modeling is highlighted. Experimental neuroscience presumes that if we know the characteristics of neu­rons and their connections, we automatically understand what mind and con­sciousness are. However, it is evident that such a paradigm does not allow us to get relevant answers to the main questions. I argue that the problem should be dealt with not only within the field of neurophysiology proper. Rather, such re­search should involve exploring the 'archeology' of mental processes as they are revealed in arts as well as in other symbolic spaces. The paper discusses the ade­quacy of physiological methodology when it is employed to demonstrate brain mechanisms of higher functions. Besides, I explore the relevance of juxta­posing similar data from other biological and artificial intelligent systems. I view language processing, mind and reasoning and 1st person experience (qualia) as human specific features, and questions the possibility of direct testing these phenomena. The paper links genetic, anthropological and neurophysio­logical data to semiotic activity and semiosphere formation as the basis for com­munication. The paper discusses the place of humans in the changing world in the context of new cognitive dimensions.

Studies of Interrelated Changes in Brain Activity During Social Interactions Using Hyperscanning

The neurophysiological mechanisms underlying social behavior are still poorly understood. An increasing number of international studies uses hyperscanning for simultaneous recording of brain activation from several individuals during social interaction. Despite the outstanding school of Russian social psychology, the number of studies investigating the neurophysiological basis of social behavior in humans is still limited in the Russian literature. The goal of the present work was to review the hyperscanning methods, i.e., methods for simultaneous recording of physiological indices used to investigate inter-brain synchronization during social interactions. The paper discusses methods for recording and analysis of multi-subject data representing the changes in brain activity, existing experimental and naturalistic models, key results, as well as applied and fundamental aspects of the implementation of this technique in social psychology and neuroscience. Introduction of the methods which allow for a better understanding of physiological mechanisms of social interactions may significantly contribute to the development of innovative approaches to improving educational process, teamwork in various professional areas, social welfare, and psychosomatic health of people.

Hemodynamic changes in response to excitatory and inhibitory modulations by transcranial magnetic stimulation at the human sensorimotor cortex

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can non-invasively induce both excitatory and inhibitory neuronal activity. However, the neurophysiological basis for both kinds of modulation remains elusive. In this study, with a controlled dosage over the 30-s interval, we elicited excitatory and inhibitory TMS modulations over the human primary motor cortex (M1) with TMS bursts of high (10-Hz and 30-Hz) and low frequency (0.5-Hz), respectively, and took functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI). Excitatory and inhibitory modulations were evidenced by changes in motor evoked potentials (MEP). Significantly increased fMRI signal at M1 was only detected under excitatory high-frequency TMS but not during inhibitory low-frequency TMS. The supplementary motor area (SMA) had significant fMRI signal changes after both excitatory and inhibitory TMS. The topology of the activated M1 and SMA matched the activated sensorimotor network during voluntary movement. The precuneus was selectively activated with bursts of five TMS pulses. These findings demonstrated the asymmetric hemodynamic responses to excitatory and inhibitory TMS modulations with region-dependent relationships between the local fMRI signal changes and TMS dosage over different time scales.