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Perspectives on Psychological Science :... Jan 2018Most of the energy we get to spend is furnished by mitochondria, minuscule living structures sitting inside our cells or dispatched back and forth within them to where... (Review)
Review
Most of the energy we get to spend is furnished by mitochondria, minuscule living structures sitting inside our cells or dispatched back and forth within them to where they are needed. Mitochondria produce energy by burning down what remains of our meal after we have digested it, but at the cost of constantly corroding themselves and us. Here we review how our mitochondria evolved from invading bacteria and have retained a small amount of independence from us; how we inherit them only from our mother; and how they are heavily implicated in learning, memory, cognition, and virtually every mental or neurological affliction. We discuss why counteracting mitochondrial corrosion with antioxidant supplements is often unwise, and why our mitochondria, and therefore we ourselves, benefit instead from exercise, meditation, sleep, sunshine, and particular eating habits. Finally, we describe how malfunctioning mitochondria force rats to become socially subordinate to others, how such disparity can be evened off by a vitamin, and why these findings are relevant to us.
Topics: Animals; Biological Evolution; Humans; Mental Disorders; Mental Processes; Mitochondria
PubMed: 28937858
DOI: 10.1177/1745691617718356 -
Trends in Neurosciences Sep 2015Cognitive flexibility, the readiness with which one can selectively switch between mental processes to generate appropriate behavioral responses, develops in a... (Review)
Review
Cognitive flexibility, the readiness with which one can selectively switch between mental processes to generate appropriate behavioral responses, develops in a protracted manner and is compromised in several prevalent neurodevelopmental disorders. It is unclear whether cognitive flexibility arises from neural substrates distinct from the executive control network (ECN) or from the interplay of nodes within this and other networks. Here we review neuroimaging studies of cognitive flexibility, focusing on set shifting and task switching. We propose that more consistent operationalization and study of cognitive flexibility is required in clinical and developmental neuroscience. We suggest that an important avenue for future research is the characterization of the relationship between neural flexibility and cognitive flexibility in typical and atypical development.
Topics: Attention; Brain; Cognition; Executive Function; Humans; Inhibition, Psychological; Memory, Short-Term
PubMed: 26343956
DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2015.07.003 -
Journal of Child Psychology and... Apr 2017Self-regulation (SR) is central to developmental psychopathology, but progress has been impeded by varying terminology and meanings across fields and literatures. (Review)
Review
Annual Research Review: On the relations among self-regulation, self-control, executive functioning, effortful control, cognitive control, impulsivity, risk-taking, and inhibition for developmental psychopathology.
BACKGROUND
Self-regulation (SR) is central to developmental psychopathology, but progress has been impeded by varying terminology and meanings across fields and literatures.
METHODS
The present review attempts to move that discussion forward by noting key sources of prior confusion such as measurement-concept confounding, and then arguing the following major points.
RESULTS
First, the field needs a domain-general construct of SR that encompasses SR of action, emotion, and cognition and involves both top-down and bottom-up regulatory processes. This does not assume a shared core process across emotion, action, and cognition, but is intended to provide clarity on the extent of various claims about kinds of SR. Second, top-down aspects of SR need to be integrated. These include (a) basic processes that develop early and address immediate conflict signals, such as cognitive control and effortful control (EC), and (b) complex cognition and strategies for addressing future conflict, represented by the regulatory application of complex aspects of executive functioning. Executive function (EF) and cognitive control are not identical to SR because they can be used for other activities, but account for top-down aspects of SR at the cognitive level. Third, impulsivity, risk-taking, and disinhibition are distinct although overlapping; a taxonomy of the kinds of breakdowns of SR associated with psychopathology requires their differentiation. Fourth, different aspects of the SR universe can be organized hierarchically in relation to granularity, development, and time. Low-level components assemble into high-level components. This hierarchical perspective is consistent across literatures.
CONCLUSIONS
It is hoped that the framework outlined here will facilitate integration and cross-talk among investigators working from different perspectives, and facilitate individual differences research on how SR relates to developmental psychopathology.
Topics: Executive Function; Human Development; Humans; Impulsive Behavior; Inhibition, Psychological; Mental Disorders; Risk-Taking; Self-Control
PubMed: 28035675
DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12675 -
Nature Reviews. Neuroscience Mar 2016When rats come to a decision point, they sometimes pause and look back and forth as if deliberating over the choice; at other times, they proceed as if they have already... (Review)
Review
When rats come to a decision point, they sometimes pause and look back and forth as if deliberating over the choice; at other times, they proceed as if they have already made their decision. In the 1930s, this pause-and-look behaviour was termed 'vicarious trial and error' (VTE), with the implication that the rat was 'thinking about the future'. The discovery in 2007 that the firing of hippocampal place cells gives rise to alternating representations of each of the potential path options in a serial manner during VTE suggested a possible neural mechanism that could underlie the representations of future outcomes. More-recent experiments examining VTE in rats suggest that there are direct parallels to human processes of deliberative decision making, working memory and mental time travel.
Topics: Animals; Brain; Decision Making; Humans; Mental Processes; Models, Biological; Neurons; Rats
PubMed: 26891625
DOI: 10.1038/nrn.2015.30 -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Oct 2023Perhaps it is no accident that insight moments accompany some of humanity's most important discoveries in science, medicine, and art. Here we propose that feelings of... (Review)
Review
Perhaps it is no accident that insight moments accompany some of humanity's most important discoveries in science, medicine, and art. Here we propose that feelings of insight play a central role in (heuristically) selecting an idea from the stream of consciousness by capturing attention and eliciting a sense of intuitive confidence permitting fast action under uncertainty. The mechanisms underlying this Eureka heuristic are explained within an active inference framework. First, implicit restructuring via Bayesian reduction leads to a higher-order prediction error (i.e., the content of insight). Second, dopaminergic precision-weighting of the prediction error accounts for the intuitive confidence, pleasure, and attentional capture (i.e., the feeling of insight). This insight as precision account is consistent with the phenomenology, accuracy, and neural unfolding of insight, as well as its effects on belief and decision-making. We conclude by reflecting on dangers of the Eureka Heuristic, including the arising and entrenchment of false beliefs and the vulnerability of insights under psychoactive substances and misinformation.
Topics: Humans; Bayes Theorem; Heuristics; Uncertainty; Emotions; Mental Processes
PubMed: 37598874
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105363 -
Frontiers in Psychology 2023Research in dance psychology and mental health is rapidly growing. Yet, evidence in the field can seem dispersed due to few existing meta overviews that outline research... (Review)
Review
Research in dance psychology and mental health is rapidly growing. Yet, evidence in the field can seem dispersed due to few existing meta overviews that outline research in dance related to mental health. Therefore, the aim of this scoping review is to strengthen future dance research by gathering and contextualizing existing findings on mental health in dance. Following the PRISMA guidelines and protocols, 115 studies were included in the review. Overall, the data analysis shows a predominant adoption of quantitative research but a lack of applied interventions of preventive and reactive procedures in mental health. Similarly, there is a tendency to study pre-professional dancers, whereas research into professional dancers, especially aged 30-60 is underrepresented. Dance genres have been unevenly investigated, with classical ballet being the most researched, whereas different dance styles and freelance employment are in dire need of in-depth investigation. Conceptualizing mental health as a dynamic state, the thematic analysis identified three main categories: and These factors appear to be in a complex interaction. Overall, the existing literature gives indications of components essential to understanding dancers' mental health but has several blind spots and shortcomings. Therefore, a lot of in-depth understanding and research is still needed to fully grasp the dynamic complexity of mental health in dance.
PubMed: 36968742
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1090645 -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Nov 2023A central question in understanding cognition and pathology-related cognitive changes is how we process time. However, time processing difficulties across several... (Review)
Review
A central question in understanding cognition and pathology-related cognitive changes is how we process time. However, time processing difficulties across several neurological and psychiatric conditions remain seldom investigated. The aim of this review is to develop a unifying taxonomy of time processing, and a neuropsychological perspective on temporal difficulties. Four main temporal judgments are discussed: duration processing, simultaneity and synchrony, passage of time, and mental time travel. We present an integrated theoretical framework of timing difficulties across psychiatric and neurological conditions based on selected patient populations. This framework provides new mechanistic insights on both (a) the processes involved in each temporal judgement, and (b) temporal difficulties across pathologies. By identifying underlying transdiagnostic time-processing mechanisms, this framework opens fruitful avenues for future research.
Topics: Humans; Time Perception; Mental Disorders; Cognition; Judgment; Auditory Perception
PubMed: 37871780
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105430 -
Proceedings. Biological Sciences Sep 2019In conditions of constant illumination, the eye pupil diameter indexes the modulation of arousal state and responds to a large breadth of cognitive processes, including... (Review)
Review
In conditions of constant illumination, the eye pupil diameter indexes the modulation of arousal state and responds to a large breadth of cognitive processes, including mental effort, attention, surprise, decision processes, decision biases, value beliefs, uncertainty, volatility, exploitation/exploration trade-off, or learning rate. Here, I propose an information theoretic framework that has the potential to explain the ensemble of these findings as reflecting pupillary response to information processing. In short, updates of the brain's internal model, quantified formally as the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence between prior and posterior beliefs, would be the common denominator to all these instances of pupillary dilation to cognition. I show that stimulus presentation leads to pupillary response that is proportional to the amount of information the stimulus carries about itself and to the quantity of information it provides about other task variables. In the context of decision making, pupil dilation in relation to uncertainty is explained by the wandering of the evidence accumulation process, leading to large summed KL divergences. Finally, pupillary response to mental effort and variations in tonic pupil size are also formalized in terms of information theory. On the basis of this framework, I compare pupillary data from past studies to simple information-theoretic simulations of task designs and show good correspondance with data across studies. The present framework has the potential to unify the large set of results reported on pupillary dilation to cognition and to provide a theory to guide future research.
Topics: Arousal; Attention; Cognition; Decision Making; Humans; Learning; Photic Stimulation; Pupil; Uncertainty
PubMed: 31530143
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.1593 -
Trends in Cognitive Sciences Jun 2022An increasing recognition that brain and body are dynamically coupled has enriched our scientific understanding of mental health conditions. Peripheral signals interact... (Review)
Review
An increasing recognition that brain and body are dynamically coupled has enriched our scientific understanding of mental health conditions. Peripheral signals interact centrally to influence how we think and feel, generating our sense of the internal condition of the body, a process known as interoception. Disruptions to this interoceptive system may contribute to clinical conditions, including anxiety, depression, and psychosis. After reviewing the nature of interoceptive disturbances in mental health conditions, this review focuses on interoceptive pathways of existing and putative mental health treatments. Emerging clinical interventions may target novel peripheral treatment mechanisms. Future treatment development requires forward- and back-translation to uncover and target specific interoceptive processes in mental health to elucidate their efficacy relative to interventions targeting other factors.
Topics: Anxiety; Awareness; Brain; Emotions; Humans; Interoception; Mental Health
PubMed: 35466044
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.03.004 -
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Dec 2020The term process model is widely used, but rarely agreed upon. This paper proposes a framework for characterizing and building cognitive process models. Process models... (Review)
Review
The term process model is widely used, but rarely agreed upon. This paper proposes a framework for characterizing and building cognitive process models. Process models model not only inputs and outputs but also model the ongoing information transformations at a given level of abstraction. We argue that the following dimensions characterize process models: They have a scope that includes different levels of abstraction. They specify a hypothesized mental information transformation. They make predictions not only for the behavior of interest but also for processes. The models' predictions for the processes can be derived from the input, without reverse inference from the output data. Moreover, the presumed information transformation steps are not contradicting current knowledge of human cognitive capacities. Lastly, process models require a conceptual scope specifying levels of abstraction for the information entering the mind, the proposed mental events, and the behavior of interest. This framework can be used for refining models before testing them or after testing them empirically, and it does not rely on specific modeling paradigms. It can be a guideline for developing cognitive process models. Moreover, the framework can advance currently unresolved debates about which models belong to the category of process models.
Topics: Cognition; Humans; Models, Psychological
PubMed: 32632887
DOI: 10.3758/s13423-020-01747-2