The Supreme Court has ruled in the case of Y that there is no requirement to seek the approval of the Court of Protection in decisions to withdraw clinically assisted nutrition and hydration from patients in a prolonged disorder of consciousness.1 Mr Y was 52-year-old man who suffered a cardiac arrest after a myocardial infarction as a result of coronary artery disease. It was not possible to resuscitate him for well over 10 min, resulting in severe cerebral hypoxia which caused (...) extensive brain damage. Mr Y’s family and the NHS Trust treating him agreed that Mr Y would not want to be kept alive through the provision of CANH given his poor prognosis. They sought a declaration that it was not mandatory for applications of withdrawal of CANH to come before the court, which was granted by Mrs Justice O’Farrell in the first instance.2 Permission was granted for the appeal to ‘leapfrog’ the Court of Appeal and to proceed to the Supreme Court for consideration. In the interim, Mr Y died after contracting acute respiratory sepsis, but the Supreme Court determined that the appeal should go ahead in light of the general importance of the issues raised. In delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court on 30 July 2018, Lady Justice Black rejected the historical distinction that had been drawn between patients in PDOC and non-PDOC patients, in a way that had justified judicial involvement for patients in PDOC but not for others.3 She was clear that the correct approach to all cases involving CANH was to make a decision based on what was in the best interests of the patient. She further outlined that: > The documentation supplied to us shows that the difficulty that there is in assessing the patient and in …. (shrink)

Hübner and White argue that we should not administer DBS to psychopathic prisoners. While we are sympathetic to their conclusion, we argue that the authors’ two central arguments for this conclusion are problematic. Their first argument appeals to an overly restrictive conception of individual medical benefit: namely, that an individual medical benefit must alleviate subjective suffering. We highlight cases that clearly constitute individual medical benefits although there is no relief of subjective suffering. The second argument depends on an overly restrictive (...) conception of the sort of motivation needed to ground consent to a medical procedure. It is also too quick to treat it as unproblematic to consider psychopaths as fully competent. We argue that this view overlooks certain kinds of internal motivation. It also overlooks the possibility that after successful activation of underactive brain-regions, a former psychopath might become a better representative of his or her “true self.” -/- . (shrink)

Our concerns fall into three areas: (1) Barsalou fails to make clear what simulators are (vs. what they do); (2) activation of perceptual areas of the brain during thought does not distinguish between the activation's being constitutive of concepts or a mere causal consequence (Barsalou needs the former); and (3) Barsalou's attempt to explain how modal symbols handle abstraction fails.

Educational Neuroscience provides an overview of a wide range of recent initiatives in educational neuroscience implicating and pertaining to mind, brain, and education. Contributions from top researchers in the field examine a variety of concerns, issues, and directions pertaining and relating to educational neuroscience and mind, brain, and education more generally, focusing on three main areas: motivations, aims, and prospects theories, methods, and collaborations challenges, results, and implications Chapters promote interdisciplinary perspectives and further establishment of theoretical and empirical (...) bases for research and scholarship bridging Education and the Neurosciences. Though not exhaustive, these chapters identify various parties, agencies, organizations, and initiatives involved in facilitating and furthering development in the field, providing a compendium of on-going efforts to help establish theories, models, methods, ethics, and common language. (shrink)

: The chronic shortage of transplantable organs has reached critical proportions. In the wake of this crisis, some bioethicists have argued there is sufficient public support to expand organ recovery through use of neocortical criteria of death or even pre-mortem organ retrieval. I present a typology of ways in which data gathered from the public can be misread or selectively used by bioethicists in service of an ideological or policy agenda, resulting in bad policy and bad ethics. Such risks should (...) lead us to look at alternatives for increasing organ supplies short of expanding or abandoning the dead donor rule. The chronic problem of organ scarcity should prompt bioethicists to engage in constructive dialogue about the relation of the social sciences and bioethics, to examine the social malleability of the definition of death, and to revisit the question of the priority of organ transplants in the overall package of healthcare benefits provided to most, but not all, citizens. (shrink)

This article reviews the effects of malnutrition on early brain development using data generated from animal experiments and human clinical studies. Three related processes, each with their own functional consequences, are implicated in the alteration of brain development. (1) Maternal undernutrition at the start of pregnancy results in reduced transfer of nutrients across the placenta, allowing the conservation of effort for future reproductive episodes. (2) Differential allocation to growing organs by the fetus in response to nutritional stress spares (...) the brain to a large though still limited degree, reflecting the organ’s relative contribution to survival and reproductive success. (3) Prenatal malnutrition disrupts developing neurotransmitter systems, which results in the expression of specific cognitive and affective traits. It is argued that the increasing size and therefore cost of the brain, in conjunction with increasing ecological instability and marginality, reinforced selection for maternally controlled growth suppression of offspring, reallocation of organ growth rates by offspring, and behavioral changes related to development of neurotransmitter systems. (shrink)

This chapter presents emotion as a function of brain‐body interaction, as a vital part of a multi‐tiered phylogenetic set of neural mechanisms, evoked by both instinctive processes and learned appraisal systems, and argues to establish the primacy of emotion in relation to cognition. Primarily based on Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis, but also incorporating elements of Lazarus' appraisal theory, this paper presents a neuropedagogical model of emotion, the somatic appraisal model of affect. SAMA identifies quintessential components, facets, and functions of (...) affect necessary to provide a new domain, namely educational neuroscience, with a basis on which to build a dynamic model of affect serving to critique traditional cognitivist‐oriented curricula and instruction, and to inform an alternative: neuropedagogy. (shrink)

Females' tendency to place a high value on protecting their own lives enhanced their reproductive success in the environment of evolutionary adaptation because infant survival depended more upon maternal than on paternal care and defence. The evolved mechanism by which the costs of aggression (and other forms of risk taking) are weighted more heavily for females may be a lower threshold for fear in situations which pose a direct threat of bodily injury. Females' concern with personal survival also has implications (...) for sex differences in dominance hierarchies because the risks associated with hierarchy formation in nonbonded exogamous females are not offset by increased reproductive success. Hence among females, disputes do not carry implications for status with them as they do among males, but are chiefly connected with the acquisition and defence of scarce resources. Consequently, female competition is more likely to take the form of indirect aggression or low-level direct combat than among males. Under patriarchy, men have held the power to propagate images and attributions which are favourable to the continuance of their control. Women's aggression has been viewed as a gender-incongruent aberration or dismissed as evidence of irrationality. These cultural interpretations have evolutionarily based sex differences by a process of imposition which stigmatises the expression of aggression by females and causes women to offer exculpatory (rather than justificatory) accounts of their own aggression. (shrink)

‘What does the brain have to do with learning?’Prima facie, this may seem like a strange thing for anyone to say, especially educational scholars, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. There are, however, valid objections to injecting various and sundry neuroscientific considerations piecemeal into the vast field of education. These objections exist in a variety of dimensions. After providing a working definition for educational neuroscience, identifying the ‘mindbrain’ as the proper object of study thereof, I discuss, dispel or dismiss some (...) of these objections prior to presenting my motivations, aims, and prospects for this new area of educational research. I then briefly outline a positive case for educational neuroscience in terms of theories, methods, and collaborations, and conclude with a brief discussion of some challenges, results, and implications thereof. Naturally, the following considerations are but my own, some of which may be shared to some extent by others working in this area, as the case may be. (shrink)

_Educational Neuroscience_ provides an overview of the wide range of recent initiatives in educational neuroscience, examining a variety of methodological concerns, issues, and directions. Encourages interdisciplinary perspectives in educational neuroscience Contributions from leading researchers examine key issues relating to educational neuroscience and mind, brain, and education more generally Promotes a theoretical and empirical base for the subject area Explores a range of methods available to researchers Identifies agencies, organizations, and associations facilitating development in the field Reveals a variety of (...) on-going efforts to establish theories, models, methods, ethics, and a common language. (shrink)

This commentary argues the case for developmental psychopathology in understanding social learning. Informed by work on “epistemic disruption,” we have described difficulties with social learning associated with many forms of psychopathology. Epistemic disruption manifests in an inability to move between innovation and conformity, and arises from poor mentalizing, which generates difficulties in identifying social cues that trigger the correct stance.

The bioethical, professional, and policy discourse over brain death criteria has been portrayed by some scholars as illustrative of the minimal influence of religious perspectives in bioethics. Three questions then lie at the core of my inquiry: What interests of secular pluralistic societies and the medical profession are advanced in examining religious understandings of criteria for determining death? Can bioethical and professional engagement with religious interpretations of death present substantive insights for policy discussions on neurological criteria for death? And (...) finally, how extensive should the scope of policy accommodations be for deeply held religiously based dissent from neurological criteria for death? I begin with a short synopsis of a recent case litigated in Ontario, Canada, Ouanounou v. Humber River Hospital, to illuminate this contested moral terrain. (shrink)

Gestures are a special sort of action. They communicate the individual's moods and desires to the world and they operate under different psychological and cognitive constraints to other actions. The connections between gesture and language - spoken and signed - pose some fascinating questions. How intimately are gesture and language connected? Did one evolve from the other? To what extent are they similarly processed in the brain? In what ways are signed languages akin to spoken language and gestures? Gesture, (...) Speech, and Sign examines these questions, bringing together an international array of expertise to explore the origins, neurobiology, and uses of these three communication systems. A unique feature of the book is its discussion of how a greater understanding of these issues can be used to improve human-computer interactions. Designed to appeal to a multi-disciplinary audience Gesture, Speech, and Sign will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, computer science, and those involved in deaf studies. (shrink)

How We Know is intended as a summary of Objectivist epistemology. Binswanger's treatment of a wide range of epistemological issues is examined. Because his theory of propositions is inadequate and his philosophy of mind is an extreme form of dualism, Binswanger has added little to previous efforts by “official” Objectivists. As a work of epistemology in the broad sense, Binswanger's effort is fatally impaired. It is undone by his bifurcation between consciousness and the physics of the brain, which, if (...) accepted, would largely deprive psychology and even computer science of their subject matter. (shrink)

Middle childhood, the period from 6 to 12 years of age, is defined socially by increasing autonomy and emotional regulation, somatically by the development of anatomical structures for subsistence, and endocrinologically by adrenarche, the adrenal production of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). Here I suggest that DHEA plays a key role in the coordinated development of the brain and body beginning with middle childhood, via energetic allocation. I argue that with adrenarche, increasing levels of circulating DHEA act to down-regulate the release of (...) glucose into circulation and hence limit the supply of glucose which is needed by the brain for synaptogenesis. Furthermore, I suggest the antioxidant properties of DHEA may be important in maintaining synaptic plasticity throughout middle childhood within slow-developing areas of the cortex, including the insula, thamalus, and anterior cingulate cortex. In addition, DHEA may play a role in the development of body odor as a reliable social signal of behavioral changes associated with middle childhood. (shrink)

Over 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, which causes more disability than any other medical condition in the United States at a cost of $560–$635 billion per year. Opioid analgesics are frequently used to treat CP. However, long term use of opioids can cause brain changes such as opioid-induced hyperalgesia that, over time, increase pain sensation. Also, opioids fail to treat complex psychological factors that worsen pain-related disability, including beliefs about and emotional responses to pain. Cognitive behavioral therapy (...) can be efficacious for CP. However, CBT generally does not focus on important factors needed for long-term functional improvement, including attainment of personal goals and the psychological flexibility to choose responses to pain. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has been recognized as an effective, non-pharmacologic treatment for a variety of CP conditions. However, little is known about the neurologic mechanisms underlying ACT. We conducted an ACT intervention in women with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected pre- and post-ACT, and changes in functional connectivity were measured using Network-Based Statistics. Behavioral outcomes were measured using validated assessments such as the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire, the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, and the NIH Toolbox Neuro-QoLTM scales. Results suggest that, following the 4-week ACT intervention, participants exhibited reductions in brain activation within and between key networks including self-reflection, emotion, and cognitive control. These changes in connectivity strength were correlated with changes in behavioral outcomes including decreased depression and pain interference, and increased participation in social roles. This study is one of the first to demonstrate that improved function across the DMN, SN, and FPN may drive the positive outcomes associated with ACT. This study contributes to the emerging evidence supporting the use of neurophysiological indices to characterize treatment effects of alternative and complementary mind-body therapies. (shrink)

Thomas Huxley is often identified as the originator of the doctrineknown as ``epiphenomenalism,'' but there appears to be littleappreciation for the details of Huxley's theory. In particular,conflicting interpretations show that there is uncertainty about twoaspects of his position: whether mental states are completelywithout causal powers or simply have no influence on the behavior theyare typically taken to explain, and whether conscious epiphenomena arethemselves physical states of the brain or immaterial items. I clarifythese issues and show that Huxley's brand of (...) epiphenomenalism is in factdifferent from the forms usually attributed to him. (shrink)

Radiation therapy therapists face challenging daily tasks that leave them prone to high attrition and burnout and subsequent deficits in performance. Here, we employed an accelerated alpha-theta neurofeedback protocol that is implementable in a busy medical workplace to test if 12 RTTs could learn the protocol and exhibit behavior and brain performance-related benefits. Following the 3-week protocol, participants showed a decrease in subjective cognitive workload and a decrease in response time during a performance task, as well as a decrease (...) in desynchrony of the alpha electroencephalogram band. Additionally, novel microstate analysis for neurofeedback showed a significant decrease in global field power following neurofeedback. These results suggest that the RTTs successfully learned the protocol and improved in perceived cognitive workload following 3 weeks of neurofeedback. In sum, this study presents promising behavioral improvements as well as brain performance-related evidence of neurophysiological changes following neurofeedback, supporting the feasibility of implementing neurofeedback in a busy workplace and encouraging the further study of neurofeedback as a tool to mitigate burnout. (shrink)

Focusing on imagination and the social context in the generation of conviction narratives, we propose that these elements are dynamically related to one another, and crucially that it is the nature of this relationship that determines individuals' level of epistemic openness and capacity to respond adaptively to update their narratives in a way that increases the possibility of more successful decision-making.

Like number representation, basic arithmetic seems to be a natural candidate for abstract instantiation in the brain. To investigate this, researchers have examined effects of numeral format on elementary arithmetic (e.g., 4+5 vs. four+five). Different numeral formats often recruit distinct processes for arithmetic, reinforcing the conclusion that number processing is not necessarily abstracted away from numeral format.

Cultural effects can influence the results of causal genetic analyses, such as Mendelian randomisation, but the potential influences of culture on genotype–phenotype associations are not currently well understood. Different genetic variants could be associated with different phenotypes in different populations, or culture could confound or influence the direction of the association between genotypes and phenotypes in different populations.

Female behavior that is driven by ambivalent attachment is far from passive or withdrawn. As dramatised in the movie such women's emotional hyper-reactivity is often expressed in violence, which is antithetical to securing investment from mates or peers. Single motherhood, rather than reflecting an avoidant strategy in which close relationships are devalued, is often the result of ecological conditions in which paternal investment is desired but unavailable.

A test of a biosocial model is reported in which we found no impact of circulating testosterone on either status-seeking or aggression. The fact that sex differences in competitiveness and aggression appear in childhood strongly suggests that the major impact of testosterone is organisational. Whereas dominance and resources are linked among males, female aggression may be a function of pure resource competition, with no element of status-seeking.

The strategic pluralism model depends upon pathogen prevalence and environmental hardship being independent. Evidence is presented that they are positively correlated. The rise in short-term mating strategy in the United States is better explained by changes in the operational sex ratio than by increases in pathogen prevalence. Nonetheless, in highlighting the advantages of a high-investment strategy to less attractive males, Gangestad & Simpson's model helps to clarify the dynamics of frequency-dependent selection.

As fundamental researchers in the neuroethology of efference copy, we were stimulated by Grush's bold and original synthesis. In the following critique, we draw attention to ways in which it might be tested in the future, we point out an avoidable conceptual error concerning emulation that Grush seems to share with other workers in the field, and we raise questions about the neural correlates of Grush's schemata that might be probed by neurophysiologists.

In this paper I shall be arguing against the claim made by Erin and Harris and others, that creating a “regulated market” in organs for transplantation taken from living vendors is both viable practically and a moral imperative. No-one can doubt that there is currently a crisis in the provision of organs for transplantation, with a massive gap between supply and demand. There are a number of reasons for this crisis. Since its development as a life-saving measure in the second (...) half of the last century, organ transplantation has expanded exponentially, both in terms of survival rates, the number of people on the waiting list for the procedure, and the range of transplantable organs. Advances in immuno-suppression and in prevention of infection have led to improvement in both the survival of the recipients and of the transplanted organs. At the same time, there has been an increase in repeat transplantations and in multiple organ transplants. The range of conditions for which transplantation is offered has widened, and transplantable organs now include: kidney, liver, pancreas, heart and lung. Brain-dead donors can provide all of these organs, while the kidney and sections of the liver and pancreas can also be obtained from living donors. Survival outcomes are better from living donors than from cadaveric donors, and, in the case of kidney failure, better from transplantation than from dialysis. [End Page 164] The relevant question, however, is whether permitting a market in human organs is morally justifiable, and, even if it were, whether it would provide a solution to the current crisis. I argue in this paper that organ trading is wrong in principle, since it commodifies the human body and inevitably exploits the poor and the socially vulnerable, and that, far from alleviating the crisis, it is likely to make it worse. First we should note that there is an uncompromising opposition to all forms of organ trading from two major international healthcare organisations. (shrink)

identity theory , usually attributed to J.J.C. Smart (Smart, 1959) and U.T. Place (Place, 1956), claimed that kinds of mental states are identical to kinds of brain states. Sensations of pain, for instance, were said to be identical to the firing of C-fibres or some such type of neurological state. According to this view, then, pain, conceived as a _kind_ of mental state, is said to be _reduced_ to a certain kind of neurological state. The reduction envisaged here was (...) modelled on the kind of reduction seen in other areas of the sciences. For instance, lightning can be said to be reduced to a rapid discharge of electrons in the atmosphere. When such a reduction is made scientists are not saying that there are two phenomena that are correlated, but rather that lightning is. (shrink)

The target article excludes ancestral neutrality as a cause for the inheritance of schizophrenia, with an argument relating to selection against a single allele in the Finnish population. However, drift would predominate over selection within subisolates of the Finnish population. Comparisons of subisolates with heterogeneous populations may provide clues to the endophenotypic structure of complex polygenetic heritable mental disorders. (Published Online November 9 2006).