# Question
Title: What does "The brain has its own language for testing the structure and consistency of the world." refer to?
The late Dr. Carl Sagan is famous for many different contributions to both scientific research and science education.

One memorable line is discussed in Are we really star-stuff from the interior of collapsing stars?

In the video Carl Sagan - 'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Symphony of Science) at about `01:30` Dr. Sagan can be heard to say:

> “But the brain does much more than just recollect it inter-compares, it synthesizes, it analyzes, it generates abstractions. The simplest thought like the concept of the number one has an elaborate logical underpinning. The brain has its own language for testing the structure and consistency of the world.”

This quote can also be found in goodreads and in the script of Season 1, Episode 11 of the TV show Cosmos circa 1980.

What might Dr. Sagan be referring to in the sentence "The brain has its own language for testing the structure and consistency of the world."?

**Question:** Is this hypothetical "language" a way that information is exchanged between different parts of the brain? Is this concept part of some well known theory of brain function at the time? How is this viewed now, nearly forty years later?

---

A longer quote (from the episode) for context:

> The brain is a very big place in a very small space. Most of the books in the brain are up here in the cerebral cortex. Down there, in the basement of the brain are the functions that our ancestors mainly depended on for survival: Aggression, child rearing, sex the willingness to follow leaders blindly. Lots of things that we can still recognize in our lives today.
>
> Of the higher brain functions some of them, like reading, writing, speaking seem to be located in particular places in the cerebral cortex.
>
> On the other hand, each memory seems to be stored in many separate locales in the brain. Old memories are in lots of places. Here is one of my earliest memories.
>
> > (POURS LIQUID) MOTHER: That's a good boy. Lunch is almost ready. (CLICKS ON RADIO) (MUSIC PLAYS)
>
> That was a long time ago. But its imprint has not faded in the library of this brain. But the brain does much more than just recollect. It inter-compares. It synthesizes. It analyzes. It generates abstractions. The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one has an elaborate, logical underpinning.
>
> **The brain has its own language for testing the world's structure and consistency.** But we never see the machinery of logical analysis only the conclusions. There is so much more that we must figure out than the genes can know. That's why the brain library has 10,000 times more information in it than the gene library. Our passion for learning is the tool for our survival. And unlike the musty bindings of our gene library in which hardly a word changes in a century the brain library is made of loose-leaf books.
>
> We're constantly adding new pages and new volumes. Emotions and ritual behavior patterns are built very deeply into us. They're part of our humanity. But they're not characteristically human.
>
> Many other animals have feelings. What distinguishes our species is thought. The cerebral cortex is, in a way, a liberation. We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited behavior patterns of lizards and baboons: Territoriality and aggression and dominance hierarchies. We are, each of us largely responsible for what gets put into our brains for what, as adults, we wind up caring for and knowing about.
>
> No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain we can change ourselves.
>
> Think of the possibilities.

# Answer
Dr. Sagan is referring to the brain's ability to produce models of the world in order to test predictions.

In terms of psychology contemporary with Carl Sagan, he may have been referring to, in part, the theory of schemas. This is a general representation of a thing or idea that is used in classifying or identifying the thing or idea. In developmental psychology, the idea of Jean Piaget's schema might appear as a young child identifying all four-legged animals as "doggies." As the child grows, they will begin to differentiate, and for example, know horse vs. dog (but might classify a zebra as a horse).

The "language" of the brain seems to be an emergent property of neuronal firing. When a neuron elicits an action potential, it produces a voltage pulse that (usually) travels down the axon. Neurons can stimulate each other when synapses are triggered by an action potential of the pre-synaptic neuron. This is a simplified explanation: there are also graded synapses that aren't action potential-triggered.

Dr. Sagan might also have been thinking of the 1981 Nobel Prize-winning research by Hubel, Wiesel, and Sperry, whose mid-twentieth century research demonstrates how receptive fields for retinal neurons map onto the visual cortex. Retinotopic maps show how the brain putatively represents visual stimuli in the cortex.

In the early 1990s, researchers began investigating the "neural code" in earnest. A *rate code* is the idea that information is carried in the particular firing rate of a neuron, that is, the mean number of action potentials per second. A *temporal code* is when information is contained in the timing of spikes, not just the mean firing rate. Charles Frye has a great explanation with citations.

Symbolic processing in the brain is an active field of research. The problem can be approached from top-down neuropsychological assays, or from down-up electrophysiology. There is little doubt that symbolic processing is performed by neurons working in concert, though the exact mechanisms for all but the crudest processes are unknown.

Here are some examples: Theoretical models \[1, 2\] have shown how layers of neurons with different properties can be used to filter or transform data. In addition, high-level models have demonstrated possible methods by which cognitive units comprised of one or more neurons can determine the solution to symbolic problems \[3\]. In addition, electrophysiological assays show how cells in the cortex of mammals "record" and represent physical data for use in navigation \[4\].

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\[1\] Gjorgjieva, Julijana & Drion, Guillaume & Marder, Eve. (2016). Computational Implications of Biophysical Diversity and Multiple Timescales in Neurons and Synapses for Circuit Performance. Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 37. 44-52. 10.1016/j.conb.2015.12.008.

\[2\] Shankar, K. H., and Howard, M. W. (2012). A scale-invariant internal representation of time, Neural Computation, 24, 134–193.

\[3\] Hasselmo ME, Stern CE (2018) A network model of behavioural performance in a rule learning task. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 373 : 20170275. PMCID: PMC5832697. PDF

\[4\] Hinman JR, Dannenberg H, Alexander A, Hasselmo ME. (2018) Neural mechanisms of navigation involving interactions of cortical and subcortical structures. J. Neurophysiol. 119(6):2007-2029. PDF
> 4 votes

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Tags: brain, theory-of-mind
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# Question
Title: To what extent is time to complete an intelligence test incorporated into the IQ score?
*In this previous question on scoring IQ tests the OP asked about the effect of speed of test, but it was a bit peripheral to the core question. So I thought I'd ask it as a separate question. To slightly rephrase the question:*

> "If the speed with which a test is completed sometimes affects the IQ score, surely for identical test scores where one is completed in 10 minutes and another in 30 minutes should affect the IQ score."

So the question:

**To what extent is time to complete an intelligence test incorporated into the IQ score?**

# Answer
I'm not familiar with all tests out there, but I'll give an example from the fourth revision of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV), one of the more popular tests.

The **time to complete the whole test does not matter** (as long as you complete it in one go without long breaks). Usually testing takes between one and two hours, but if you test very old and frail persons, you might even administer parts of the test on different days.

I have not heard of any IQ test that has an overall time limit for the whole test (which does not mean that there is none). In my opinion that would not work for a paper and pencil test, because there are breaks between subtests where the test administrator gives the instructions for the next subtest, and short breaks where the administrator reads out the questions for individual items of a subtest. Thus, the overall time would depend not only on the test subject, but on the administrator of the test as well. In a computer administered test, it would be possible to measure the time used to solve the questions accurately, but, as I said, I don't know of such an IQ test.

In the WAIS-IV, **many subtests have a time limit**. For example there is one subtest where you have to mark certain geometrical forms (e.g. a yellow triangle) on a page filled with many different tiny geometric forms. Obviously, given enough time, everybody would be able to complete that subtest without errors. But you have a limited time in which you have to find as many of the specific forms as you can. There are enough forms that no-one can finish that page in the given time. So the number of forms you find and the number of errors you make are your score for this subtest. Other intelligence tests have similar time limits for certain subtests.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Here is an example from recent IQ test.

```
    (start a timer set for 13 seconds ,once your ready with a paper and pencil)
Question 1.                11,14,8,53,7,48
  Is the total of these numbers even ?

 (Set timer for 40 seconds this time)
Question             22, 4,19,8,67,16
    Is the total odd?

```

Then there is no time limit.

Clearly with no time limit almost everyone could find the answer. With the strict time, only a small percentage could solve the problem.

The amount of time shows the method used.
A genius uses an larger mathicalcan truth (ex. An odd number of odds will always have an total which is odd) . The actual numbers don’t matter and never needs to add them, just count the odds. You can add numbers in your head when able to answer under 40 seconds.
> 1 votes

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Tags: measurement, intelligence, test
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title: Article about DTI of Autistic Brain

text:
# Question
Title: Article about DTI of Autistic Brain
Does anyone know where do I find the article that published this image?

Appereantly it was created by a neuroscientist called Jason Cooperrider and it is the tractography of Temple Grandin's brain. But I am unable to find the full article

# Answer
The source of the image (which also appears here, here, and here) is the Walter Schneider lab at the University of Pittsburgh. They have a webpage about an episode of *60 Minutes* that featured their research (including high density fiber tracking of Temple Grandin's brain) related to Grandin's book, *The Autistic Brain*. The images can be found under FAQ #5 ("You did an HDFT map of Temple Grandin’s brain – what did you see and what did you conclude?"): http://www.lrdc.pitt.edu/schneiderlab/content/60-minutes-20120716.asp.

The webpage is also available in PDF form here, where page 4 is identical to the graphic you posted: http://www.lrdc.pitt.edu/schneiderlab/documents/TBI\_early\_draft\_HDFT\_FAQ\_April\_30\_2013\_Schneider\_Lab\_U\_Pittsburgh.pdf.

(Fyi, I just found the source by searching for the caption text in Google.)
> 2 votes

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Tags: brain, autism
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# Question
Title: How are ocular dominance columns monocular despite binocular complex cells?
Orientation columns in the primary visual cortex are known to have (mostly) simple cells in layers 4 and 6, and (mostly) complex cells in layers 2,3 and 5. Orientation columns spanning an entire range of orientations (0-180 degrees) are “grouped” into ocular dominance columns.

My question: Ocular dominance columns are monocular columns, corresponding either to the contralateral or the ipsilateral eye. Complex cells, however, are binocular. How do these two things go together?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Ocular dominance columns are not purely monocular, nor are simple cells purely monocular.

Simple and complex cells both exhibit a range of ocular preference, from preferring one to the other. See this figure from Hubel and Wiesel, 1962:

Hubel, D. H., & Wiesel, T. N. (1962). Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex. The Journal of physiology, 160(1), 106-154.

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Tags: neuroscience, vision, neuroanatomy
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# Question
Title: Independence of criterion and d-prime (psychophysics)
I am reading here, page 5 that d' (d-prime) does not vary with criterion (in contrast to hit rate for instance which does vary with criterion, and which can be a biased measure of a subject's perception).

However, if we think of a subject that always answers "yes" when asked if a stimuli was present, even if not, then clearly the subject has a very liberal criterion (a negative criterion in particular), and it will follow that her hit rate = 1 but also her false alarm rate = 1, leading to a sensitivity of zero.

This also makes me wonder how sensitivity can be inferred independently from criterion. Let's assume that the subject has a d' = 1, i.e. their internal representation of signal and noise are distinct w.r.t. means of the distributions. However if the subject does chose to nevertheless use the very liberal criterion and always answer "signal present", we will be only able to infer that their sensitivity equals zero.

In summary, criterion seems to clearly impact sensitivity. Hence, why are criterion and sensitivity often discussed as being independent?

# Answer
Mathematically, we can see that d' is independent of criterion, regardless of the criterion, by looking at the definition

$$d' = Z\_D - Z\_F.$$

It is tempting to argue that: (1) When the criterion is negative infinity, $P\_D$ and $P\_F$ are equal to unity. (2) When $P\_D$ and $P\_F$ are equal to unity, that $Z\_D$ and $Z\_F$ are equal to infinity. (3) Therefore, when the criterion is negative infinity that d' is undefined since $\infty - \infty \ne 0$. A better way of thinking about it is to keep c in the equations a little longer: $Z\_D=(c - \mu\_{signal})/\sigma$ and $Z\_F=c - \mu\_{no signal}/\sigma$ and

$$d' = Z\_D - Z\_F = (c/\sigma - \mu\_{signal}/\sigma) - (c/\sigma - \mu\_{no signal}/\sigma) = (\mu\_{signal} - \mu\_{no signal})/\sigma$$

Since the c's cancel out we don't have to worry about the pesky $\infty - \infty$ business.

An alternate way to see what is going on is to consider your statement

> However if the subject does chose to nevertheless use the very liberal criterion and always answer "signal present", we will be only able to infer that their sensitivity equals zero.

To see why this is wrong consider an estimation problem where you are trying to estimate upper and lower bounds on d' and c from a set of observations. Consider the case where we have N no signal trials resulting in N false alarms and M signal trials resulting in M hits. The upper bound depends of c depends on N and M as well as d' and we don't need to consider it here to make the point that *you can only infer that d' equal zero* is wrong. The lower bound on c is the key thing to consider. The lower bound is negative infinity. If c is negative infinity the probability of observing at least N false alarms and and at least M hits, give N no signal trials and M signal trials, is equal to unity for all values of d'. Statistically speaking, there is a greater than 1-alpha chance of observing at least N false alarms and M hits regardless of d' when c is infinity. Therefore we cannot rule out, at any level of statistical confidence, any value of d'.
> 2 votes

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Tags: perception, statistics, psychophysics, signal-detection
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# Question
Title: Is there an upper limit to the number of channels in an EEG system that would provide additional useful data points?
A quick scan of search results seems to indicate that the highest density EEG systems on the market are limited to 256 channels such as Neuvo, SynAmps, and others. Is this an arbitrary limit (either due to system design or practicality of sensor placement) or is it perhaps a case of diminishing returns with any decreased sensor spacing not providing much in the way of additional information in the data points?

If not 256 channels then what would be an upper limit? Am I correct in assuming that the summation of electrical activity that is expressed at the scalp would be spatially quantized due the raised gyri on the brain surface (with any activity in the intervening sulci being masked)? Then again if that were the case would there still be benefit in having the extra spatial resolution running atop the contours of the gyri?

I'm wondering if a system consisting of a full mesh of electrodes would have merit as a project? *\[this would be for those such as myself that due to either nature or grooming don't have to work around any hair on there scalp\]*

# Answer
For EEG, mostly diminishing returns. Because the contacts themselves are relatively far from the neurons generating those signals, there is a lot of correlated signal on adjacent channels. Statistical methods like clustering are often used to treat signals of interest coming from multiple channels as just a single signal. Increasing the spatial sampling density just means more channels will be included in that cluster.

There could be some improvement to SNR, but that would really only be helpful in the case of single bad contacts (effectively you are adding redundancy) and uncorrelated noise. It's also worth considering that more channels means more data to store and analyze which can increase processing time.

There's also the practical issue that equipment for recording EEG can be quite expensive, so if a lab owns a 256-channel system, increasing the density to allow for 512 channels is a substantial investment. If most EEG labs' systems allow for no more than 256 channels to be recorded, there is little incentive to create commercially available caps that record more than 256 channels, which further makes it less likely for someone to upgrade to more than 256 channel recording, etc.

If you move recordings closer to the brain, like in ECoG, or with depth electrodes, much higher sampling densities are relevant, but in that case for human subjects placement will be based on clinical needs rather than some theoretical limit.

As far as the contributions of sulci versus gyri to EEG signals, that's an active field of research and in summary "it's complicated": a lot depends on which neurons in cortex are involved, and how spatial patterns of activity are organized. You can make general statements about, for example, EEG versus MEG, but otherwise you are just making claims about relative contributions. Increasing sampling density on the scalp will have little to no impact on which brain regions contribute most to the signal.
> 2 votes

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Tags: eeg
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# Question
Title: for a persistent perceptual experience, why is video able to have a lower frame rate than audio?
In film, images are typically shown to us at around 24 frames per second, but modern sound files will often have 44100 or 48000 samples per second. There's a threshold above ~12 fps where we will perceive successive frames as unified motion instead of individual pictures (c.f. phi phenomenon, persistence of vision, beta movement). But to get this unified experience in the auditory domain, we need a much higher "framerate". Why is this?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Sound is pressure waves; young humans can hear (aka, detect pressure waves) up to about 20 kHz. To produce these high frequency waves with a speaker with a time-domain signal, it is necessary to have a sampling rate at least 2x the highest frequency that will be represented. In practice, those very high frequencies aren't included in music, and definitely aren't included in speech, so ~44kHz is sufficient. There is a membrane inside the cochlea that is structured to vibrate at different frequencies along its length. At the higher frequencies, neurons don't actually respond to every sound wave, they respond to the *envelope*, so it is possible to respond to frequencies much higher than the frequencies that neurons can even fire at.

Vision depends on detection of photons. A photon hits a photosensitive molecule in a photoreceptor in the retina, which causes a chemical change. That changed chemical binds to a protein, which causes a cascade of events that ultimately causes a change in the release of a neurotransmitter. Vision is slow: the cascade in response to a single photon takes on the order of 100s of milliseconds. We can detect things a bit faster than that because the visual system responds to *changes* so the slope of that response is a relevant feature, but overall this slow process means that light information is low-pass filtered. As long as a signal is sufficiently faster than this low-pass filter, differences between a frame-by-frame versus a smooth signal are mostly not noticed. However, it isn't true that 24 frames per second is a limit. Modern monitors often operate much faster, such as 60-144Hz, because these faster frame rates are important for perception of smooth motion at high speeds. Slower frame rates are sufficient when changes are small, however.

In nature, a lot of things vibrate a high frequencies into the 1000s of Hz, so there are good evolutionary reasons to detect high frequency sounds. However, very few things move at those speeds, and those that do are typically not behaviorally relevant (e.g., you don't need to see every sweep of an insect's wings to detect it as an insect).

# Answer
> 2 votes
I don't have a full answer, but it might get things started...

You are mixing up two concepts frame rate and sampling rate. In a video presented at 24 fps each frame, potentially, has a wide range of spatial frequencies. Typically the spatial frequencies are limited by the number of pixels, but you can low pass filter each frame to reduce the spatial frequencies (you will end up with a blurry picture). This spatial filtering has nothing to do with frame rate.

The 44.1 kHz sampling rate in audio signals is more akin to the spatial frequencies of a picture/frame than the frame rate of a video. An example of audio frames would be something like decomposing the audio signal into a bunch of slices with the short time Fourier transform (STFT), setting each slice to have a constant spectrum (and phase???), and reconstructing. Reconstructing the signal from a modified STFT is non-trivial (cf., Griffin and Lim 1984). Given the difficulties in the process and the lack of an application, I am not sure anyone has really investigated how the duration of the slices affects things.

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Tags: perception, psychophysics, sensory-perception
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# Question
Title: What is the "static" in human vision called?
Sort of like a cheap digital Camera, the human eye has certain feedback that's perceived but doesn't actually exist in the real world; a little layer of Static that's especially noticeable in pitch black lighting or when one's eyes are closed. It's (in my experience) sort of rainbow colored.

**What is the name/term for that rainbow static when you close your eyes?** I've been trying to find information about this but I don't know the *word* for it.

# Answer
> 10 votes
It's essentially shot noise.

> In optics, shot noise describes the fluctuations of the number of photons detected (or simply counted in the abstract) due to their occurrence independent of each other. This is therefore another consequence of discretization, in this case of the energy in the electromagnetic field in terms of photons. In the case of photon detection, the relevant process is the random conversion of photons into photo-electrons for instance, thus leading to a larger effective shot noise level when using a detector with a quantum efficiency below unity.

Researchers have taken notice of this as early as the 1960s See \[2\] I was unable to access this, but the abstract notes that it is probably not ideal shot noise, but I don't know what the De Lange filter adds to the shot noise model, it may be a small corrective factor.

> A noise model incorporating the De Lange filter is applied to visual threshold performance. The model gives better agreement with the experimentally observed Weber-Fechner relation than does the ideal shot noise limited model, and it predicts that the critical time duration for integration of threshold stimuli depends upon the mean luminance level of the background field.

As noted in the introduction to \[1\], the noise stems from the transduction stage in the retina:

> On the other hand, people working on vertebrate photoreceptor believe that the responses of rods to single photons are locally saturated and that the "quantum" responses in rods are surprisingly stereotyped. Thus the variability in responses to dim light flashes is believed to be basically due to the absorption of one, two, . .. , few photons \[they cite (Baylor et al., 1984)\].

Refs:

> \[1\] Petracchi D., Cercignani, G., Lucia, S. (1996) Photoreceptor Sensitivity and the Shot Noise of Chemical Processes. Biophysical Journal, 70: 111-120. pdf
>
> \[2\] Ruddock, K.H. (1969)Some aspects of human visual threshold performance in relation to temporal frequency response characteristics. Optics Communications 1(4): 173-179.doi

# Answer
> 5 votes
The term you are looking for is Phosphene.

To quote Wikipedia:

> A phosphene is a phenomenon characterized by the experience of seeing light without light actually entering the eye. The word phosphene comes from the Greek words *phos* (light) and *phainein* (to show). Phosphenes are flashes of light, often associated with optic neuritis, induced by movement or sound.

# Answer
> 1 votes
It could also be visual snow. I see 'visual static' even in bright lighting. Shot noise cannot explain visual static under bright lighting in which there are too many photons for statistical fluctuations in their detection to be perceived.

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Tags: neuroscience, perception, terminology, vision, sensation
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title: How quick a flash of light is invisible

text:
# Question
Title: How quick a flash of light is invisible
I know this overlaps a lot of previously asked questions but:

I understand that 'A photon hits a photosensitive molecule in a photoreceptor in the retina, which causes a chemical change. \[...\] Vision is slow: the cascade in response to a single photon takes on the order of 100s of milliseconds.' (for a persistent perceptual experience, why is video able to have a lower frame rate than audio?)

1) What is the longest amount of time a bright light can shine without it being visible to the human eye? (assume it goes from dark to bright to dark)

2) Would it make a difference if, at other times before and after the bright light, the light was on but dim?

My guess:

It would depend on the brightness of the light, and that even then it's almost impossible, as it would be to do with the number of photons hitting receptors, rather than how brief a period it happened. (I tried flashing a screen for 1/60th of a second and I could still see it).

I would also guess that the opposite - how long would a period of darkness or dim light have to last in between bright light in order for the brain to not register the darkness - would be much less time, certainly no more than 1/60th of a second. (I tried a 120Hz '3d' screen with glasses producing a 60Hz image).

# Answer
It depends on ambient light, but in darkness, humans can detect as few as several *photons*, perhaps even down to a single photon (though all detection at these low levels is probabilistic - see Tinsley et al, 2016).

Therefore, this depends on the ambient light (ideal detection in darkness), and the number of photons. At this level of detection, it doesn't really make much sense to think about the duration of the signal: the duration can be infinitesimally brief as long as the intensity is enough to hit the retina with a few photons in the visible range.

A flash of 'darkness' is much different. Introducing dark flashes to a signal that previously had no dark flashes will be perceived as a change in intensity; you can read about *contrast sensitivity* to find these detection limits. The other attribute that is studied is the *flicker fusion threshold* which is the frame rate at which a flicker (i.e., alternation of dark and light flashes) can be perceived. The exact frequency of the flicker fusion threshold varies with condition, so there is no single number I can give to answer that question (see Brindley et al, 1966 for some ranges), except to say that it is typically less than 60 Hz for still images and higher frequency for brighter light (that is, if the light is brighter, you detect flicker at higher frequencies) and higher frequencies for moving objects.

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Brindley, G. S., Du Croz, J. J., & Rushton, W. A. H. (1966). The flicker fusion frequency of the blue‐sensitive mechanism of colour vision. The Journal of physiology, 183(2), 497-500.

Tinsley, J. N., Molodtsov, M. I., Prevedel, R., Wartmann, D., Espigulé-Pons, J., Lauwers, M., & Vaziri, A. (2016). Direct detection of a single photon by humans. Nature communications, 7, 12172.
> 3 votes

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Tags: perception, sensory-perception
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# Question
Title: What's the difference between the neuroendocrine system vs endocrine system?
No one in the Biology site seems to be answering this, so I thought I'd post it here as a last resort. I would really appreciate if you guys can take a look at it.

This is what I have understood so far: Neuroendocrine system involves **neuroendocrine cells** (also known as neurosecretory cells) that receive nerve impulses by a **sensory neuron** to release **neurohormones** into the blood stream. Meanwhile, the endocrine system **endocrine cells** that release your 'classic' **hormones** into the blood stream when a **receptor protein** senses a stimulus.

Here are my questions. You don't have to answer them in order, you can just provide an summary explanation:

1. When it comes to the brain, are the neurosecretory cells located in the hypothalamus or the posterior pituitary gland or both?
2. Is the hypothalamus and the posterior pituitary gland classified as neuroendocrine glands and is the anterior pituitary classified as an endocrine gland?
3. If the posterior pituitary gland is indeed a neuroendocrine gland, is ADH and Oxytocin, which are both released by the posterior pituitary gland, classified as "neurohormones", not just the classic hormones?

# Answer
> 0 votes
**Neuroendocrine systems** can be defined as the sets of neurons, glands and non-endocrine tissues, and the neurochemicals, hormones, and humoral signals they produce and receive, that function in an integrated manner to collectively regulate a physiological or behavioral state.

The neuroendocrine system is the mechanism by which the hypothalamus maintains homeostasis, regulating reproduction, metabolism, eating and drinking behaviour, energy utilization, osmolarity and blood pressure. (Source)

> The central neuroendocrine systems serve as an interface between the brain and many of the peripheral endocrine systems. This chapter discusses the hypothalamic control of anterior pituitary systems regulating stress, basal metabolism, growth, reproduction, and lactation. Each of these systems involves one or more hypothalamic releasing or inhibiting hormones, released from hypothalamic neurons that terminate in the portal capillary vasculature that projects from the median eminence at the base of the hypothalamus to the anterior pituitary gland. There, the hypothalamic hormones act upon subsets of anterior pituitary cells to regulate pituitary hormone release and downstream physiological functions. Other hypothalamic neuroendocrine cells control water/salt balance, and lactation/parturition, through the release of vasopressin and oxytocin from nerve terminals that arise in hypothalamus and project to the posterior pituitary gland. Together, these hypothalamic neuroendocrine functions enable the central nervous system to respond rapidly to internal or external environmental change, and to maintain a response through endocrine hormonal transducers. (Gore, 2013).

The **endocrine system** is a group of glands and other structures that release internal secretions called hormones into the circulatory system.

> Endocrine organs are richly vascularized ductless organs that produce hormones. The epithelial cells of the organ secrete their hormone product directly into the bloodstream where, upon binding with specific receptors in target organs, cellular functions are affected. The endocrine systemincludes not only the endocrine glands (pineal, pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal) but also single cells and small clusters of cells in the thorax and abdomen known as paraganglia. This chapter addresses the thyroid, parathyroid, adrenal, pituitary and pineal glands, and paraganglia. In addition to size differences, several features of endocrine tissues differ between rodents and humans, and often between rodents. (La Perle & Dintzis, 2018).

**Question 1**

> When it comes to the brain, are the neurosecretory cells located in the hypothalamus or the posterior pituitary gland or both?

Neurosecretory cells are found in the hypothalamus. (Source)

> There are two types of neurosecretory cells: magnocellular cells and parvocellular cells. Magnocellular cellsare large cells, having long axons that terminate in the neurohypophysis (also known as the posterior pituitary). Magnocellular cells release the hormones vasopressin and oxytocin to the general circulation; we will talk about the physiology of these hormones in Conjoint 403. The parvocellular cells are small cells, with shorter axons that terminate at a capillary-rich bulge at the base of the hypothalamus known as the median eminence.

**Question 2**

> Is the hypothalamus and the posterior pituitary gland classified as neuroendocrine glands...

No

> ...and is the anterior pituitary classified as an endocrine gland?

Yes.

The following is from: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-ap/chapter/the-pituitary-gland

(emphasis mine)

> The posterior pituitary (or neurohypophysis) comprises the posterior lobe of the pituitary gland and **is part of the endocrine system**. Despite its name, the posterior pituitary gland is not a true gland; rather, it is largely a collection of axonal projections from the hypothalamus that terminate behind the anterior pituitary gland.

The pituitary gland is an endocrine gland, about the size of a pea, that sits in a small, bony cavity at the base of the brain whose secretions control the other endocrine glands and influence growth, metabolism, and maturation.

While the pituitary gland is known as the master endocrine gland, both of its lobes are under the control of the hypothalamus: the anterior pituitary receives its signals from the parvocellular neurons, and the posterior pituitary receives its signals from the magnocellular neurons.

The anterior pituitary, also called the adenohypophysis, is a major organ of the endocrine system, and is the glandular, anterior lobe of the pituitary gland.

The anterior pituitary gland secretes 7 hormones: follicle stimulating hormone, luteinizing horomone, adrenocorticotropic horomone, thyroid stimulating horomone, prolactin, endorphins, and growth hormone.

The posterior pituitary gland does not synthesize any hormones. Hormones known as posterior pituitary hormones are synthesized by the hypothalamus, and include oxytocin and antidiuretic hormone (ADH), also called arginine vasopressin or vasopressin (Liu, 2007). The hormones are then stored in neurosecretory vesicles (Herring bodies) before being secreted by the posterior pituitary into the bloodstream.

With regard to **neurohormones** mentioned in question 3, neurohormones are hormones that are produced by neurosecretory cells and released by nerve impulses (e.g., norepinephrine, oxytocin, vasopressin).

This is the part which can be confusing. Whilst ADH and oxytocin are released from the posterior pituitary gland, which is an endocrine gland, the hormones are produced by neurosecretory cells within the hypothalamus and they are stored in and released from neurosecretory vesicles within the posterior pituitary gland. Therefore they are classed as neurohormones.

## References

Gore, A. C. (2013). Neuroendocrine systems. In *Fundamental Neuroscience (Fourth Edition)* (pp. 799-817). doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-385870-2.00038-X

La Perle, K. M. D., & Dintzis, S. M. (2018). Endocrine system. In *Comparative Anatomy and Histology* (pp. 251-273). Academic Press. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-415759-0.00058-3

Liu, K. D. (2007). Hyponatremia and Hypernatremia. In *Critical Care Secrets (Fourth Edition)* (pp. 285-290). doi: 10.1016/B978-1-4160-3206-9.10044-8

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Tags: neuroscience, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, physiology
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# Question
Title: Is 'your mom will be sad' actually a good argument to pose to someone thinking of committing suicide?
I often come across people pointing out that the close relatives of someone who is thinking about committing suicide will grieve, as an argument against doing it.

However, I've noticed that it is often these precise close relatives that have a lot to do with someone experiencing stress, anxiety and all the related consequences (in trying to meet their expectations; assuming their fears, etc). So, although accepting such an argument as a valid reson against committing suicide at present, couldn't it actually make it worse for them in trying to cope with the underlying problems in the long run?

I'm aware that each case is different and I'm just sharing my thoughts as a layman, but I'd like to know what a professional would make out of this?

# Answer
> 4 votes
As with many mental health concerns, the situation for each individual is unique and therefore what we do and how we deal with the concern is also unique. Nothing said in this answer is a hard and fast rule, but are loose guidelines, for more information please check out these helpful links *(thanks to @ChrisRogers)*:

> I often come across people pointing out that the close relatives of someone who is thinking about committing suicide will grieve, as an argument against doing it.

This is a true fact. Family and friends of people who have committed suicide do grieve for their lost loved one, and often will blame themselves for their death. Here is an interesting article briefly outlining what family can feel when a loved one dies from suicide.

There are many reasons someone might give if they are thinking of killing themselves, and you are correct in your assumption that something like family pressures are one of them, (Linehan, et al, 1983).

---

# Life Over Limb

You asked:

> Although accepting such an argument as a valid reason against committing suicide at present, couldn't it actually make it worse for them in trying to cope with the underlying problems in the long run?

**The short answer to this is yes, you could talk someone off the ledge with 'people will miss you' and yes it may make the overall depression worse in the long run.**

There are two distinct situations that we can discuss:

1. A person actively carrying out their suicide plan
2. A person who has suicidal thoughts but is not currently acting on them.

In the first case, your goal as the person who is witnessing the attempted suicide is to save a life. The most important thing is to make sure that the person attempting to commit suicide is not able to complete it. A good analogy is, in a medical situation we save *life over limb*. Which means that in the moment, if there is imminent risk of death, you do anything to save the life, even if it means cutting off a limb. We do the same thing with suicide intervention. In this case, the long run *doesn't matter*, because if you don't save the life, there is no way to heal that persons depression/suicidal thoughts. This is what the ASIST and other suicide interventions teach.

In the second case, the goal is different. In this case the goal is to reduce the cause of the suicidal thoughts, Major Depressive Disorder is often (but not always) a diagnosis that produces suicidal thoughts. It would be the role of a counsellor and the client to determine the root cause of suicidal thoughts (ideations) and determine what the client can do to reduce those thoughts.

You are right that if the root cause is family issues, mentioning those issues as a reason not to commit suicide during imminent threat of suicide could cause more long term issues. But I can not stress enough how important life over limb is, when it comes to imminent suicide.

You said:

> couldn't it actually make it worse for them in trying to cope with the underlying problems in the long run?

In conclusion, yes it could make it more difficult for that person to deal with the underlying issues, but if that person is not alive they can't deal with the underlying issues. (***Life over Limb***).

---

Linehan, M. M., Goodstein, J. L., Nielsen, S. L., & Chiles, J. A. (1983). Reasons for staying alive when you are thinking of killing yourself: the Reasons for Living Inventory. *Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 51*(2), 276. doi: 10.1037/0022-006X.51.2.276

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Tags: depression, stress, anxiety
---


# Question
Title: What are some examples of controversial themes in psychology?
There are a number of themes that are controversial (provoke debate, are unsettled, polarize opinion, or are reflected by a range of positions) in psychology. One example involves nature vs. nurture: some people think that much of our language ability is innate, while others think that very little is innate. I've fleshed this example out a little bit as an answer below.

I will eventually gathering data on just how controversial certain themes are, as a step towards investigating what the various factors are in such differences of opinion. Until then, or a starting point, I'm happy with opinions about what you think might be controversial.

Suggestions from various subfields of psychology are welcome, but I'm looking more for issues that most people with a psychology degree might be able to form an opinion on, rather than something that is highly controversial for a small group of specialists, which the broader community won't have much interest in.

Currently I have a list of themes that ***I*** think are controversial, but I was wondering what people in **the field in general** think. In other words, there might be something obvious that I've missed, and this seems to be a reasonable way to reduce the probability that there is.

# Answer
**Short answer:** Representations are a noteworthy controversy in embodied or situated psychological theories. Can we explain behavior without reference to representations?

**Long answer:** Most modern theories presume that information is represented *somewhere*, such as the brain, and that behavior is organized because that *somewhere* is organized. Anti-representational theories, such as ecological psychology (e.g., Richardson et al., 2008) or radical embodied cognitive psychology (Chemero 2009; Chemero, 2013 for a brief review) explicitly reject this assumption and say there are no representations. Fink, Foo and Warren (2009) provided an apt, and ingenious, demonstration of how we may explain a behavior, namely catching flyballs, without reference to representations. Embodied cognitive theories, such as enclothed cognition (Adam and Galinsky, 2012), are examples of hybrid approaches incorporating both representational and nonrepresentational features.

## References

* Adam, H., & Galinsky, A. D. (2012). Enclothed cognition. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 918-925.
* Chemero, A. (2009). Radical embodied cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT press.
* Chemero, A. (2013). Radical embodied cognitive science. Review of General Psychology, 17(2), 145.
* Fink, P. W., Foo, P. S., & Warren, W. H. (2009). Catching fly balls in virtual reality: A critical test of the outfielder problem. Journal of Vision, 9(13), 14.
* Richardson, M. J., Shockley, K., Fajen, B. R., Riley, M. A., & Turvey, M. T. (2008). Ecological psychology: Six principles for an embodied–embedded approach to behavior. Handbook of cognitive science: An embodied approach, 161-187.
> 5 votes

# Answer
Just to help, here's an illustration of the sort of answer I'm looking for, though personally I'd be happy with any suggestions, even if less detailed than the first below.

Long answer: On one hand, Pinker and Bloom (1990) argue that our language faculty is similar to our physical organs, in that they evolved as adaptations to evolutionary pressures. On the other hand, Tomasello (variously, see e.g. 2005) argues that the innateness of language is overestimated and shows that social learning plays a much larger role than previously thought. Further, Saffran et al. (1996) show that statistical learning aids in language acquisition. Neither of these require an innate language-learning organ of the sort described by Pinker and Bloom.

Short answer: one controversy in psychology is the extent to which complex cognition (such as language) is innate.

Ultimately, I'll be working with statements like the short answer, but StackExchange prefers answers like the long answer.

### References

Pinker, S., & Bloom, P. (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and brain sciences, 13(04), 707-727.

Saffran, J. R., Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L. (1996). Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 274(5294), 1926-1928.

Tomasello, M. (2005). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.
> 4 votes

# Answer
This is a very broad question, as indicated in the comments. There are many debates which theorists – and people in general – often disagree on. (Miller, 2010; Sigelman & Rider, 2012):

1. **Goodness vs Badness of Human Nature**
Humans are innately good, bad or neither
2. **Nature vs Nurture**
Genes, biology, and maturation vs experiences, learning and social influences
3. **Activity vs Passivity**
Humans shape their environments vs environmental forces shape humans
4. **Continuity vs Discontinuity**
Changes are gradual vs dramatically through life
5. **Universality vs Context Specificity**
Development is similar between people and cultures vs considerable differences between people and cultures

Any study, discussion or other debate touching these subject areas creates controversy because many people disagree.

You only have to look at the controversies surrounding the debate on what causes anyone to be murderous vs passive, homosexual vs heterosexual, high achievers vs low achievers...

## References

Miller, P. H., 2010. Theories of developmental psychology. New York: Worth.

Sigelman, C. K. & Rider, E. A., 2012. Life-Span Human Development. 7th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
> 0 votes

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Tags: methodology, nature-nurture, psychology
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# Question
Title: Does Asperger's syndrome exist in other animal species?
I once spent some time working on a dairy farm and it seems that one commonality between the cows is that they all have, let's say, quirks. but there was this one cow in particular who exhibited behavior of routinely remaining in precisely the same position every time she was going in to get milked. None of the other cows did this, and at one point the notion of autism struck me; I think it's something about the idea of repetitive behavior and the potential for a connection there. I'd like to know what you think and to be as expansive on this as possible.

# Answer
It is difficult to identify autism definitively in other species, especially since autism encompasses a very diverse group of people who have different experiences.

However, because there is so much interest in studying autism, researchers have developed models for autism in model organisms, specifically in mice, which share some of the diagnostic features of autism.

Therefore, it is at least plausible that any social animal could have some individuals that share traits associated with autism, although it is going to be a matter of opinion whether these traits *are* autism or just something similar (at least until the mechanisms are better understood). Likely a repetitive behavior alone is not sufficient as a diagnostic criteria, but it could be one out of several.

---

Silverman, J. L., Yang, M., Lord, C., & Crawley, J. N. (2010). Behavioural phenotyping assays for mouse models of autism. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(7), 490.
> 1 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, autism, aspergers
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title: Homoparental Adoption Studies

text:
# Question
Title: Homoparental Adoption Studies
Such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which involves a relative large group of professional for concluding about *Transgender* protocols and studies, and somehow unrelated but such as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, is there some neutral organization involving Systematic Reviews of studies concluding about the effects -rather positive and|or negative- about *Homoparental Adoption*?

The most comprehensive reference I have found is a paper from Schofield 2016 which summarizes 81 studies. But this paper is still a single person document, which perfectly could be subject to an author bias.

Thanks in advance.

# Answer
> 2 votes
There is a technical report by the Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health at the American Academy of Pediatrics (Perin et al, 2002) which looks at all the scientific literature concerning homoparental upbringing, and they concluded that:

> The small and nonrepresentative samples studied and the relatively young age of most of the children suggest some reserve. However, the weight of evidence gathered during several decades using diverse samples and methodologies is persuasive in demonstrating that there is no systematic difference between gay and nongay parents in emotional health, parenting skills, and attitudes toward parenting. No data have pointed to any risk to children as a result of growing up in a family with 1 or more gay parents. Some among the vast variety of family forms, histories, and relationships may prove more conducive to healthy psychosexual and emotional development than others.

They also concluded that:

> Although gay and lesbian parents may not, despite their best efforts, be able to protect their children fully from the effects of stigmatization and discrimination, parents’ sexual orientation is not a variable that, in itself, predicts their ability to provide a home environment that supports children’s development.

## References

Perrin, E. C., & Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. (2002). Technical report: coparent or second-parent adoption by same-sex parents. *Pediatrics, 109*(2), 341-344. doi: 10.1542/peds.109.2.341

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Tags: social-psychology
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# Question
Title: Does mindfulness meditation work for highly inattentive individuals?
Mindfulness practice requires extensive concentration for a prolonged period of time (e.g., attending to breath/body sensation for above 5 minutes). It is reasonable to assume that it might be challenging for people who are highly inattentive. However, mindfulness has been used as a health intervention for individuals with ADHD (with inattention as a symptom).

One recent review with 9 studies (Lee et al., 2017) found that mindfulness is effective for adults with ADHD, yet it is

> unclear whether mindfulness-based intervention is effective for children and adolescence with ADHD due to limited studies available and the limitations of the study design in the reviewed studies.

What are the recent mindfulness studies involving children with ADHD? And is there any research on people with inattention only?

References

Lee, C. S., Ma, M. T., Ho, H. Y., Tsang, K. K., Zheng, Y. Y., & Wu, Z. Y. (2017). The effectiveness of mindfulness-based intervention in attention on individuals with ADHD: A systematic review. *Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy, 30*, 33-41. doi: 10.1016/j.hkjot.2017.05.001

# Answer
> 5 votes
The most up-to-date research I can find at the moment specifically looking at children with ADHD is a systematic review and meta-analysis by Chimiklis et al (2018), and they point out that yoga, mindfulness and meditation should not be considered first-line interventions for ADHD but **may** help and more research is needed.

> Considerable risk for bias was found across studies. Given significant methodological limitations of the literature, positive effect sizes found in studies should be interpreted with caution; these interventions should not be considered first-line interventions for ADHD. However, preliminary findings suggest yoga, mindfulness, and meditation may be beneficial for youth with ADHD, but extensive research is required to validate the efficacy of these interventions.

## References

Chimiklis, A. L., Dahl, V., Spears, A. P., Goss, K., Fogarty, K., & Chacko, A. (2018). Yoga, mindfulness, and meditation interventions for youth with ADHD: Systematic review and meta-analysis. *Journal of Child and Family Studies*, 1-14. 10.1007/s10826-018-1148-7

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, attention, meditation, mindfulness
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# Question
Title: What tools are available for EEG analysis on the R platform?
I'm starting some EEG studies on attention, and would really like to use R for preprocessing (filtering/artifact rejection), visualization, and analysis, but I can find very little in the way of tools. If there isn't a standalone package, what packages might be useful?

Things I want to do:

* Condition categorization according to events, and comparing all subsequent analyses by condition
* Power spectral density in specific frequency bands (SMR, theta, beta, alpha, etc.)
* Event-related potentials
* LORETA (low-resolution electromagnetic tomography)

# Answer
> 13 votes
Antoine Tremblay has just released an advanced analysis toolbox: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/psyp.12299/abstract

It's missing about half the features on your list, although fundamentally, spectral density is a simple task and LORETA is a stand-alone package anyways (although similar approaches, e.g. general CSD estimation, are implemented in many packages). Basically, once you got the EEG data read into R and cleaned of artifacts, ERPs (simple averaging) and spectra are fairly basic tasks and LORETA is an external toolbox agnostic of where it's getting its data from.

Alternatively, I would propose to use either one of the two standard MATLAB-based solutions (EEGLAB or Fieldtrip), or MNE in one of its iterations (e.g. the one in Python). All of these will handle the tasks you're talking about.

# Answer
> 3 votes
I was searching for alternative when I fell on this post. Here are a few others

eegUtils , the same author has a blog that might be of interest to you for further reading here

I also found eegAnalysis but the last update was in 2014

Finally for ERPs there is erpR

# Answer
> 3 votes
For the sake of completeness:

1. eegkit, see https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/eegkit/index.html
2. For "historical purposes" perhaps the following could also be of interest, although development seems somewhat stagnant lately: https://rdrr.io/cran/eegAnalysis/

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Tags: measurement, methodology, eeg, statistics, data
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# Question
Title: Is Elizabeth Holmes having a psychological disorder?
Elizabeth Holmes CEO of Theranos is charged with massive fraud. I'm watching her interviews on YouTube from her rise to her fall. On YouTube comments sections, some people say she's a **psychopath** and some say she's a **sociopath**, usually without providing strong argument. Is it safe to say that she's got psychological disorder without any mental health investigation?

# Answer
Welcome to Psychology.SE! For a number of reasons outlined in this meta post we can not, and will not, give advice for any individual. Therefore, if you was seeking advice for yourself or a friend, this question would be off-topic.

One of the reasons is that we cannot properly diagnose any psychological disorder here. The same will be said for the person in your question.

Forde (2007) highlights the following concerning assessment techniques:

* **reliability** means
> the extent to which a test consistently measures the same thing,
* **validity** is
> the extent to which the test measures what it is intended to measure
* a test
> cannot be valid if it isn't also reliable
* any form of assessment
> (and not just a traditional pencil and paper test) must be both valid and reliable, or it is useless.

With this in mind, you cannot say anyone has a psychological disorder without a valid and reliable method of diagnosis (Forde, 2017).

In other situations where someone says someone has a psychological disorder, they can be situations where they are voicing **possible but not confirmed** psychological disorders, **which are personal opinions**, which cannot be taken notice of officially without the necessary valid and reliable assessment(s).

## References

Forde, R. A. (2017). *Bad Psychology: How Forensic Psychology Left Science Behind*. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
> 3 votes

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Tags: psychology
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# Question
Title: How does a person know if he should seek treatment for depression since feeling moody is unavoidable?
Life is not a bed of roses. All of us feel moody sometimes due to failures in life. This is perfectly normal. However, depression is abnormal.

How does a person know if he needs to seek treatment for depression, given that it is hard for him to distinguish whether the moody emotions are normal or abnormal? What are some symptoms to look out for?

# Answer
## TLDR

Many people say they are feeling depressed when really they are just suffering from a low mood. Andrew Solomon said

> The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality. And it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me in that moment. Everything there was to do seemed like too much work. (Solomon, 2013)

This talk was about how depression affected him and his life, and is a good introduction to the subject.

The type of depression will depend on diagnostic criteria (see **Different types of Depression** below) but basically, depression is not just feeling sad. **When you are depressed, it is difficult to carry on with day-to-day life effectively for varying reasons, over a period of days or more**.

## Longer answer

There are many grey areas in the assessment of depression, just like there are with some other mental health problems. The main traditional diagnostic systems used are currently the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) and the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems - ICD-11 (WHO, 2018), and a formal diagnosis using the ICD-11 classification system is as follows:

> A \[single\] depressive episode is characterized by a period of almost daily depressed mood or diminished interest in activities lasting at least two weeks accompanied by other symptoms such as difficulty concentrating, feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt, hopelessness, recurrent thoughts of death or suicide, changes in appetite or sleep, psychomotor agitation or retardation, and reduced energy or fatigue (ICD-11 6A70).
> Recurrent depressive disorder is characterized by a history or at least two depressive episodes separated by at least several months without significant mood disturbance (ICD-11 6A71).

The DSM-5 system requires match in at least five out of nine criteria for a diagnosis of major depression, although there are moves to improve the diagnostic procedures for mental disorders through systems such as HiTOP (Stony Brook Medicine, 2017; Kotov, et al., 2017). However, one thing I think we can all agree on is that there are two different categories of depression.

* **Endogenous**
Depression resulting from internal, possibly biological influences, as a result of possible genetic factors, or reactions to chemical/hormonal imbalances; and
* **Exogenous**
Depression resulting from external influences in a person’s life, such as grief, loss or trauma.

## Different types of Depression

There are several types of depression.

* **Unipolar Depression**
The sufferer feels melancholic with no experience of any highs. DSM-5 states that the criteria for diagnosis are the same as other forms of depression, however, the diagnosis is to be recorded with the specifier “with melancholic features” (p. 185).
* **Bipolar Disorder (BPD)**
There are Bipolar I and Bipolar II disorders, both with severity levels of mild moderate and severe, and DSM-5 considers BPD to be a bridge between schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders in terms of symptoms, family history, and genetics; so, DSM-5 has a separated Bipolar Disorders from depressive disorders (p. 123).
Suicide risk for Bipolar Disorders is 15 times greater than the general population, and may account for 25% of all completed suicides (p. 131), with a prevalence rate of 36.3% of attempts for Bipolar I and 32.4% for Bipolar II and in terms of genetics, the risk of suicide seems to be 6½ times higher among first-degree relatives (a person's parent, sibling, or child) of those diagnosed with Bipolar II compared to Bipolar I (p. 138)
* **Major Depression (Major Depressive Disorder in DSM-5 (p. 160))**
Again, with severity levels of mild, moderate and severe, the module notes indicate that this is the most common form of depression. Looking at DSM-5, diagnosis requires five (or more) of the diagnostic criteria to be present most of the day, nearly every day, during the same 2-week period.
Sufferers will feel down and uninterested in any activity external to them, and they are generally less motivated to deal with their basic needs. Suicidal behaviour has a possibility of existing at all times and most completed suicides are not preceded by unsuccessful attempts, with an increased risk of completion within men, and those who are single or living alone (p. 167).
* **Mild Depression**
This sounds to be a separate disorder, with the sufferer still able to engage in life but finding their activities harder to do. However, looking at DSM-5, the criteria to look for are the same as Major Depressive Disorder, with few, if any, symptoms in excess of those required to make a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder (p. 162 & 188).
* **Atypical Depression**
DSM-5 classifies this as the same as all other depressive disorders, but must have a specifier of “with atypical features”. DSM-5 goes on to say that Atypical Depression, compared to the past, does not connote an uncommon or unusual clinical problem as the term might imply. The levels of hypersomnia required are defined as at least 10 hours of sleep per day including daytime napping (or at least 2 hours more than when not depressed) (p. 186).
* **Persistent Depressive Disorder (previously Dysthymia)**
Looking at DSM-5, this is a diagnosis which would be given when depression in any form is suffered for most of the day, for more days than not, over the last 2 years (p. 168), and the module notes help with other aspects by indicating that sufferers may not be aware of the condition and just see it as part of life, whilst feeling unimportant, dissatisfied and scared.
* **Psychotic Depression**
DSM-5 states that the criteria is the same as other forms of depression, however, the diagnosis is to be recorded with the specifier
    + **“with psychotic features”**
    (delusions and/hallucinations are present, of which some are mood-congruent and some are mood-incongruent),
    + **“with mood-congruent psychotic features”**
    (the content of all delusions/hallucinations are consistent with the typical depressive themes of personal inadequacy, guilt, nihilism…) or
    + **“with mood-incongruent psychotic features”**
    (the content of all delusions/hallucinations are not consistent with the typical depressive themes of personal inadequacy, guilt, nihilism…) (p. 185).
* **Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)**
This is depression which affects the sufferer during certain seasons. In most cases, SAD affects people during the autumn and winter months where daylight hours are less, but less commonly, there can be affects during the summer months due to heat and/or humidity or body image issues etc. (WebMD, 2017) DSM-5 requires this to be recorded the same as any other depression, but with the specifier “with seasonal pattern” (p. 187). This enables you to not diminish the severity of the depression based on the fact that it is just seasonal.
* **Postnatal Depression**
DSM-5 requires this to be recorded the same as any other depression, but with the specifier “with peripartum onset” (p. 186). This enables you to not diminish the severity of the depression based on the fact that it is a result of giving birth to a child.
* **Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder**
There is a set of criteria laid out from page 171, with a requirement that the criteria must be met for most menstrual cycles that occurred in the preceding year and in the majority of menstrual cycles, at least five symptoms must
    + be present in the final week before the onset of menses
    + start to improve within a few days after the onset of menses; and
    + become minimal or absent in the week post-menses

DSM-5 also talks about a depressive disorder which is specific to 7-18 year olds only, with onset before 10 years old, and that is **Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder** (pp. 156-160).

## References

American Psychiatric Association (2013). *Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th Edition)*. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing.

Kotov, R. et al., 2017. The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP): A dimensional alternative to traditional nosologies. *Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 126*(4), pp. 454-477. doi: 10.1037/abn0000258

Solomon, A. (2013). *Depression, the secret we share — TED Talks*. \[Online\]
Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew\_solomon\_depression\_the\_secret\_we\_share \[Accessed 8 June 2017\].

Stony Brook Medicine (2017). *The Hierarchical Taxonomy Of Psychopathology (HiTOP)*. \[Online\]
Available at: https://medicine.stonybrookmedicine.edu/HITOP/publications \[Accessed 23 May 2017\].

WHO (2018). ICD-11. \[Online\] Available at: https://icd.who.int/browse11/l-m/en
> 4 votes

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Tags: depression
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title: Can a friend become a therapist?

text:
# Question
Title: Can a friend become a therapist?
According to the article Can Clients and Therapists Be Friends?, a therapist shouldn't be a friend because dual relationship will interfere the efficiency of the therapy, and the imbalance power formed in therapy will never fully disappear. However, would it be true in the opposite direction? That a friend does therapy to a friend? This time, the friend relationship comes first, so there will be no worry about the imbalance power.

I think there are two scenarios:

* The therapist-friend is just a friend with more knowledge, and the therapy is just a talk with more advice from one side
* The therapist-friend cannot become an authority that is necessary in certain cases (personality disorders, for example)

The person can also be a family member, a partner, a colleague, or even an acquaintance. The point is that the relationship is not formed in a professional therapeutic setting.

# Answer
> 2 votes
The article you linked to (Holmes, 2018) is talking about both senarios. The therapist must not be a friend before or during therapy sessions. Dual relationships can interfere with the efficiency of the therapy due to the fact that it can create **transference** and **counter-transference** issues.

## Transference

Transference as a psychological concept refers to the redirection of feelings about one individual to another individual (Short & Thomas, 2015). Another definition would be

> Transfer of feelings originally experienced in an early relationship to other important people in a person’s present environment (Luborsky et al., 2008)

Transference is feelings about another person (including the therapist) being transferred (maybe acted out) towards the therapist.

Imagine a therapist, who is also a friend, says something which upsets the client unintentionally because

> (s)he shouldn't say that. (S)he is my friend!

This is where the friendship can affect the client/therapist relationship.

## Counter-transference

> The term ‘counter-transference’ has been applied to a large number of psychological concepts in the therapeutic setting (Little, 1951)
>
> * Counter-transference refers to a specific unconscious attitude towards the client in response to transference from the client (objective transference – responding to transference from client)
> * Counter-transference refers to repressed elements of previous events leading to the displacement of past feelings from the source to the client (subjective transference – similar to transference in the client but acting in the opposite direction) (Short & Thomas, 2015).

Counter-transference is feelings about another person (including the client) being transferred (maybe acted out) towards the client.

Imagine something is said by the client, who is also a friend, which changes the therapist's view about that friend. Maybe the revelation changes the dynamics within the friendship they have. This can affect client/therapist relationship through both counter-transference (feelings about the revelation from the client being bounced back to the client) and transference (resulting feelings from the client being bounced back to the therapist).

Dual relationships, no matter how and when they form cause big problems within ethics and efficacy of the therapy sessions, and therefore they are not to occur.

A friend (or family member) should never give therapy to another friend or family member. If dual-relationships do form during sessions, this must be discussed immediately (or as soon as reasonably practicable) with the clinical supervisor in order for discussion to take place regarding signposting and transfer to another therapist.

## References

Little, M. (1951). Counter-transference and the patient’s response to it. In: Langs, R.J. (ed.) *Classics in psychoanalytic technique*, pp. 143-151.

Luborsky, E.B., O’Reilly-Landry, M. & Arlow, J.A. (2008) Psychoanalysis. In: Corsini, R.J. & Wedding, D. (eds) *Current Psychotherapies*. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Short, F. & Thomas, P. (2015). *Core Approaches in Counselling and Psychotherapy*. Hove: Routledge

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Tags: social-psychology, therapy
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# Question
Title: How can someone asleep recognize a very brief sound?
I have a snoring girlfriend. To interrupt her snoring, I make a sound similar to the very brief sound gas makes when opening a soda can or bottle (had a snoring brother, I know this technique works very well):

Here is a recording of the slound: https://instaud.io/3hJH

Sometimes her snoring wakes me up in the middle of the night (eg 3AM), so I make that sound, and **she immediately wakes up and asks me from a very clear and aware voice: "why did you just pshiiished me?"**.

**The sound I make is around 150 ms long, so I don't understand how someone who is being awakened and transitioning from sleep into consciousness would have the ability to distinctively recognize it**.

Sometimes she'll even complain that I interrupted a nice dream she was in, which leads me to believe her sleep level was quite deep.

**Can someone explain how a snoring/dreaming person can be awakened by a very brief sound (~ 150 ms long) and be able to distinctively recognize that sound as she transitions from sleep into consciousness?**

# Answer
> 7 votes
**Short answer**
The auditory system remains active during sleep.

**Background**
Filtering of sensory input during sleep is a recognized phenomenon and indeed the senses are typically lulled during sleep. This phenomenon is, at least partly, caused by thalamic gating. Thalamic gating is caused by the thalamus entering a state in which slow-wave activity disrupts or even blocks incoming sensory input (Coulon *et al*., 2012). However, the auditory system remains active during sleep and during the full sleep/wake cycle auditory stimulation will evoke responses in various parts of the central auditory system beyond the thalamus (Issa & Wang, 2008).

In fact, when supra-threshold stimuli are intense enough, they invariably result in wakefulness. Auditory stimuli result in so-called K-complexes in the cortex, which are believed to be functional and specialized sensory responses during sleep (Velutti, 1997).

Hence, when you ask...

> The sound I make is around 150 ms long, so I don't understand how someone who is being awakened and transitioning from sleep into consciousness would have the ability to distinctively recognize it.

...the answer is that the auditory system is active enough to process and recognize the sound. Further, the typical modulation frequency of speech is about 4 Hz (Leong & Goswami, 2014), *i.e.*, the typical syllable length is about 250 ms, meaning that sounds with a duration of 150 ms are long enough to be processed.

<sub>**References**
**-** Coulon *et al*., *Pflugers Arch* (2012); **463**(1): 53-71
**-** Issa 7 Wang, *J Neurosci* (2008); **28**(53): 14467–480
**-** Leong & Goswami, *Front Hum Neurosci* (2014)
**-** Velutti, *J Sleep Res* (1997); **6**: 61–77</sub>

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Tags: neuroscience, sleep, dreams, hearing, sensory-perception
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# Question
Title: In which way does what you do right after class affect knowledge retention?
For example going for a walk in the woods right after the class sounds like a much better idea than to binge watch 5 Rick & Morty episodes... but why?

In which way do your right-after-class activities affect your brain's ability to retain what you've just learned?

# Answer
> 1 votes
The reason you instinctively *feel* that a walk in the woods is better than TV may be partially related to the schemas you've developed around both activities. You get the feeling that talking a walk is a more "intellectual" activity than TV because that's you expectation based on what you've heard, and your experiences of TV being a lazy activity for pleasure, not because TV inherently "rots your brain".

That said, the other half of things is probably the answer you're looking for. Right after class, your memories of the lecture are still malleable and not yet incorporated into long-term memory. The Wikipedia article on this is a good place to start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory\_consolidation

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Tags: learning, memory
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# Question
Title: Are there any cases of a person with misophonia for which the condition has been passed on to their child?
genetics increase one's risk of PTSD, as well PTSD can be developed through vicarious trauma.

Misophonia condition appears to have the following in common with PTSD; Anger , muscle tension, feeling of stress, loss of concentration
in reaction to specific sounds

If a parent has misophonia does that increase the risk for the child to develop the condition as well?

Are there any known cases that both parent and child have misophonia ?

I can't find research on whether it has been confirmed if misophonia is a stream of PTSD. Or if it has been confirmed if it is genetic.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Noise sensitivity aggregates in families and the estimate of heritability is 36% (Shepherd *et al*., 2015).

A popular scientific source states that misophonia is not caused by a traumatic event, but might as well be caused by (seemingly) harmless sounds in the past that become associated with stress responses. Both PTSD and misophonia are classified as classical conditioning, though, so there seem to be parallels there (source: Misophonia Institute), but I don't think they misophonia is a form of PTSD.

Heritability of PTSD is approximately 30% in males, and in females it seems even higher (Sartor *et al*., 2012).

<sub>**References**
**-** Sartor *et al*., *Arch Gen Psychiatry* (2012); **69**(3): 293–9
**-** Shepherd *et al*., *Noise Health* (2015); **17**(76): 165–71</sub>

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Tags: sensation, genetics, ptsd
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# Question
Title: Is the Thatcher Face Illusion only limited to face recognition?
The so called Thatcher-Illusion has been documented not only on humans but also in some monkeys.

However I can't find literature clearing out if this effect only applies to face-recognition.

What about familiar but non-face visual objects?

Perhaps in other cases the illusion has a different name?

It also seems related to the so called Picasso Problem.

Boutsen et al. (2006) seem to dig deeper but the paper has restricted access.

A proper answer should probably take into account the Fusiform face area

# Answer
> 1 votes
**Short answer**
According to a study by Boutsen *et al*. Thatcherization of objects (houses in this study) did not reveal the Thatcher effect, while faces did.

**Background**
The Thatcher-face illusion (Fig 1) is, in my opinion, not really an illusion. Instead, it is a phenomenon where in-congruent features are more apparent when observed in their normal everyday context and orientation. In Fig. 1, for example, ms Spears appears normal, but upside down in the left panel, while her face appears hugely distorted when the left panel is turned upside down.

Your question whether this also occurs in objects other than faces. According to a study by Boutsen *et al*. (2006), it doesn't. Boutsen *et al*. manipulated images of faces and houses. Houses did not show effects of thatcherization. The authors discuss the why behind this finding and mention that a number of factors may explain the lesser salience in objects, namely a higher variability in the number of manipulated house features and their perceptual salience or relevance. Because of their more stable feature structure and configuration, inversion of house elements was thought to be less salient with houses than with houses. Unlike the parts of a building, facial features are highly relevant to an observer to determine identity or expression, thereby rendering configural manipulations of buildings less disruptive.

Fig. 1. Thatcher illusion of Britney

Fig. 2. Thatcherized face and house. source: Boutsen *et al*., 2006)

**Reference**
**-** Boutsen *et al*., *NeuroImage* (2006); **32**: 352 – 67

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Tags: neuroscience, cognitive-neuroscience, vision, optical-illusion, recognition
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# Question
Title: Can the mind affect the physical brain? - a simple thought experiment
Scientists maintain that "a physical action requires a physical cause". However, if I am in deep thought about my dead spouse, for example, and a tear comes to my eye, how is it that the mind (thought) can cause a physiological response (a tear)? Does this not contradict the (physical) law of cause and effect?

# Answer
> 18 votes
The short answer is no, this doesn't violate the law of cause and effect because the mind itself is a physical entity. Your thought experiment hinges on the debate of materialism (the mind is a physical thing) versus dualism (the mind is a different kind of thing than physical things). Most cognitive scientists believe that materialism is the correct view.

# Answer
> 6 votes
I disagree with @Josh (and all the other answers) that a materialist viewpoint is required to resolve this apparent contradiction.

Firstly, we should not infer that the thought caused the tear. As an example, if I were to press the PrintScreen key on my keyboard, then a popup message would appear on my screen saying "printing to deskjet printer" and then shortly after that, the printer would print a copy of this answer. However, the popup preceding the printing does not mean that the message caused the printing. Presumably, pressing the PrintScreen key caused both events.

Modern theories of emotion suggest that emotion is "inferred" from a combination of physiological cues and other context information - that is, first I feel sad, then I infer that the cause of that sadness is the memory of my late spouse. So more likely something else (perhaps a feeling of sadness) caused both the thought and the tear.

Thus, regardless of whether you prefer a physicalist or dualist view, there is no contradiction here.

# Answer
> 4 votes
This would be analogous to a factory robot mounting a door on a car that is being built. There is no "physical" reason that the untrained eye can see, which compels the robot to do what it does. There is no visible system of weights and pulleys that moves the robot's arm.

In fact all the instructions the robot needs to do its task are encoded on a chip as different voltage levels in some microscopic elements. So there is still a physical cause for what the robot is doing, it is just not immediately obvious to people who aren't engineers.

The same applies to the brain, except that the links between physical cause and effect there are even more unclear.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Your line of reasoning seems to be that

*just thinking is not a physical action, a tear is a physical action, so just thinking cannot cause a tear*. There is a lot of this naive materialism going on, even in the scientific circles, but this seems to be changing. There are so many things wrong with this argument.

1. "Just thinking" is a very significant action, a view that, even before modern neuroscience, was embraced e.g. by the Alexander Technique. It can take a lot of energy. For example, when I was at an EyeBody retreat, we used to get very hungry after sitting all day long, try to connect with our eyes. Are you still claiming it is not "material"?
2. Then what is material? Consider W.V.O.Quine's On What There Is. Things that exist are, well, the ones that we include in our scope of reference. Because if you say that thoughts or feelings are not material, that they don't exist "here", then "where" is it that they exist?
3. How do you know that the thought about a spouse is what is causing the tear? Correlation does not imply causation. This strikes me as a very simplistic view. As someone with considerable meditation experience, I can suggest that it seems to be more tricky than that.
4. The concept of a "law of cause and effect", the way you seem to be using it, is itself so simplistic as to almost be useless. What exactly is causality, in your view? For your further research, note that in Hinduism basically the same concept is known as "karma".
5. As a postscript, this is just a very narrow way of looking at things. This is like saying "science has proved that there is no God", and if someone disagrees, concluding that they are a crazy religious fanatic who does not believe in science. *Science hasn't even proved that the total entropy in the Universiy is increasing.* Furthermore, *the First Law of Newton cannot even be proved, in theory.* Here I would suggest e.g. Against method by Paul Feyerabend.

# Answer
> 2 votes
**Question: Can the mind affect the physical brain?**

*"Scientists maintain that "a physical action requires a physical cause". However, if I am in deep thought about my dead spouse, for example, and a tear comes to my eye, **how is it that the mind (thought) can cause a physiological response (a tear)?** Does this not contradict the (physical) law of cause and effect?"*

**Answer:**

From the way you ask, it seems that you believe that the mind is a non-physical entity, so when it (such as **thought**) causes a physiological response (such as **a tear**), it contradicts the (physical) law that “a physical action requires a physical cause”.

This kind of belief that the mind is a non-physical entity – *an entity that is not made up from or is not part of physical entities such as mass, energy, or force and thus cannot react with physical entities with known physical laws* – is called **Dualism** (ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4). And you’re right, if this is true, it is not possible to explain, at least for now, how the mind can affect the physical brain. Several new hypotheses are needed to account for the nature of the mind, how it can affect the physical brain, how the physical brain can affect it, etc.

Now, if the mind is not a non-physical entity, it must be a physical entity such as mass, energy, or force, but **what is it?** Because it’s not obvious that the mind is a physical entity (i.e., it’s not obvious that the mind is simply a mass, an energy, a force, etc.), if it is a physical entity, it must be a physical entity in a non-obvious form (otherwise we would have identified what it is already).

The next question is what physical entity in what form is the mind? This is still an inconclusive matter; no unanimously approved answer exists. But one recently emerging interesting concept is like this. If you reflect on your mind, you’ll see that the mind is a highly dynamic, information-intensive entity (because your thoughts, visions, emotions, etc. are always changing, changing fast, and full of information). Also, studies in cognitive neuroscience find that the activities of the mind are always associated with electromagnetic activities, which can be studied in the form of electroencephalography, electrocorticography, intracortical recording, magnetoencephalography, event-related potentials, etc. Moreover, the activities of the mind can be affected by electrical stimulation and magnetic stimulation. So, the entity that is the mind must have these properties, that is, it must be highly dynamic, information-intensive, must be associated with electromagnetic activities, and must be affected by electrical/magnetic stimulation too. (ref 5, ref 6)

It’s obvious that mass, energy, and force in their usual forms do not have these properties. In their usual forms, they certainly are not always highly dynamic, information-intensive, and not all of them are associated with electromagnetic activities and affected by electrical/magnetic stimulation. If you study the brain carefully, you’ll find that the only physical entity in the brain that is always highly dynamic, information-intensive, always associated with electromagnetic activities, and always affected by electrical/magnetic stimulation is the neural signaling of the brain, which ceaselessly sends innumerable electrical/electrochemical signals among billions of nerve cells in the brain.

So, the neural signaling is the entity that is very closely associated with the mind. If no other entity is found to have the above properties of the mind as the neural signaling does (which, indeed, none has been found yet), it’s logical and inescapable to conclude that the mind is, in fact, the neural signaling of the brain. This possibility is strongly supported by the testable fact that anything that affects neural signaling alone (such as electrical/magnetic stimulation, and some selective neuro-pharmacologic agents) can affect the mind and that anything that affects something else but does not affect neural signaling does not have effect on the mind. (ref 5, ref 6)

Now, if the mind is the neural signaling itself, it can naturally affect the physical functions of the brain, without having to create new hypotheses to explain its effects. For example, **in your question**, if the **thought** is a neural signaling itself, it will naturally be able to affect other functions of the brain by its signals and finally create a physical response, such as **a tear**. This is one of the physical explanations of what the mind is, whether it can affect the brain, and how it can affect the brain. It must be remarked here again that, although this concept is interesting and seems logical, it is not the standard view of the mainstream scientific community yet, and other physical explanations exist. You can find them by searching the term **physicalism** (for example ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10).

**Edited Summary:** I add the full info of the references at the end of the answer here so that they can be found in case the links break.

**References:**

1. Calef S. **Dualism and mind.** Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://www.iep.utm.edu/dualism/
2. Robinson H. **Dualism.** Zalta EN, editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition). Retrieved 2018 May 02 from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/
3. Zimmerman D. **Dualism in the Philosophy of Mind.** Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2nd edition. 2005. p113-122. http://fas-philosophy.rutgers.edu/zimmerman/Dualism.in.Mind.pdf
4. Wikipedia. **Mind–body dualism.** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body\_dualism
5. Ukachoke C. **Chapter 1. Theorem I: The Mind is Part of the Functioning Brain.** In: The Basic Theory of the Mind. 1st ed, 2018. p 8-18. Charansanitwong Printing Co. Bangkok, Thailand. https://mindtheory.net/new-page-1/
6. Ukachoke C. **Chapter 2. Theorem II: The Mind is the Composite of All Information-processing Processes of the Brain.** In: The Basic Theory of the Mind. 1st ed, 2018. p 19-29. Charansanitwong Printing Co. Bangkok, Thailand. https://mindtheory.net/chapter-2/
7. Stoljar D. **Physicalism.** Zalta EN, editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/physicalism
8. Giannetti E. **The possibility of physicalism.** Dement Neuropsychol. 2011 Oct-Dec;5(4): 242–250. doi: 10.1590/S1980-57642011DN05040002. PMCID: PMC5619037. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5619037/
9. Gillett C, Loewer B, editors. **Physicalism and its Discontents.** Cambridge University Press. 2001. Cambridge, United Kingdom. ISBN 0521801573 hardback. https://www.physicalism.com/physicalism-discontents.pdf
10. Wikipedia. **Physicalism.** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism

# Answer
> 0 votes
The thing is, being in deep thought about something is a physical action on a far smaller scale. If all your neuronal and glial cells died you wouldn't be thinking. These very cells are physical, and thought is caused by physical changes within these cells (ionic movement, neurotransmitter release, etc. ) Without these physical changes on the micro scale of the brain your thoughts would cease to exist, and therefor no tear as a consequence of the thoughts.

# Answer
> -1 votes
Regardless of which side of the materialism vs dualism debate you find yourself on, the result is the same. If the mind is "material" then there is no issue. If the mind is immaterial, then the mind is the same kind of thing as a running software program. In that case, it doesn't have a physical form, but affects the state of the device that is running it. How? As long as you remember not to conflate the binary image of the program's instructions with the running task itself, then it makes sense. A running task is little more than a series of states in the device that is running it. Even the active instructions are nothing more than a collection of states. These state collections are constantly accessed as the result of previous state changes from other state collections in the device. The brain can thus be viewed as an insanely complicated collection of nano-computers running software called "mind".

# Answer
> -1 votes
That the "mind itself is a physical entity",seems to be very controversial,to say the least.In this respect Henry Stapp (a physicist at Berkeley) was asked during a lecture "what is this " I " you are talking about".He answered:"It might be that at some point the mind will be found to be material,but so far there is no evidence whatsoever that that will be the case" Also,when it comes to the so called " the causal closure of Physics" ( every physical effect has a physical cause) is also questioned by a number of scholars,including Stapp,who has comented that it is a remnant of Classical Physics and no longer valid as the observer,and his mind,has entered the picture with the advent of Quantum Mechanics. And relating to materialism,even Einstein remarked: "In modern Physics there is no place for matter and the field,because the only reality is the field". So,as a layman,I am not sure what is the basis of materialism anymore,I would think that after Quantum Mechanics replaced the Newtonian physics there would be no more materialism. I would appreciate it if someone would shine a light into these subjects. Alberto

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Tags: philosophy-of-mind
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# Question
Title: How fast can stimuli be administered for evoked potentials?
I'm looking for a reference about the ability for sensory stimuli to generate separate evoked potentials in the brain.

**What is the maximum repetition rate for sensory evoked potentials?**

# Answer
For auditory brain stem responses (ABRs) the click rate can be really high, as the auditory system is exceptionally fast, in the order of tens of stimuli per second (*e.g.*, Rodriguez *et al* (2010. This will still yield a good ABR. At around 40 ms, the transient ABR shifts toward a steady state response, in which peaks of the previous ABR start to overlap with the following (Korczak *et al*., 2010).

The visual system, however, is a lot more sluggisch and needs more time to recover from prior stimulation. For example, VEPs are generally recorded at a few stimuli per second. The transition from a transient response to a steady state response occurs at around 6 - 10 Hz (Fishman *et al* (2001).

**References**
**-** Fishman *et al*., *Electrophysiologic Testing*, 2nd ed. FAAO
**-** Korczak *et al*., *J Am Acad Audiol* (2012); **23**: 146–70
**-** Rodriguez *et al*., *Brazil J Otorhinol* (2010); **76**(1): 96-101
> 3 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, reference-request, electrophysiology, stimulation, evoked-potentials
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# Question
Title: How to map EEG time-series and visualize meditative states frequencies?
I came across this research article "Case Study of Ecstatic Meditation: fMRI and EEG Evidence of Self-Stimulating a Reward System" about the brainwaves when a Yogi went into a meditative level.

I know that we have 5 types of brainwaves:

* Gamma 40Hz~
* Beta 14-40Hz
* Alpha 7.5-14Hz
* Theta 4-7.5Hz
* Delta 0.5-4Hz

As for Meditative Stages, we have 8 stages:

**Material**

* Jhana 1
* Jhana 2
* Jhana 3
* Jhana 4

**Immaterial**

* Jhana 5 / Arupa Jhana 1
* Jhana 6 / Arupa Jhana 2
* Jhana 7 / Arupa Jhana 3
* Jhana 8 / Arupa Jhana 4

As for what I've read on the paper, they could only start from Jhana 2 as "Jhana 1 was not practiced because the associated head movements would induce excessive artifact". Until Jhana 5 as there is some problem with Jhana 6-8 because the "fMRI recording then ended due to scanner memory limitations (421 volume maximum)".

How can I transform each meditative states \[time-series data\] into brainwaves frequencies?

# Answer
> 1 votes
Thank you for your interesting question!

Generally, there are three types of methods to process your EEG time-series data:

* Time domain methods (e.g., regression, statistical analysis on your EEG time-series data, etc.)
* Frequency domain methods (e.g., Fourier Transform)
* Time-frequency domain methods (e.g., Short-Time Fourier Transform, Wavelet Transform, Gabor Transform, etc.) Wikipedia

You may use `time-frequency methods` to categorize or classify those states, if you will. It is very simple. Time-frequency methods transform your \[1-D\] time-series EEG data into a new \[2-D\] domain that you can see both time and frequency information.

\[1-D\] Frequency domain methods only return frequency information of your \[1-D\] EEG time signals, which means that your \[1-D\] time data will be lost in exchange for having \[1-D\] frequency data.

\[1-D\] Time domain methods only return \[1-D\] time analysis of your EEG signals, which also cannot help you to capture the frequency information.

May I suggest you to use `Continuous Wavelet Transform` or `Discrete Wavelet Transform` to do this job?

There are many tools/languages that might help you to do so: `MatLab`, `Python`, and such. If you might have a programmer around you, s/he can probably help you in a few hours or a day to pass your \[1-D\] EEG time data through one of these \[2-D\] time-frequency methods and visualize the outputs.

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Tags: eeg, meditation, signal-processing
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# Question
Title: Term/phrase for remembering the negative over the positive
I work in UX (user experience) which involves a lot of psychological principles to various degrees and came across an interesting thought about bad experiences.

**My question is,** is there some kind of common term or phrase for a person that remembers past negative situations more clearly than positive ones?

I was thinking of the example of news reports about plane crashes. The percentage of negative incidents across the world is minute but since people only hear about the negative, this is how they perceive the majority. Therefore their memory of the bad news stories will outweigh their memory of their last successful flight. This can cause people to see air travel as dangerous.

There are probably better examples of this but I hope that makes sense.

# Answer
> 2 votes
There isn't a name (that I am aware of at least) for a *person* who has this experience, but the concept is referred to as negativity bias.

Negativity bias is a general phenomenon, though certainly individuals can vary as to how strongly they are influenced by negative rather than positive events/information.

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Tags: memory, bias
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