1,316 research outputs found
Sixty Years of Community: St. Olaf Catholic Parish in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, 1952-2012
No full textThis paper will explore how the parish community of St. Olaf in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, established in 1952, reflects the Roman Catholic Church, specifically at the local, state, and national levels in the United States. It will also discuss the various changes that have occurred in the past 60 years of its history in terms of the various locations of worship for the members, the growth of the community outreach programs, and the effects of the Second Vatican Council. This ecumenical council was a meeting of Catholic bishops from around the whole that brought reform to the Catholic Church and affected the relationship of the Catholic Church to the world. The parish at St. Olaf has grown from having only 125 families in 1952 to over 1,000 families in 2012
Coupling Inner and Outer Body for Self-Consciousness
No full textAlthough recent studies on self-consciousness emphasized the importance of bodily processing and multisensory integration, such research has focused solely on bodily signals originating from the outside of the body (i.e., exteroceptive bodily signals) or internal bodily signals from visceral organs (i.e., interoceptive bodily signals) and how each system contributes to self-consciousness, without much interaction between the two approaches. Reviewing the latest evidence on interoceptive bodily processing and the combination of exteroceptive and interoceptive bodily signals for self-consciousness, we propose an integrated neural system reconciling these two largely separated views and delineate how it accounts for fundamental aspects of self-consciousness such as self-identification and self-location, as well as its experienced global unity and temporal continuity.
Heartbeat-evoked cortical responses: Underlying mechanisms, functional roles, and methodological considerations
No full textThe heart continuously and cyclically communicates with the brain. Beyond homeostatic regulation and sensing, recent neuroscience research has started to shed light on brain-heart interactions in diverse cognitive and emotional processes. In particular, neural responses to heartbeats, as measured with the so-called heartbeat-evoked potential, have been shown to be useful for investigating cortical activity processing cardiac signals. In this review, we first overview and discuss the basic properties of the HEP such as underlying physiological pathways, brain regions, and neural mechanisms. We then provide a systematic review of the mental processes associated with cortical HEP activations, notably heartbeat perception, emotional feelings, perceptual awareness, and self-consciousness, in healthy subjects and clinical populations. Finally, we discuss methodological issues regarding the experimental design and data analysis for separating genuine HEP components from physiological artifacts (e.g., cardiac field artifact, pulse artifact) or other neural activities that are not specifically associated with the heartbeat. Findings from this review suggest that when intrinsic limitations (e.g., artifacts) are carefully controlled, the HEP could provide a reliable neural measure for investigating brain-viscera interactions in diverse mental processes.
Mein Körper und Ich
No full textWenn Menschen berichten, sie könnten den eigenen Körper verlassen und sich selbst von außen betrachten, klingt das nach Esoterik. Doch solche »Out-of-Body«-Erlebnisse treten bei bestimmten Hirnerkrankungen in der Tat auf und lassen sich sogar künstlich im Labor herbeiführen. Schweizer Forscher um den Neurologen Olaf Blanke wollen mit derlei Experimenten ergründen, wie Ich-Bewusstsein im subjektiven Erleben des Körpers verankert istLNC
Spatio-Temporal Brain Dynamics of the Feeling of a Presence
No full textThe Feeling of a Presence (FoP) is the strange sensation of perceiving someone close by, when no one is actually there. Although it is not perceived in any of the usual senses it is described as a strong feeling. The random nature and short duration of this psychotic hallucination, that mostly affects neurological patients, has made it quite difficult to study it in controlled conditions.
In 2014, a paper published by Olaf Blanke described the first experiment inducing the
FoP in healthy individuals, achieved through sensorimotor mismatches generated by an illusory self-touch paradigm. Setting out to continue this investigation, we used the same robotic setup from 2014 that allows participants to stimulate themselves on the back, adding several protocols of synchronicity to study the temporal dynamics of the FoP. To address the neural correlates of the FoP, we used Electroencephalography (EEG) and a new strategy of data analysis, in the field of EEG, by applying a General Linear Model to our data.
Our results show that the subjective experience of the Feeling of a Presence, grows in
a sigmoidal fashion with increasing delays, doubling its appearance from 100 msec to 400 msec of delay. The applied model, revealed significant effects of, the experimental conditions of synchronicity and from the interaction of these and the subjective experience of the FoP. When analyzing the brain sources, our data shows that both Secondary Somatosensory Cortex and Inferior Parietal Lobule are less activated when experiencing the FoP (compared when not experiencing the FoP), at respective latencies that match the components P100 and N140.
The presented data helps advance the knowledge of this psychotic trait. Studying the
development of the FoP on healthy individuals, might lead to a better understanding of what happens in patients with positive symptoms of psychosis
Keynote speaker: Olaf Blanke: Experience engineering, neuroscience research and medical applications
No full textNeural adaptation accounts for the dynamic resizing of peripersonal space: evidence from a psychophysical-computational approach
No full textInteractions between the body and the environment occur within the peripersonal space (PPS), the space immediately surrounding the body. The PPS is encoded by multisensory (audio-tactile, visual-tactile) neurons that possess receptive fields (RFs) anchored on the body and restricted in depth. The extension in depth of PPS neurons' RFs has been documented to change dynamically as a function of the velocity of incoming stimuli, but the underlying neural mechanisms are still unknown. Here, by integrating a psychophysical approach with neural network modeling, we propose a mechanistic explanation behind this inherent dynamic property of PPS. We psychophysically mapped the size of participant's peri-face and peri-trunk space as a function of the velocity of task-irrelevant approaching auditory stimuli. Findings indicated that the peri-trunk space was larger than the peri-face space, and, importantly, as for the neurophysiological delineation of RFs, both of these representations enlarged as the velocity of incoming sound increased. We propose a neural network model to mechanistically interpret these findings: the network includes reciprocal connections between unisensory areas and higher order multisensory neurons, and it implements neural adaptation to persistent stimulation as a mechanism sensitive to stimulus velocity. The network was capable of replicating the behavioral observations of PPS size remapping and relates behavioral proxies of PPS size to neurophysiological measures of multisensory neurons' RF size. We propose that a biologically plausible neural adaptation mechanism embedded within the network encoding for PPS can be responsible for the dynamic alterations in PPS size as a function of the velocity of incoming stimuli. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Interactions between body and environment occur within the peripersonal space (PPS). PPS neurons are highly dynamic, adapting online as a function of body-object interactions. The mechanistic underpinning PPS dynamic properties are unexplained. We demonstrate with a psychophysical approach that PPS enlarges as incoming stimulus velocity increases, efficiently preventing contacts with faster approaching objects. We present a neurocomputational model of multisensory PPS implementing neural adaptation to persistent stimulation to propose a neurophysiological mechanism underlying this effect.LNCOCN
Behavioral and neurophysiological evidence for altered interoceptive bodily processing in chronic pain
No full textWhereas impaired multisensory processing of bodily stimuli and distorted body representation are well-established in various chronic pain disorders, such research has focused on exteroceptive bodily cues and neglected bodily signals from the inside of the body (or interoceptive signals). Extending existing basic and clinical research, we investigated for the first time interoception and its neurophysiological correlates in patients with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). In three different experiments, including a total of 36 patients with CRPS and 42 aged-gender matched healthy controls, we measured interoceptive sensitivity (heart beat counting task, HBC) and neural responses to heartbeats (heartbeat evoked potentials, HEPs). As hypothesized, we observed reduced sensitivity in perceiving interoceptive bodily stimuli, i.e. their heartbeat, in two independent samples of CRPS patients (studies 1 and 2). Moreover, the cortical processing of their heartbeat, i.e. the HEP, was reduced compared to controls (study 3) and reduced interoceptive sensitivity and HEPs were related to CRPS patients’ motor impairment and pain duration. By providing consistent evidence for impaired processing of interoceptive bodily cues in CRPS, this study shows that the perceptual changes occurring in chronic pain include signals originating from the visceral organs, suggesting changes in the neural body representation, that includes next to exteroceptive, also interoceptive bodily signals. By showing that impaired interoceptive processing is associated with clinical symptoms, our findings also encourage the use of interoceptive-related information in future rehabilitation for chronic pain.
Northern Rover: The Life Story of Olaf Hanson
No full textFrom 1919 to 1970, Olaf Hanson was a trapper, fur trader, prospector, game guardian, fisherman, and road blasting expert in northeastern Saskatchewan. He told his life story to popular Saskatchewan author A. L. Karras, who wrote this historical memoir in the 1980s. In an uncompromising, straightforward style, Karras and Hanson reveal the geography, wildlife, natural history of the region as well as the business and social interactions between people. Their book offers a look at the vanished subsistence and commercial economy of the boreal forest, wound around a fascinating personal story of courage and physical stamina
- …
