31 research outputs found
Side Effects or Symptoms? The Feeling of Self-Estrangement in DBS Patients
No full textSome patients reportedly experience serious side-effects from Deep Brain Stimulation including feelings of inauthenticity, alienation and self-estrangement (Kraemer 2013; Gilbert 2013; Müller, Bittner and Krug 2010). Mecacci and Haselager suggest these adverse reactions are due to socio-cultural conceptual frameworks which lead patients to hold the ultramaterialistic perspective that the Self is constituted by the brain only. These authors contend that DBS implants are just prostheses differing from other devices that restore or increase bodily functions only in degree, not in kind. They suggest that if patients were able to conceptualize neurostimulators as prostheses, they would adapt to them without adverse psychological side-effects but this would require a cultural conceptual shift and better doctor-patient communication. We suggest that this conclusion is problematic. On the one hand, we argue that neurological devices are not like other body prostheses because they alter patients’ subjective experience, influencing their sense of agency and body ownership. On the other hand, we argue that the reported feelings of inauthenticity, alienation, and self-estrangement can lead to dysfunctional and potentially pathogenic thoughts that might result in clinical outcomes such as depersonalization and derealization (Sierra 2009) or trigger depressive syndromes that can lead to suicide (Gilbert 2013; Appleby et al. 2007). We agree with the authors that a change in patients’ self-conceptualization is needed to prevent these symptoms from becoming pathogenic. However, we think this can be achieved only if patients receive psychotherapeutic support as soon as such symptoms occur
Organizzazione sanitaria per la neuroriabilitazione del malato anziano con particolare riferimento alla Regione Marche
No full textLa gestione e l'acquisto dei servizi
No full textLa gestione e l'acquisto dei servizi nelle aziende industriali e di servizi
Modelling Scientific Un/Certainty. Why Argumentation Strategies Trump Linguistic Markers Use
No full textIn recent years, there has been increasing interest in investigating science communication. Some studies that address this issue attempt to develop a model to determine the level of confidence that an author or a scientific community has at a given time towards a theory or a group of theories. A well-established approach suggests that, in order to determine the level of certainty authors have with regard to the statements they make, one can identify specific lexical and morphosyntactical markers which indicate their epistemic attitudes. This method is considered particularly appealing because it permits the development of an algorithmic model based on the quantitative analysis of the occurrence of these markers to assess (almost) automatically and objectively the opinion of an author or the predominant opinion of a scientific community on a topic at a given time. In this contribution we show that this line of research presents many kinds of problems especially when it is applied to research articles (rather than to popular science texts and basic research reports). To this aim, we propose two main lines of reasoning. The first one relies generally on the argumentative structure of scientific articles and shows that certainty/uncertainty markers are used differently in different argument forms and that therefore their number/frequency of use does not offer reliable indications for determining whether the topic at issue is considered by the authors to be more or less factual/speculative. The second one is based on the analysis of a sample of psychiatric research articles on homosexuality written over a long time span and taken from The British Journal of Psychiatry. Since the psychiatric perspective on homosexuality changed radically during the decades in which these articles were published, they offer an inventory of various kinds of argumentative strategies directed both at defending and confuting dominant as well as marginal positions. We focus especially on uncertainty markers and show that frequently the positions stated using expressions indicating uncertainty are actually not considered as conjectural or speculative by their authors, but that the use of uncertainty markers is motivated by a number of different and often incongruent rhetorical strategies
OXIDATIVE INJURY IN REOXYGENATED AND REPERFUSED HEARTS
No full textIn this study, we separated the effects of low oxygen supply and low coronary flow in isolated perfused rat hearts to focus on the genesis of free radicals-induced reperfusion injury. Hearts were exposed to either hypoxemia/reoxygenation or ischemia/reperfusion in various sequences, with hypoxemia and ischemia matched for duration (20 min), temperature (37°C), and oxygen supply (10% of baseline). Hypoxemia/reoxygenation (n = 7) resulted in lower (developed pressure) x (heart rate) (p < 0.001) and higher end-diastolic pressure (p < 0.001) than ischemia/reperfusion (n = 9). The presence of 40 IU/ml superoxide dismutase and 104 IU/ml catalase nearly blunted the rise of the end-diastolic pressure (p = 0.02 vs. baseline), but could only partially prevent the depression of myocardial contractility (p < 0.001 vs. baseline, n = 7). Similar patterns were observed when hearts were made ischemic after hypoxemia, eliminating the intermediate reoxygenation step. We conclude that the major determinant of the reperfusion injury is associated with low oxygen supply rather than low coronary flow. Part of the injury is mediated by oxygen-derived free radicals, but a substantial portion of it is associated with energetic processes
Vorstellbarkeit als Denkbarkeit. Referenz, Erste-Person-Perspektive und die Konstitution der semantischen Repraesentation
No full textThe main aim of this paper is to challenge the implicit formalism in classical cognitive theories of semantic competence. These models describe the human ability to master the words of natural language primarily using a model drawn from artificial intelligence, in which knowing a language means being able to connect linguistic symbols with each other in a proper way. According to the view we put forward in our paper, the capacity to connect words with others according to semantic rules only describes that small part of human semantic competence which can be identified as ‘inferential competence’. However, human semantic competence is also characterized by what is called ‘referential competence’,that is, the capacity to recognize those objects in the world to which words refer. Both these competences, the inferential and the referential, are proposedto be based on the availability of semantic representations, developed by the cognitive system. In the paper we show firstly that this second aspect of semantic competence is the most important one if we aim to understand how humans come to master natural languages. Secondly, a deeper articulation of the constitution of referential competence is put forward.
The paper attempts to show that in order to account for referential competence we need to assume that semantic representations are constructed from both information coming from the external world via the sensorium and information produced by the cognitive system itself during the processing of the sensory input coming from the external world via the bodily sensorium (we refer to the latter as “qualitative information”). We argue that this qualitative information plays an essential role in explaining some aspects of referential competence which would otherwise remain obscure such as the capacity to recognize (in a referential sense) internal states corresponding to specific word. Our working hypothesis is presented and discussed in relation to linguistic deficits reported for clinical conditions some examples taken from clinical psychology (Asperger Syndrome and Alexithymia). People affected with these syndromes show specific impairment in their linguistic mastery that can be interpreted as a lack of referential competence with respect to words related to internal states due to problems in processing qualitative information. If so, these diseases would confirm that the achievement of full referential competence requires the availability of qualitative information as we define it
Paranormal beliefs? A matter of core knowledge confusion (that can be simulated by a computational model)
No full textThe research on the cognitive bias involved in the endorsement of irrational believes is as vast and difficult to define as the set of possible irrational beliefs (see Vyse, 2013). One subset of irrational beliefs is that composed by beliefs about paranormal events, i.e. – according to Broad’s (1953) definition – events that violate the fundamental and scientifically founded principles of nature. This is an interesting definition, which – with reference to the violation of principles of nature – establishes a link to a specific cognitive bias responsible for paranormal beliefs due to an ontological confusion of core knowledge (e.g., Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007). The aim of this contribution is to explore why and how core knowledge confusion leads to paranormal beliefs. In our presentation, we will also point out that this form of irrationality can be explained within the framework of a semantic model
