1,721,034 research outputs found
FROM NEURONS TO A SOCIAL MIND. A DARWINIAN POINT OF VIEW OF THE "MIRROR NEURON SYSTEM"
No full textThe integration of neuroscience and philosophy is essential to understanding the complex phenomena of the mind, consciousness, a moral sense, empathy and social cognition.
Even if the results of neuroscience have been largely analyzed from a Darwinian perspective, so far the Mirror Neuron System has been interpreted only from a phenomenological point of view. The key principles of the mirror system, when compared with the key principles of Husserl’s phenomenology, are indeed incompatible with phenomenology. From the very beginning, the latter has been critical of any form of naturalism and empirical science, as well as any form of naturalization of consciousness. In the phenomenological interpretation, the embodied cognition of the mirror system becomes a mere intellectual structure, neither corporeal nor active, as required by the mirror system. Intersubjectivity, if lived intellectualistically within a trascendental ego, like a monad, becomes extraneousness. In the same way empathy, the roots of which lie in the embodied simulation, in the phenomenological interpretation has no space and time, it is beyond the world, like an eternal and immutable relationship. If a Heideggerian perspective is added to the phenomenological interpretation of the mirror system, a phenomenological approach to neuroscience becomes totally implausible since Heidegger is the most critical philosopher of scientific thinking. An alternative view, proposed here, is a Darwinian social-embodied-emotional mind which is in accordance with neuroscience and the mirror system, philosophically rooted in Hume’s empiricism and James’s pragmatism
Naloxone potentiates shock-induced aggressive behavior in mice
No full textNaloxone (0.025 to 0.05 mg/kg IP) potentiates shock-induced aggressive behavior in C57BL/6 mice but not in DBA/2 mice which do not fight in absence of drug. This effect is not related to pain sensitivity since the doses used in this experiment do not lower tail-flick threshold in C57BL/6 mice. These findings are discussed in terms of the role of the endorphin system and of catecholamine related sensory attention in a number of social interactions in the mouse
Social isolation: Effects on pain threshold and stress-induced analgesia
No full textIndividually housed DBA/2 mice showed higher pain thresholds than grouped mice. Stress-induced analgesia was evident in grouped but not in isolated mice. Since also morphine injections did not result in analgesic effects in isolated mice, it is suggested that social isolation results in an increased release of opioids which may produce a decreased sensitivity at the opiate receptor level. The role of endogenous opioids in relation to social isolation is discussed
STRESS-INDUCED DECREASE OF 3-METHOXYTYRAMINE IN THE NUCLEUS ACCUMBENS OF THE MOUSE IS PREVENTED BY NALTREXONE PRETREATMENT
No full textPretreatment with naltrexone (2.5 and 5 mg/kg) prevented the decrease of 3-methoxytyramine (3-MT)/dopamine (DA) ratio induced by 2 h immobilization stress in the nucleus accumbens (NAS) of the mouse while it did not affect the stress-induced decrease of 3-MT/DA ratio in caudatus putamen (CP). Naltrexone also produced a slight antagonism of homovanillic acid (HVA)/DA ratio increase produced by stress in the frontal cortex (FC). These results point to an involvement of endogenous opioids in the effects of stress on DA metabolism in the mesolimbic system of the mouse
Effects of opiate antagonists on social and aggressive behavior of isolated mice
No full textOpiate antagonists naloxone (1 and 1.5 mg/kg IP) and naltrexone (2.5 and 5 mg/kg IP) inhibit aggressive responses of DBA/2 isolated mice, while increasing the duration of some social activities such as sniff-body, sniff-nose, and following. At the doses employed naloxone and naltrexone did not affect motor activity and self-grooming of paired mice. These findings are discussed in terms of the endogeneous opioids system involvement in arousability, in the response of the organism to stressful events, in the motivational mechanisms which control social behavior and in the functioning of some neurotransmitter systems which are known to play an important role in the control of isolation-induced aggressive behavior
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