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PubMed1993

Alterations of auditory middle latency evoked potentials during yogic consciously regulated breathing and attentive state of mind.

Middle latency auditory-evoked potentials (AEP-MLRs) of 10 healthy male subjects in the age range of 21-33 years, were assessed to determine whether yogic pranayamic practice would cause changes in them. The pranayama type assessed here is an exercise of consciously-controlled rhythmic breathing involving timed breath-holding in each cycle of breathing, while the subject holds utmost attention and experiences the touch of inhaled air in the nasal passage. The results revealed that the Na-wave amplitude increased and latency decreased during the period of pranayamic practice, whereas the Pa-wave was not significantly altered. The change is interpreted as an indication of a generalized alteration cause in information processing at the primary thalamo-cortical level during the concentrated mental exercise of inducing modifications in neural mechanisms regulating a different functional system (respiratory). Further researches are required to understand the operational significances of such changes.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1999

The concept of auditory stimulus representation in cognitive neuroscience.

The sequence of neurophysiological processes elicited in the auditory system by a sound is analyzed in search of the stage at which the processes carrying sensory information cross the borderline beyond which they directly underlie sound perception. Neurophysiological data suggest that this transition occurs when the sensory input is mapped onto the physiological basis of sensory memory in the auditory cortex. At this point, the sensory information carried by the stimulus-elicited process corresponds, for the first time, to that contained by the actual sound percept. Before this stage, the sensory stimulus code is fragmentary, lacks the time dimension, cannot enter conscious perception, and is not accessible to top-down processes (voluntary mental operations). On these grounds, 2 distinct stages of auditory sensory processing, prerepresentational and representational, can be distinguished.

Auditory Cortex↗
PubMed1997

Mental health utilization in women with symptoms of depression.

This paper examines the help-seeking process of mental health services in women with high depressive symptoms. The data are based on an island wide probabilistic sample (n = 1,062) of 18- to 64-year-old women living in low socioeconomic areas in Puerto Rico. Symptoms of depression were measured by the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Results show that one out of three women living in poor residential areas report high depressive symptoms. Of these women with high depressive symptoms, only 12% seek help from a mental health specialist and 14.5% from a general health care provider to deal with their emotional problems. Some factors related to the use of mental health services are: presence of an occupational disability, head of household status, having private insurance, and having a regular source of care. These data suggest that women underutilize mental health services and overutilize physical health services to deal with their emotional problems. The lack of recognition of emotional problems by these women may explain the low utilization of mental health services.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Developing advanced mental health nursing practice: a process of change.

In the current economic climate of restructuring and rationalization it is important for mental health nurses to define their realm of expertise in order to demonstrate professional accountability and to validate their position in relation to unqualified but cheaper caregivers. If mental health nurses are to act in the best interests of patients and the community, they need to challenge current trends in health-care delivery that are preoccupied with economic efficiency and lack of consideration of broader social issues. To substantiate mental health nursing practice and defend against the undermining of clinical expertise by policies and service delivery that advances economic interests, mental health nurses need to corroborate their claims to expertise by articulating a patient-centred rationale for their practice. The ideas presented in this paper have evolved through the development of two postgraduate programmes for advanced mental health nursing practice--one in Australia at Griffith University and the other in New Zealand at the Department of Psychological Medicine, Christchurch School of Medicine.

Clinical Nursing Research↗
PubMed1976

Mental transformations and visual comparison processes: effects of complexity and similarity.

Subjects were required to discriminate previously learned "standard" versions of angular shapes from randomly perturbed "distractor" versions that varied in similarity to the standard. Advance information concerning the identity and the orientation of the test form was provided. Subjects were instructed to prepare for the presentation of the test form by mentally rotating an internal representation of the designated standard form (identity cue) into the designated orientation. The time needed to prepare for the presentation of the test form increased linearly with the angular departure of the indicated orientation from a previously learned position. This finding suggests that, in accordance with instructions, subjects performed a mental rotation in preparing for the upcoming test shape. Rate of preparation was not affected by the complexity of the standard form presented as the identity cue. DIscriminative departure of the test form presented as the identity cue. Discriminative reaction time was not affected by either test-form complexity or angular departure of the test form from the learned orientation. In addition, striking individual differences in the pattern of discriminative reaction times were found. The implications of these results for (a) the nature of the processes and representations underlying the mental rotation task and (b) the nature of visual comparison processes are discussed.

Cognition↗
PubMed2002

Mental navigation in humans is processed in the anterior bank of the parieto-occipital sulcus.

We examined the brain regions which were activated during mental navigation; functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed in 16 right-handed male volunteers. The anterior bank of the parieto-occipital sulcus (APO) was strongly activated in all 16 subjects examined. In group study, the retrosplenial area, the bilateral angular gyrus/occipital cortex junction, the left superior premotor area, the right parahippocampal gyrus, and the right cerebellum were activated commonly across 16 subjects. The APO region activated during mental navigation appeared to be equivalent to the visual area V6A in monkeys and to subserve egocentric spatial processes.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Common processing constraints for visuomotor and visual mental rotations.

Naive human subjects were tested in three different tasks: (1) a visuomotor mental rotation task, in which the subjects were instructed to move a cursor at a given angle from a stimulus direction; (2) a visual mental rotation task, in which the subjects had to decide whether a displayed letter was normal or mirror image regardless of its orientation in the plane of presentation; and (3) a visuomotor memory scanning task, in which a list of two to five stimuli directions were presented sequentially and then one of the stimuli (test stimulus), except the last one, was presented again. Subjects were instructed to move a cursor in the direction of the stimulus that followed the test stimulus in the previous sequence. The processing rate of each subject in each task was estimated using the linear relation between the response time and the angle (mental rotation tasks) or the list length (memory scanning task). We found that the processing rates in the mental rotation tasks were significantly correlated but that neither correlated significantly with the processing rate in the memory scanning task. These results suggest that visuomotor and visual mental rotations share common processing constraints that cannot be ascribed to general mental processing performances.

Cognition↗
PubMed1987

Information-processing correlates of computer-assisted word learning by mentally retarded students.

Information-processing correlates of computer-assisted word learning by moderately and severely mentally retarded students were identified. Nineteen subjects completed 10, 15-minute computer-assisted instruction sessions and seven basic cognitive tasks measuring simple learning, choice reaction time, relearning, probed recall, stimulus discrimination, tachistoscopic threshold, and recognition memory. Stimulus discrimination, probed recall, and simple learning were significantly related to word learning. Results suggest that instruction should be modified to accommodate individual differences in these abilities.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1975

Age differences in the speed of a spatial cognitive process.

Older subjects responded slower than younger subjects on a spatial task which required them to rotate mentally a perspectively drawn figure in order to judge whether it was congruent with a second figure. Decision time was partitioned into two components: (1) the time taken for the "mental rotation" process, (2) the time taken for the remaining processes such as stimulus encoding and motor output. Both components required more time in the elderly group. The increase with age in the component of decision time representing rotational processes was similar to those increases seen by other investigators examining age-dependent differences in time required for memory-scanning processes using verbal stimuli.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Obstacles on the road towards a neuroscientific theory of mind.

In the efforts to establish neuroscientific theories of the mind, one should distinguish between conceptual and scientific obstacles. The conceptual obstacles comprise, for example, various dualist-materialist philosophical positions, emergentism, failure to distinguish between models and non-models, lack of ontological commitment, and the constraints of language. The scientific obstacles comprise, for example, the lack of methods to describe the behaviour of neuron networks and their properties, the difficulties of establishing transition rules between micro-networks and macro-networks, the difficulties in working with non-Pavlovian paradigms and imposing information processing constraints and informational requirements on brain processes.

Animals↗
PubMed1985

Modern method and instrument for measuring psychic performance.

This paper shows that cortical processing of information quantity can be given in bits, while speed of information processing can be given in bit/sec; therefore the information processing ability can be denoted in algebraical expression. Changes of emotional tension can be objectified by galvanic skin reflex and pulse reaction. This method and device is suitable to measure psychic state of space station personnel and to predict psychic activity.

Aerospace Medicine↗
PubMed1992

Thinking with images or thinking with language: a pilot EEG probability mapping study.

This pilot EEG mapping study was designed to explore thinking processes using complex mental imagery and thought processes. EEG was recorded with 19 electrodes (10/20 system against averaged ear lobe signals) while volunteers (n = 42) performed two separate tasks: visualization of an abstract concept and interpretation of a painting. Average spectral parameters such as amplitude, local and interhemispheric coherences were computed for five frequency bands (theta, alpha, beta 1, 2 and 3). Results indicate that the frontal regions are strongly involved during these tasks as evidenced by coherence changes. Changes are also present in temporal, parietal and occipital regions and are discussed in relation to information processing with the frontal regions considering the different cognitive functions required by the tasks.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Procedural learning deficit in children with Williams syndrome.

The present study was aimed at evaluating implicit memory processes in subjects with Williams syndrome (WS) and comparing them to mental-age (MA) matched normal children. For this purpose, tests of verbal and visuo-perceptual explicit memory, verbal and visual repetition priming as well as procedural learning tasks were administered to 12 WS and 12 MA matched subjects. WS subjects showed a level of repetition priming similar to that of MA normal controls. In contrast, WS children showed a reduced learning rate in the two procedural tasks. Although deficient explicit memory and executive dysfunction cannot be excluded from the performance of WS subjects, these results suggest a specific deficit of procedural learning in this particular group of mentally retarded children. This finding is relevant for our knowledge about the qualitative aspects of the anomalous cognitive development in mentally retarded people and the neurobiological substrate underlying this development.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (LORETA) functional imaging in acute, neuroleptic-naive, first-episode, productive schizophrenia.

Functional imaging of brain electrical activity was performed in nine acute, neuroleptic-naive, first-episode, productive patients with schizophrenia and 36 control subjects. Low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (LORETA, three-dimensional images of cortical current density) was computed from 19-channel electroencephalographic (EEG) activity obtained under resting conditions, separately for the different EEG frequencies. Three patterns of activity were evident in the patients: (1) an anterior, near-bilateral excess of delta frequency activity; (2) an anterior-inferior deficit of theta frequency activity coupled with an anterior-inferior left-sided deficit of alpha-1 and alpha-2 frequency activity; and (3) a posterior-superior right-sided excess of beta-1, beta-2 and beta-3 frequency activity. Patients showed deviations from normal brain activity as evidenced by LORETA along an anterior-left-to-posterior-right spatial axis. The high temporal resolution of EEG makes it possible to specify the deviations not only as excess or deficit, but also as inhibitory, normal and excitatory. The patients showed a dis-coordinated brain functional state consisting of inhibited prefrontal/frontal areas and simultaneously overexcited right parietal areas, while left anterior, left temporal and left central areas lacked normal routine activity. Since all information processing is brain-state dependent, this dis-coordinated state must result in inadequate treatment of (externally or internally generated) information.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1997

Construal: overview, motivation, and some new evidence.

Is there underspecification in the syntactic phrase marker constructed during on-line sentence analysis? According to the construal hypothesis (Frazier & Clifton, 1996), a very limited amount and type of structural underspecification is available to the human sentence parsing mechanism. Here we present the basic definitions of construal, illustrating the theory with some already published evidence. We also discuss several new pieces of evidence, from our laboratory and elsewhere, that support the construal hypothesis. We end by raising the question of what kind of mechanism operates in the process of interpreting a nonprimary phrase (a phrase that receives an underspecified syntactic analysis), and conclude that it is not a process of competition between multiple activated possible analyses but instead is a process in which the sheer existence of ambiguity need not result in increased processing cost.

Humans↗
PubMed2002

Positive mental health: a turn of the century perspective.

Within the last decade, a national prevention research, training, and practice agenda on mental health has been established to address the epidemiological increases in mental disorders and associated emotional and financial costs to individuals, families, and communities. In this article, the author reviews theoretical, empirical, and public policy support in favor of prevention science that inherently includes a broad positive mental health orientation with an emphasis on mental health promotion processes. Prevention within the mental health field needs to include not only minimizing mental disorders, but also enhancing positive qualities of daily functioning. The socioeconomic and cultural context of positive mental health is emphasized with particular attention given to the interrelatedness of individual, family, and community "collective sense of well being." Nursing and interdisciplinary contributions are reviewed, noting implications for future public policy and service system changes. Innovative ways to enhance mental health will require study of system integration across primary and mental health services as well as incorporating services within societal institutions such as schools and the workplace.

Forecasting↗