Robert Brain traces the origins of artistic modernism to specific technologies of perception developed in late-nineteenth-century laboratories. Brain argues that the thriving fin-de-siècle field of “physiological aesthetics,” which sought physiological explanations for the capacity to appreciate beauty and art, changed the way poets, artists, and musicians worked and brought a dramatic transformation to the idea of art itself.

Explores complex questions about the nature of reality, philosophy, and religion, and how we reconcile our often-conflicting beliefs about these questions"--Provided by publisher.

Ideas are important in shaping the policy choices of governments. But many ideas that have not been successful in the past continue to be used by policymakers, and some good ideas tend not to be adopted. This Element will focus on why governments make these poor policy choices. We will discuss a number of examples of 'zombie ideas' that refuse to die, and then discuss the factors that are associated with their survival. Those factors occur at the elite, the organizational (...) and the societal level. We will also examine some 'ghost' ideas that may well be successful but have a difficult time being adopted, and the factors that are associated with the exclusion of these ideas from the policy process. (shrink)

Neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging is a diffusion model specifically designed for brain magnetic resonance imaging. Despite recent studies suggesting that NODDI modeling might be more sensitive to brain development than diffusion tensor imaging, these studies were limited to a relatively small age range and mainly based on the manually operated region of interest analysis. Therefore, this study applied NODDI to investigate brain development in a large sample size of 214 subjects ranging in ages from 0 to 14. The (...) whole brain was automatically segmented into 122 regions. The maturation trajectory of each region was characterized by the time course of diffusion metrics and further quantified using nonlinear regression. The NODDI-derived metrics, neurite density index and orientation dispersion index, increased with age. And these two metrics were superior to the DTI-derived metrics in SVM regression models of age. The NDI in white matter exhibited a more rapid growth than that in gray matter. These diffusion indicators experienced conspicuous increases during early childhood and the growth speed slowed down in adolescence. Region-specific maturation patterns were described throughout the brain, including white matter, cortical and deep gray matter. These development patterns were evaluated and discussed on the basis of NODDI’s model assumptions. To summarize, this study verified the high sensitivity of NODDI to age over a crucial developmental period from newborn to adolescence. Moreover, the existing knowledge of brain development has been complemented, suggesting that NODDI has a potential capability in the investigation of brain development. (shrink)

Previous studies have reported abnormal amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation and regional homogeneity in patients with migraine without aura using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. However, how whole brain functional connectivity pattern homogeneity and its corresponding functional connectivity changes in patients with migraine without aura is unknown. In the current study, we employed a recently developed whole brain functional connectivity homogeneity method to identify the voxel-wise changes of functional connectivity patterns in 21 patients with migraine without aura and 21 gender and (...) age matched healthy controls. Moreover, resting-state functional connectivity analysis was used to reveal the changes of corresponding functional connectivities. FcHo analyses identified significantly decreased FcHo values in the posterior cingulate cortex, thalamus, and left anterior insula in patients with migraine without aura compared to healthy controls. Functional connectivity analyses further found decreased functional connectivities between PCC and medial prefrontal cortex, between AI and anterior cingulate cortex, and between THA and left precentral gyrus. The functional connectivities between THA and PCG were negatively correlated with pain intensity. Our findings indicated that whole brain FcHo and connectivity abnormalities of these regions may be associated with functional impairments in pain processing in patients with migraine without aura. (shrink)

BackgroundThe neural activity of irritable bowel syndrome patients in the resting state without any intervention has not been systematically studied. The purpose of this study was to compare the resting-state brain functions of IBS patients with healthy controls.MethodsThe published neuroimage studies were obtained from electronic databases including PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Web of Science Core, CNKI Database, Wanfang Database, VIP Database, and CBMdisc. Search dates were from inception to March 14th, 2022. The studies were identified by the preidentified inclusion and exclusion (...) criteria. Two independent reviewers compiled the studies and evaluated them for quality and bias.ResultsAltogether 22 fMRI studies were included in this review. The risk of bias of the included studies was generally low. The findings indicated that in IBS patients, increased or decreased brain areas were mostly associated with visceral sensations, emotional processing, and pain processing. According to brain network research, IBS may exhibit anomalies in the DMN, CEN, and emotional arousal networks. The fluctuations in emotion and symptoms in IBS patients were associated with alterations in the relevant brain regions.ConclusionThis study draws a preliminary conclusion that there are insufficient data to accurately distinguish the different neurological features of IBS in the resting state. Additional high-quality research undertaken by diverse geographic regions and teams is required to reach reliable results regarding resting-state changed brain regions in IBS. (shrink)

Micro-expressions can reflect an individual’s subjective emotions and true mental state, and they are widely used in the fields of mental health, justice, law enforcement, intelligence, and security. However, one of the major challenges of working with MEs is that their neural mechanism is not entirely understood. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to use electroencephalography to investigate the reorganizations of functional brain networks involved in MEs. We aimed to reveal the underlying neural mechanisms (...) that can provide electrophysiological indicators for ME recognition. A real-time supervision and emotional expression suppression experimental paradigm was designed to collect video and EEG data of MEs and no expressions of 70 participants expressing positive emotions. Based on the graph theory, we analyzed the efficiency of functional brain network at the scalp level on both macro and micro scales. The results revealed that in the presence of MEs compared with NEs, the participants exhibited higher global efficiency and nodal efficiency in the frontal, occipital, and temporal regions. Additionally, using the random forest algorithm to select a subset of functional connectivity features as input, the support vector machine classifier achieved a classification accuracy for MEs and NEs of 0.81, with an area under the curve of 0.85. This finding demonstrates the possibility of using EEG to recognize MEs, with a wide range of application scenarios, such as persons wearing face masks or patients with expression disorders. (shrink)

Patients with advanced Alzheimer's disease experience cognitive impairment and physical disabilities in daily life. Currently, there are no treatments available to slow down the course of the disease, and limited treatments exist only to treat symptoms. However, deep brain stimulation of the nucleus basalis of Meynert has been reported to improve cognitive function in individuals with AD. Here, we report the effects of NBM-DBS on cognitive function in a subject with severe AD. An 80-year-old male with severe AD underwent surgery (...) for bilateral NBM-DBS electrode placement. After 10 weeks of stimulation, Mini-Mental State Examination assessment improved from a score of 5 to 9 points, and assessment using the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale–Cognitive Subscale showed a marked reduction in total score from 43 to 33 points, suggesting cognitive benefits from NBM-DBS. The patient's postoperative course was complicated by a subdural effusion that occurred several days after surgery, with complete recovery. Interestingly, the subject also displayed abnormal thermoregulation with stimulation initiation and stimulation parameter modifications. NBM-DBS may serve as a potential therapy for severe AD patients.Clinical Trial Registration: ChiCTR1900022324. (shrink)

This paper seeks to answer the question: Can contemporary forms of artificial intelligence be creative? To answer this question, I consider three conditions that are commonly taken to be necessary for creativity. These are novelty, value, and agency. I argue that while contemporary AI models may have a claim to novelty and value, they cannot satisfy the kind of agency condition required for creativity. From this discussion, a new condition for creativity emerges. Creativity requires curiosity, a motivation to pursue epistemic (...) goods. I argue that contemporary AI models do not satisfy this new condition. Because they lack both agency and curiosity, it is a mistake to attribute the same sort of creativity to AI that we prize in humans. Finally, I consider the question of whether these AI models stand to make human creativity in the arts and sciences obsolete, despite not being creative themselves. I argue, optimistically, that this is unlikely. (shrink)

I argue for an account of creativity that unifies creative achievements in the arts, sciences, and other domains and identifies its characteristic value. This account draws upon case studies of creative work in both the arts and sciences to identify creativity as a kind of successful exploration. I argue that if creativity is properly understood in this way, then it is fundamentally a property of processes, something only agents can achieve, something that comes in degrees, subjectively novel, and non-formulaic. As (...) I develop the account, I show how it avoids challenges faced by other accounts of creativity, especially concerning creativity’s value. Hills and Bird (2018, 2019) have together argued that creativity is not necessarily valuable. My account challenges this view. If I am right that creativity is a kind of successful exploration, then creativity does have a characteristic value, specifically epistemic value. (shrink)

Presenting the first step-by-step commentary on Husserl’s Ideas I, Marcus Brainard’s Belief and Its Neutralization provides an introduction not only to this central work, but also to the whole of transcendental phenomenology. Brainard offers a clear and lively account of each key element in Ideas I, along with a novel reading of Husserl, one which may well cause scholars to reconsider many long-standing views on his thought, especially on the role of belief, the effect and scope of the epoché, and (...) the significance of the universal neutrality modification. (shrink)

Explaining how something is possible is a familiar and epistemically important achievement in both science and ordinary life. But a satisfactory general account of how-possibly explanation has not yet been given. A crucial desideratum for a successful account is that it must differentiate a demonstration that something is possible from an explanation of how it is possible. In this paper, I offer an account of how-possibly explanation that fully captures this distinction. I motivate my account using two cases, one from (...) ordinary life and one from ornithology. On my account, a how-possibly explanation is a greater achievement than a mere description of how a state of affairs might possibly obtain. In addition to being a potential explanation of why some state of affairs actually obtains, a how-possibly explanation must involve the relief of an imaginative frustration on the part of its recipient. When a recipient’s imaginative frustration is relieved, she does not just know that the state of affairs in question is possible, but is also able to imagine how it could possibly obtain. (shrink)

There is an underappreciated respect in which the widespread availability of generative artificial intelligence (AI) models poses a threat to human connection. My central contention is that human creativity is especially capable of helping us connect to others in a valuable way, but the widespread availability of generative AI models reduces our incentives to engage in various sorts of creative work in the arts and sciences. I argue that creative endeavors must be motivated by curiosity, and so they must disclose (...) the creative agent’s inquisitive self. It is through self-disclosure, including the disclosure of the inquisitive self, that we put ourselves in a position to be seen by and connect with others through our creative pursuits. Because relying on AI for certain generative tasks is less self-disclosive than the creative work such technologies supplant, this reliance threatens to weaken our connections to one another. (shrink)

This study discusses the mind-body problem, arguing that the human person is best understood as an animal who is also spirit. Braine suggests that human beings should be described holistically, in the tradition of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. His final chapter explores a doctrine of immortality.

Memory exhibits episodic superposition, an analog of the quantum superposition of physical states: Before a cue for a presented or unpresented item is administered on a memory test, the item has the simultaneous potential to occupy all members of a mutually exclusive set of episodic states, though it occupies only one of those states after the cue is administered. This phenomenon can be modeled with a nonadditive probability model called overdistribution (OD), which implements fuzzy-trace theory's distinction between verbatim and gist (...) representations. We show that it can also be modeled based on quantum probability theory. A quantum episodic memory (QEM) model is developed, which is derived from quantum probability theory but also implements the process conceptions of global matching memory models. OD and QEM have different strengths, and the current challenge is to identify contrasting empirical predictions that can be used to pit them against each other. (shrink)

Teachers obviously serve as the medium for causing the result of policy as they carry it into schools and classrooms and deliver it to pupils. They mediate between education policy and practice. Knowledge of the exact nature and effects of this vital role is limited. Drawing on a range of research and evaluation of both national and local policy in practice, carried out by the authors in England, this paper illustrates how teachers mediate policy and the resulting outcomes. Further, it (...) proposes a typology of teacher adaptation to education policy. The paper argues that as yet the appropriate professional role for teachers within policy?making and implementation has not been achieved, and outlines what this might be. Finally, it outlines some implications for teacher education. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is an emerging engineering discipline that attempts to design and rewire biological components, so as to achieve new functions in a robust and predictable manner. The new tools and strategies provided by synthetic biology have the potential to improve therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, synthetic biology will help design small molecules, proteins, gene networks, and vectors to target disease‐related genes. Ultimately, new intelligent delivery systems will provide targeted and sustained therapeutic benefits. New treatments will arise from combining (...) ‘protect and repair’ strategies: the use of drug treatments, the promotion of neurotrophic factor synthesis, and gene targeting. Going beyond RNAi and artificial transcription factors, site‐specific genome modification is likely to play an increasing role, especially with newly available gene editing tools such as CRISPR/Cas9 systems. Taken together, these advances will help develop safe and long‐term therapies for many brain diseases in human patients. (shrink)

Consider the conscious states of a single subject at a time. Arguably, split-brain cases show that such states need not be jointly accessible. It is less clear that these cases also show that such states need not be jointly experienced. Michael Tye (2004) argues split-brain cases do have that implication, and Timothy Bayne and David Chalmers (2003) argue that they do not. I will develop two objections to Tye’s arguments. First, an analogy to blindsight on which he relies is questionable. (...) Second, even if his analogy succeeds, it shows only that a single person can simultaneously have two separate sets of phenomenally conscious mental states. That result fails to undermine the phenomenalunity thesis that Bayne and Chalmers defend, on which phenomenal consciousness is necessarily unified. (shrink)

Ethical evaluation of deep brain stimulation as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease is complicated by results that can be described as involving changes in the patient’s identity. The risk of becoming another person following surgery is alarming for patients, caregivers and clinicians alike. It is one of the most urgent conceptual and ethical problems facing deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s disease at this time. In our paper we take issue with this problem on two accounts. First, we elucidate what is (...) meant by “becoming another person” from a conceptual point of view. After critically discussing two broad approaches we concentrate on the notion of “individual identity” which centers on the idea of “core attitudes”. Subsequently we discuss several approaches to determine what distinguishes core attitudes from those that are more peripheral. We argue for a “foundational-function model” highlighting the importance of specific dependency relations between these attitudes. Our second aim is to comment on the possibility to empirically measure changes in individual identity and argue that many of the instruments now commonly used in selecting and monitoring DBS-patients are inappropriate for this purpose. Future research in this area is advised combining a conceptual and an empirical approach as a basis of sound ethical appraisal. (shrink)

David Braine; III*—The Nature of Knowledge, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 72, Issue 1, 1 June 1972, Pages 41–64, https://doi.org/10.1093/arist.