W11sMYNOTES

Discussion Board 11 Schizophrenia and the world-brain problem Social disconnection • Brain, body, and world input confusion • Genetic factors: family - Not clear on the exact markers • Biological, developmental(18-25 years old-outbreak) and environmental factors • “deafferentiated” from environment - Dominated by internal content, like clinical depression - “ Loss of common sense ” Sensory overload • Developmental: 14-18: massive brain reorganization • Neuronal excitation-inhibition - Pyramidal neurons: glutamate - Interneurons : GABA: inhibition (and abnormalities in schizophrenia) - DLPFC: Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: reduced(deficit) GABA and altered interneurons - Could explain sensory intensity and overload: lack of neuronal filtering or inhibition - New York City or Montreal analogy: dams, wells and canals=neuronal inhibition-excitation navigation and balance Cont’d: Andrew • Andrew: severe or complete breakdown of the neuronal dams, wells and canals in the sensory cortices. - Breakdown of input differentiation: body, brain and environment - World-brain relation: boundaries - Overloaded or overflooded resting-state Delusions, voices, and novel identity • Delusions : attribution of abnormal meanings to environment(e.g., people’s eyes) - “Messages to leave Cambridge; teach mathematics” - Mostly negative and persecutory - Related to oneself and as away of making sense - “ voices ”: violent if ignored - resting-state activity abnormally high in auditory cortex - No external input necessary to be high • Internal-external input lopsided - External downplayed - Resting-state: high internal variability Additional symptoms: - racing, confused and chaotic thoughts - “thought disorder” - Overwhelming abundance • “Ego or identity disturbance”: alternative identity: the son of Albert Einstein - “Confusion about what is world and what is self; what is inside and what is outside” - A compensatory strategy to make sense of the world Estrangement of the self from the world • Kraeplin: “disunity of consciousness; destruction of the inner coherence of personality; orchestra without conductor” • Bleuler: “disorder of the personality by splitting, dissociation…where the I is never intact.” • Jaspers: “intra-psychic ataxia [IMBALENCE OF THE PSYCHIC WORLD]” or paralysis; “fragmentation of consciousness”- of self • Parnas: pre-reflective self-awareness is missing; the inner and immediate sense of self is missing or delayed

• Sass: ”disorder of self-affectivity”: the typical feeling of oneself is out of place “diminished self-affection”: the self is no longer affected by its own experiences, hence it stands apart from the world - Loss of intuitive sense of self - A phenomenological gulf between the world and the self - One’s own sense of self almost objective or mechanical in its experience and perception of the world - Self becomes alienated from the world Resting state • Healthy: ongoing activity changes or variability • Functional connectivity: overly synchronized in a CMS, PCC and precuneus - Higher f-hyperconnectivity= severe auditory delusions and hallucinations - Hence decreased variability in resting-state - Abnormal activity from anterior to posterior CMS- cortical mid-line structures and insula Cont’d • Temporal fluctuations: dominant low frequency cycles: integration of stimuli that don’t belong together: delusions • Structural integration : hyper (tight) functional connectivity : inflexible to external stimuli • Rest-stimulus interaction is abnormal : RS no longer updated and modulated by the environment: the world-brain interaction suffers and lose connection to the world - Hence: the brain changes its activity devoid of timely external stimuli • Northoff’s position: resting state and its spatio-temporal structure (p. 169) Schizophrenia and our existence • Deeply embedded: adopting to and matching our environments - Schizophrenia=breakdown of world-brain relation - Self + embodiment= world-brain relation= our existence • World-brain relation= our existential and philosophical boundaries - The rest is speculative and delusional - Just like Andrew’s world is delusional - Disturbance of self – think they are someone else [alter ego / disturbance], or have auditory hallucination - William James