Reconsolidation: Turning consciousness into memory

Imagetic and affective measures of memory reverberation diverge at sleep onset in association with theta rhythm

The 'day residue' - the presence of waking memories into dreams - is a century-old concept that remains controversial in neuroscience. Even at the psychological level, it remains unclear how waking imagery cedes into dreams. Are visual and affective residues enhanced, modified, or erased at sleep onset? Are they linked, or dissociated? What are the neural correlates of these transformations? To address these questions we combined quantitative semantics, sleep EEG markers, visual stimulation, and multiple awakenings to investigate visual and affect residues in hypnagogic imagery at sleep onset. Healthy adults were repeatedly stimulated with an affective image, allowed to sleep and awoken seconds to minutes later, during waking (WK), N1 or N2 sleep stages. 'Image Residue' was objectively defined as the formal semantic similarity between oral reports describing the last image visualized before closing the eyes ('ground image'), and oral reports of subsequent visual imagery ('hypnagogic imagery). Similarly, 'Affect Residue' measured the proximity of affective valences between 'ground image' and 'hypnagogic imagery'. We then compared these grounded measures of two distinct aspects of the 'day residue', calculated within participants, to randomly generated values calculated across participants. The results show that Image Residue persisted throughout the transition to sleep, increasing during N1 in proportion to the time spent in this stage. In contrast, the Affect Residue was gradually neutralized as sleep progressed, decreasing in proportion to the time spent in N1 and reaching a minimum during N2. EEG power in the theta band (4.5-6.5 Hz) was inversely correlated with the Image Residue during N1. The results show that the visual and affective aspects of the 'day residue' in hypnagogic imagery diverge at sleep onset, possibly decoupling visual contents from strong negative emotions, in association with increased theta rhythm.

The Power of Stories

Stories hold an important role in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Their power derives in part from the fact that humans are biologically programmed for storytelling. Stories foster connection with others, socialization, and identity formation. They are integral to all psychoanalytic theories of therapeutic action, and their telling is therapeutic in itself. Psychoanalytic theoretical paradigms can be considered stories, as well. A positive outcome of analytic treatment has the individual emerging with an open-ended story that encompasses past, present, and future. Finally, an autobiographical example demonstrates how shared stories consolidate group identities, uphold and perpetuate a group's power over others, and perpetuate racial and ethnic stereotypes.

"Project for a Spatiotemporal Neuroscience" - Brain and Psyche Share Their Topography and Dynamic

What kind of neuroscience does psychoanalysis require? At his time, Freud in his "Project for a Scientific Psychology" searched for a model of the brain that could relate to incorporate the psyche's topography and dynamic. Current neuropsychoanalysis builds on specific functions as investigated in Affective and Cognitive (and Social) Neuroscience including embodied approaches. The brain's various functions are often converged with prediction as operationalized in predictive coding (PC) and free energy principle (FEP) which, recently, have been conceived as core for a "New Project for Scientific Psychology." We propose to search for a yet more comprehensive and holistic neuroscience that focuses primarily on its topography and dynamic analogous to Freud's model of the psyche. This leads us to what we describe as "Spatiotemporal Neuroscience" that focuses on the spatial topography and temporal dynamic of the brain's neural activity including how they shape affective, cognitive, and social functions including PC and FEP (first part). That is illustrated by the temporally and spatially nested neural hierarchy of the self in the brain's neural activity (second and third part). This sets the ground for developing our proposed "Project for a Spatiotemporal Neuroscience," which complements and extends both Freud's and Solms' projects (fourth part) and also carries major practical implications as it lays the ground for a novel form of neuroscientifically informed psychotherapy, namely, "Spatiotemporal Psychotherapy." In conclusion, "Spatiotemporal Neuroscience" provides an intimate link of brain and psyche by showing topography and dynamic as their shared features, that is, "common currency."

The Embodied-Enactive-Interactive Brain: Bridging Neuroscience and Creative Arts Therapies

The recognition and incorporation of evidence-based neuroscientific concepts into creative arts therapeutic knowledge and practice seem valuable and advantageous for the purpose of integration and professional development. Moreover, exhilarating insights from the field of neuroscience coincide with the nature, conceptualization, goals, and methods of Creative Arts Therapies (CATs), enabling comprehensive understandings of the clinical landscape, from a translational perspective. This paper contextualizes and discusses dynamic brain functions that have been suggested to lie at the heart of intra- and inter-personal processes. Touching upon fundamental aspects of the self and self-other interaction, the state-of-the-art neuroscientific-informed views will shed light on mechanisms of the embodied, predictive and relational brain. The conceptual analysis introduces and interweaves the following contemporary perspectives of brain function: firstly, the grounding of mental activity in the lived, bodily experience will be delineated; secondly, the enactive account of internal models, or generative predictive representations, shaped by experience, will be defined and extensively deliberated; and thirdly, the interpersonal simulation and synchronization mechanisms that support empathy and mentalization will be thoroughly considered. Throughout the paper, the cross-talks between the brain and the body, within the brain through functionally connected neural networks and in the context of agent-environment dynamics, will be addressed. These communicative patterns will be elaborated on to unfold psychophysiological linkage, as well as psychopathological shifts, concluding with the neuroplastic change associated with the formulation of CATs. The manuscript suggests an integrative view of the brain-body-mind in contexts relevant to the therapeutic potential of the expressive creative arts and the main avenues by which neuroscience may ground, enlighten and enrich the clinical psychotherapeutic practice.

The Hard Problem of Consciousness and the Free Energy Principle

This article applies the free energy principle to the hard problem of consciousness. After clarifying some philosophical issues concerning functionalism, it identifies the elemental form of consciousness as affect and locates its physiological mechanism (an extended form of homeostasis) in the upper brainstem. This mechanism is then formalized in terms of free energy minimization (in unpredicted contexts) where decreases and increases in expected uncertainty are felt as pleasure and unpleasure, respectively. Emphasis is placed on the reasons why such existential imperatives feel like something to and for an organism.

How Memory Structures Influence Distress and Recovery

The treatment of emotional distress has stalled. There has been no improvement in depression outcomes for 30 years, and recent opinions have highlighted the lack of clear validity for the mechanisms involved in current models of complex psychological interventions. Emotional distress is a phenomenon that underpins a swathe of apparently diverse mental health conditions. Childhood trauma has been found to be endemic and common in those with poor psychological adjustment in adults. Executive processes cause a split between knowledge of an event and knowledge of its negative ongoing emotional effects so making integration of the memory of such events and resolution of its effects is a challenge. Recent research into the relationship between well-being and memory structures has converged with research into episodic memories and their key role in goal programming, giving an opportunity to describe a new model with plausible mechanisms for emotional distress, regulation, resilience, and recovery. Humans seek goals that fulfil their universal basic psychological need for self-determination, and the structures of memory networks drive behavioral algorithms that can satisfy or thwart that goal. We propose that a single underlying deficit in memory networks could underpin the psychopathology of emotional distress and that a new formulation of distress and recovery could drive a useful update on the mechanisms of psychological interventions with greater validity and utility for recovery and propose the NEMESIS (Negative MEmorieS Integration Systems) model.