A neural network model for transference and repetition compulsion based on pattern completion

A Theory of Everything: Overlapping Neurobiological Mechanisms of Psychotherapies of Fear and Anxiety Related Disorders

Similarities within the phenomenology, neurobiology, psychotherapeutic, and pharmacological treatments of distinctly categorized anxiety and fear related disorders suggest the involvement of common neurobiological mechanisms in their formation. This theory of integration is the focus of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) approach initiated by the NIH. The current article explores potential facets of overlap among mainstream methods of psychotherapy for anxiety, fear, and trauma related disorders. These overlaps include associative learning of safety, cognitive reappraisal and emotion regulation, therapist as a social safety cue, and contextualization. Temporal contextualization and placing memories in their time and place will be suggested as a potentially important, and less explored aspect of psychotherapy.

Emotions and cognitions: a critique of the dichotomous view of mental function

Many approaches to the psyche, models of therapy, and neuroscience tend to view emotional and cognitive brain functions as separate entities. Such a focus on one of these two aspects of mental function, at times comes at the expense of ignoring the other. In this paper emotions and cognitions, along with perceptions and other elements of the internal and external contexts, are viewed as relevant vectors in a matrix of information. Through the processes of pattern completion and noise reduction, information in each of these vectors may evoke memories in the same or other vectors that are used in the formation of a subjective understanding of each experience. The important roles of the external (physical, temporal, relevant events, etc.) and internal (emotional, affective, hormonal, medications, etc.) contexts in the formation of such subjective experiences will be discussed. The use of this view in broader and more comprehensive psychotherapeutic approaches and combined pharmacological and psychological treatment is explored.

A neural network model for schemas based on pattern completion

Abstract Recent developments in neuroscience have provided us with a wealth of the basic knowledge and tools which are required for neurobiological understanding of the psychological concepts. This advantage enables contemporary scientists to suggest and test brain models for psychological concepts, theories, and methods. Considering the current dominance of biological ideas in psychiatry and psychology, such models are essential in confirmation of the psychological theories of mind. In this article a brain model for schemas as essential to cognitive theory is proposed. Schemas are seen as patterns which are recognized and memorized through the training phase of an autoassociative neural network. Then, these patterns are used to complete ambiguous aspects of future experiences through thalamo and hippocampal-cortical pathways. In relation to the self or the outside world when a pattern with unknown, noisy, or vague aspects is encountered, those aspects are completed by the principal components of previously learned patterns (schema). This process is to help the observer acquire a better understanding of the environment or the self. However, the patterns which are used to complete the uncertainties about the self or the environment are sometimes not good estimates of the reality and lead the person/patient to an illusionary perception of the self/environment. In this article, the role of the mirror neuron system in pattern recognition is also explained. Psychological and biological therapeutic implications of this model are discussed and the importance of a link between dynamic and cognitive therapies is rationalized.