Neuroscience and Psychopathology

Gallese, Vittorio

doi:10.1159/000366493

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Gallese (2014) calls for closer coordination between psychiatry and cognitive neuroscience in evaluating the cause and treatment of psychopathology, lamenting that psychiatry has been neglecting the experiential or first-person experience of the patient lately, instead “there is an over-focus on reliability (operational concepts).” Although Gallese is addressing both cognitive neuroscience and psychiatry specifically in this editorial, he defines psychopathology as stated by Jaspers (1997) to be a “disturbance of mental phenomena (Hoenig and Hamilton translation, 1997),” a definition certainly acceptable to any discipline studying and treating the many types of “disturbance” reflected psychologically in subjective and relational experience, psychophysical expression, or behavior. Gallese insists that it is imperative that researchers and clinicians work together with more purposeful and direct collaboration regarding the study, comprehension, and delineation of psychopathology, especially from the patients' experiential perspective (Gallese, 2014). This review is meant to serve as a paving stone in the development of a road connecting disciplines, leading to greater integration of psychotherapeutic process gleaned from the hours clinicians have lived with patients with neuroscience research supporting that explores basic life processes such as interoception may lead to psychopathology.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing Our Insular World View: Interoception and Psychopathology for Psychotherapists

Duquette¹

2017

Front. Neurosci.

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Interoception has been determined to be an elemental aspect of the neural foundations of physiological homeostasis, subjective experience, and motivated behavior. This paper reviews current neuroscience research regarding interoception and forms of interoceptive dysfunction that may result in psychopathology, focusing on depression, and anxiety, in a manner conducive to psychotherapists engaging with it to consider clinical applications. Pertinent aspects of interoceptive system processes in relation to psychopathology are addressed: Functional interoceptive ability and the forms of its expression, the difficulty of accurate measurement of such within an individual or group, interoceptive inference processes and perturbations. Predictive coding, considered in this context as interoceptive inference, a process that integrates bottom-up and top down lines of neural information emerging from the multitude of bidirectional, anatomically hierarchical connections the insular cortex makes with other cortical, and subcortical structures, will be addressed regarding its place in psychopathological formulations. Clinical vignettes will elucidate how interoceptive disturbances might present in the therapeutic relationship, supporting the evaluation and application of scientific theory, and research findings by psychotherapists. The clinical implications of this neuroscientific research have received little attention in the psychotherapeutic setting. Increasing the knowledge base of psychotherapists and furthering awareness of the functional interactions of body and brain toward the creation of healthy and psychopathological experience benefits the patient. There is immediate need for the translational expression of scientific findings into the psychological evaluation of patients, therapeutic process, and treatment. While it may seem distant and unrelated to the affective processes that occur within the psychotherapeutic exchange, neuroscience adds a unique perspective from which to observe and live such experience for the therapist and patient. With the therapeutic relationship as the backdrop, a scientific perspective will support psychotherapists' comprehension of their patients' experience and the process of change, either through direct information, or the development of different perspectives from which to observe and interact with their patients. This paper will serve not only as a guide for psychotherapists concerning this expanding knowledge base, but also a source for neuroscience researchers intent on formulating research protocols that could produce clinical benefit.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%