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NP 6(2):142-144 (2004)

Commentary on “Freud's Theory of Mind and Functional Imaging Experiments”

Author: Fred M. Levin MD

Abstract

It is my pleasure to comment upon an important contribution by Robert G. Shulman and Morton F. Reiser to the ongoing efforts to explore mind-brain relationships via neural imaging. The authors make quite a number of excellent points, but for discussion purposes I would like to concentrate upon their following arguments:

Experimental neural imaging for studying psychological variables is a complex methodology with assumptions that may not be correct and that may, through design flaws, oversimplify our views of both mind and brain.
Page 142
One way this comes about is by defining “rest” in brain without adequate consideration of the implications of this concept, since the brain is really never resting, and the brain's so-called baseline activity obviously provides for many functions, which include complex subjective mental states that tend to get ignored in any attempt to “simplify” the “tightly defined” experimental focus upon specific cognitive “tasks”.
A more broadened inquiry attempts to work around these oversimplifying assumptions and/or limitations and begin to create a more novel, thoughtful, and thorough-going approach that explores in depth the implications of the neuroscientific finding that a “high level of … specific brain activity [normally occurs] in the absence of external stimulation”—in other words, it serves many functions that are currently being ignored by neural imaging research.

We live in rapidly changing times within all fields, and this requires all of us to reflect on the potential errors in experimental design suggested by these authors in the areas of their expertise. We also need to have some humility for the fact that no one knows absolutely and exactly how information is coded within the brain, although Buzsaki and Draguhn (2004) have made a superb recent effort to summarize the coding (and other) roles of neuronal oscillations in cortical networks. Obviously, the system of brain-cell oscillation is what both uses up energy constantly and cooper

NP 6(2):142-144 (2004)

Commentary on “Freud's Theory of Mind and Functional Imaging Experiments”

Author: Fred M. Levin MD

Abstract

Experimental neural imaging for studying psychological variables is a complex methodology with assumptions that may not be correct and that may, through design flaws, oversimplify our views of both mind and brain.
Page 142
One way this comes about is by defining “rest” in brain without adequate consideration of the implications of this concept, since the brain is really never resting, and the brain's so-called baseline activity obviously provides for many functions, which include complex subjective mental states that tend to get ignored in any attempt to “simplify” the “tightly defined” experimental focus upon specific cognitive “tasks”.
A more broadened inquiry attempts to work around these oversimplifying assumptions and/or limitations and begin to create a more novel, thoughtful, and thorough-going approach that explores in depth the implications of the neuroscientific finding that a “high level of … specific brain activity [normally occurs] in the absence of external stimulation”—in other words, it serves many functions that are currently being ignored by neural imaging research.