Neurodualism: People Assume that the Brain Affects the Mind more than the Mind Affects the Brain

Valtonen, J., Ahn, W., & Cimpian, A.

Cognitive Science

Abstract

People commonly think of the mind and the brain as distinct entities that interact, a view known as dualism.  At the same time, the public widely acknowledges that science attributes all mental phenomena to the workings of a material brain, a view at odds with dualism. How do people reconcile these conflicting perspectives? We propose that people distort claims about the brain from the wider culture to fit their dualist belief that minds and brains are distinct, interacting entities: Exposure to cultural discourse about the brain as the physical basis for the mind prompts people to posit that mind–brain interactions are asymmetric, such that the brain is able to affect the mind more than vice versa. We term this hybrid intuitive theory neurodualism. Five studies involving both thought experiments and naturalistic scenarios provided evidence of neurodualism among laypeople and, to some extent, even practicing psychotherapists. For example, lay participants reported that “a change in a person’s brain” is accompanied by “a change in the person’s mind” more often than vice versa. Similarly, when asked to imagine that “future scientists were able to alter exactly 25% of a person’s brain,” participants reported larger corresponding changes in the person’s mind than in the opposite direction. Participants also showed a similarly asymmetric pattern favoring the brain over the mind in naturalistic scenarios.  By uncovering people’s intuitive theories of the mind–brain relation, the results provide insights into societal phenomena such as the allure of neuroscience and common misperceptions of mental health treatments.

From the General Discussion

In all experiments and across several different tasks involving both thought experiments and naturalistic scenarios, untrained participants believed that interventions acting on the brain would affect the mind more than interventions acting on the mind would affect the brain, supporting our proposal. This causal asymmetry was strong and replicated reliably with untrained participants. Moreover, the extent to which participants endorsed popular dualism was only weakly correlated with their endorsement of neurodualism, supporting our proposal that a more complex set of beliefs is involved. In the last study, professional psychotherapists also showed evidence of endorsing neurodualism—albeit to a weaker degree—despite their scientific training and their stronger reluctance, relative to lay participants, to believe that psychiatric medications affect the mind.

Our results both corroborate and extend prior findings regarding intuitive reasoning about minds and brains. Our results corroborate prior findings by showing, once again, that both lay people and trained mental health professionals commonly hold dualistic beliefs. If their reasoning had been based on (folk versions of) a physicalist model such as identity theory or supervenience, participants should not have expected mental events to occur in the absence of neural events. However, both lay participants and professional psychotherapists did consistently report that mental changes can occur (at least sometimes) even in situations in which no neural changes occur. (Underline inserted for emphasis.)

A pdf is here.

What does it take to be a brain disorder?

Anneli Jefferson
Synthese (2018).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1784-x

Abstract

In this paper, I address the question whether mental disorders should be understood to be brain disorders and what conditions need to be met for a disorder to be rightly described as a brain disorder. I defend the view that mental disorders are autonomous and that a condition can be a mental disorder without at the same time being a brain disorder. I then show the consequences of this view. The most important of these is that brain differences underlying mental disorders derive their status as disordered from the fact that they realize mental dysfunction and are therefore non-autonomous or dependent on the level of the mental. I defend this view of brain disorders against the objection that only conditions whose pathological character can be identified independently of the mental level of description count as brain disorders. The understanding of brain disorders I propose requires a certain amount of conceptual revision and is at odds with approaches which take the notion of brain disorder to be fundamental or look to neuroscience to provide us with a purely physiological understanding of mental illness. It also entails a pluralistic understanding of psychiatric illness, according to which a condition can be both a mental disorder and a brain disorder.

The research is here.

Effects of biological explanations for mental disorders on clinicians’ empathy

By Matthew S. Lebowitz and Woo-kyoung Ahn
Effects of biological explanations for mental disorders on clinicians’ empathy
PNAS 2014 : 1414058111v1-201414058

Abstract

Mental disorders are increasingly understood in terms of biological mechanisms. We examined how such biological explanations of patients’ symptoms would affect mental health clinicians’ empathy—a crucial component of the relationship between treatment-providers and patients—as well as their clinical judgments and recommendations. In a series of studies, US clinicians read descriptions of potential patients whose symptoms were explained using either biological or psychosocial information. Biological explanations have been thought to make patients appear less accountable for their disorders, which could increase clinicians’ empathy. To the contrary, biological explanations evoked significantly less empathy. These results are consistent with other research and theory that has suggested that biological accounts of psychopathology can exacerbate perceptions of patients as abnormal, distinct from the rest of the population, meriting social exclusion, and even less than fully human. Although the ongoing shift toward biomedical conceptualizations has many benefits, our results reveal unintended negative consequences.

Significance

Mental disorders are increasingly understood biologically. We tested the effects of biological explanations among mental health clinicians, specifically examining their empathy toward patients. Conventional wisdom suggests that biological explanations reduce perceived blameworthiness against those with mental disorders, which could increase empathy. Yet, conceptualizing mental disorders biologically can cast patients as physiologically different from “normal” people and as governed by genetic or neurochemical abnormalities instead of their own human agency, which can engender negative social attitudes and dehumanization. This suggests that biological explanations might actually decrease empathy. Indeed, we find that biological explanations significantly reduce clinicians’ empathy. This is alarming because clinicians’ empathy is important for the therapeutic alliance between mental health providers and patients and significantly predicts positive clinical outcomes.

The entire article is here.

Medicine's big new battleground: does mental illness really exist?

The latest edition of DSM, the influential American dictionary of psychiatry, says that shyness in children, depression after bereavement, even internet addiction can be classified as mental disorders. It has provoked a professional backlash, with some questioning the alleged role of vested interests in diagnosis

By Jaime Doward
The Observer
Originally published May 11, 2013

It has the distinctly uncatchy, abbreviated title DSM-5, and is known to no one outside the world of mental health.

But, even before its publication a week on Wednesday, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, psychiatry's dictionary of disorders, has triggered a bitter row that stretches across the Atlantic and has fuelled a profound debate about how modern society should treat mental disturbance.

Critics claim that the American Psychiatric Association's increasingly voluminous manual will see millions of people unnecessarily categorised as having psychiatric disorders. For example, shyness in children, temper tantrums and depression following the death of a loved one could become medical problems, treatable with drugs. So could internet addiction.

Inevitably such claims have given ammunition to psychiatry's critics, who believe that many of the conditions are simply inventions dreamed up for the benefit of pharmaceutical giants.

A disturbing picture emerges of mutual vested interests, of a psychiatric industry in cahoots with big pharma. As the writer, Jon Ronson, only half-joked in a recent TED talk: "Is it possible that the psychiatric profession has a strong desire to label things that are essential human behaviour as a disorder?"

Psychiatry's supporters retort that such suggestions are clumsy, misguided and unhelpful, and complain that the much-hyped publication of the manual has become an excuse to reheat tired arguments to attack their profession.

The entire article is here.

Prevalence and Risk Factors Associated With Suicides of Army Soldiers 2001-2009

By Sandra A. Black, M. S. Gallaway, M. R. Bell & E. C. Ritchie
Military Psychology (vol. 23, #4), pp. 433-451

Contemporary research on suicide in the general population has shown that biological, psychosocial, and environmental factors interact to influence suicide-related deaths each year (Brown, 2006; Ellis, 2007; Leenaars, 2008; Lester, 2004; Lester, 2008; Schneidman, 1996). Research on biological risk factors suggests that genetic vulnerability to mental disorders, serotonin insufficiency, and serious physical illness or injury are particularly linked to suicide-related deaths (Heeringen, 2001; Mann, 2002; Mann, 2003; Moscicki, 2001; Roy, Rylander, & Sarchiapone, 1997). Similarly, research on psychological risk factors has also linked mood, anxiety, and personality-related disorders, as well as alcohol and substance disorders, with suicide-related deaths (Conner, Duberstein, Conwell, Seidlitz, & Caine, 2001; Harris & Barraclough, 1997; Nock et al., 2009; Simon, 2006), while other research has linked suicidal behavior with hopelessness, impulsivity, aggression, a history of trauma or abuse, and any previous suicide attempt (Beck, Brown, Berchick, & Stewart, 1990; Brown, 2006; Brown, Jeglic, Henriques, & Beck, 2006; Linehan, 1993; Martin, Ghahramanlou-Holloway, Lou, & Tucciarone; 2009; Schneidman, 1996).

Research on sociocultural risk factors suggests that race/ethnicity, marital status, lack of social support, a sense of isolation or not belonging, social losses, financial difficulties, stigma associated with help-seeking, and suicide as a noble or acceptable resolution of a personal dilemma associated with cultural or religious beliefs are correlated with suicide-related deaths (Clarke, Bannon, & Denihan, 2003; Kerkhof & Arensman, 2001; Kolves, Ide, & De Leo, 2010; Kposowa, 2000; Leenaars, 2008; Lester, 2008; Mann et al., 2005; Sartorius, 2007). Moreover, research on environmental risk factors indicates that access to lethal weapons and barriers to health care contribute to suicide-related deaths (Martin et al., 2009; Simon, 2006). Studies on the prevalence and risk factors associated with suicide-related deaths in military personnel have reported similar results. Specifically, mental disorders, substance abuse, physical illness, stigma, family separation, occupational difficulties, and relationship losses have been linked to suicide-related deaths among military personnel (Cox, Edison, Stewart, Dorson, & Ritchie, 2006; Ritchie, Keppler, & Rothberg, 2003).

This research has advanced our understanding of the prevalence and correlates of suicide-related deaths among military personnel. However, it is worth noting that little of this research has examined specific risk factors in relation to trends in Army suicides, particularly over the past decade, that is, 2001-2009. Examining the prevalence and risk factors associated with suicide-related deaths among Army personnel is particularly important given increasing operational demands associated with ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, research indicates that stress associated with deployment, combat intensity, and the potential shame of failure or weakness--all of which are known to increase the risk for mood disorders, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance-related disorders--have been linked to suicide-related deaths among military personnel (Allen, Cross, & Swanner, 2005; Bodner, Ben-Artzi, & Kaplan, 2006; Hill, Johnson, & Barton, 2006; Hoge et al., 2008; Rand Center for Military Health Policy Research, 2008). Moreover, it is worth noting that many of these risk factors may be accompanied by increased availability of firearms within the military as compared to civilian society (Marzuk et al., 1992).

Additionally, certain risk factors may differentially impact military personnel. For example, the loss of friends, particularly those assigned to the same unit, can have a deep impact, whether in combat or not (Kang & Bullman, 2008). Stress may be greater in the Army population because of increased dependence on social support provided by friends and coworkers in the military environment (Mahon, Tobin, Cusack, Kelleher, & Malone, 2005). Externalized psychopathology (drug and particularly alcohol abuse or dependence) may be more evident in the military due to greater cultural acceptability of these behaviors (Hills, Afifi, Cox, Bienvenu, & Sareen, 2009). Stigma associated with help-seeking behavior or treatment may also be more prevalent in the military, because mental illness is often viewed as a manifestation of weakness or malingering, as well as a threat to one's career (Hoge et al., 2008; Rand Center, 2008).

This is only the beginning of the article.

Thanks to Ken Pope for this information.