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Cognitive Disorders and Lifestyle Change
Published in Gia Merlo, Kathy Berra, Lifestyle Nursing, 2023
Cognition utilizes the daily mental processes of thought to learn, form memories, and retrieve information that helps us in our daily lives. Cognition is an individual’s ability to learn new information, sustain focus and attention, problem solve and reason, maintain short- and long-term memory, and recall information (Cognitive Health and Older Adults, 2020). Cognitive function involves major processes, including receptive function, memory and learning, thinking, and expressive functions (Lezak et al., 2012). Receptive function allows one to select, acquire, classify, and examine information. Memory and learning relate to information storage and retrieval. Thinking involves information organization and reorganization. Thinking is complex and involves calculation, reasoning and judgment, organizing, planning, and problem solving. Thinking is a function of the entire brain. Expressive functions involve how information is communicated or acted upon. Expressive functions include speaking, physical gestures, facial expressions, writing, drawing, and manipulating. All of these systems work together. The brain navigates all the information it receives and decides what to do with it. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for decision making, complex thinking, and information analysis. The prefrontal cortex works along with the hippocampus and surrounding limbic structures such as the amygdala, allowing learning and memory formation. Basic cognitive processes include sensation, perception, attention, and memory.
Face Addiction
Published in Sandra Rasmussen, Developing Competencies for Recovery, 2023
According to the report, repeated use of alcohol, other drugs, or addicting behaviors “hijacks” the brain, changing the normal functions of brain circuits involved in pleasure (the reward systems), learning, stress, decision making, and self-control. Three main circuits in the brain are involved in addiction: the basal ganglia, extended amygdala, and prefrontal cortex. Use (intoxication) produces a surge of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the region of the brain called the basal ganglia and people feel pleasure. With repeated use, the brain associates the rewarding high with cues in the individual’s life: persons, places, and things. The extended amygdala controls our stress response. Withdrawal is the distress people experience when they are not using. Use is the only way “to spell relief.” The pre-frontal cortex governs decision-making, judgment, and impulse control. However, the prefrontal cortex is disrupted in individuals with addiction. Craving is the preoccupation with anticipation of reward from drinking, using, gambling, or other addictive behavior. Self-control is compromised; cues dominate, and people return to active addiction. This is relapse. The intensity of symptoms and progression vary; a person may go through the cycle over months, weeks, or several times a day. As the cycle continues, addiction severity increases with greater physical and psychological harm. See Figure 2.1 areas of the human brain that are especially important in addiction from Facing Addiction in America, pp. 2–5.
Acknowledging the intersubjective reality
Published in Antonella Sansone, Cultivating Mindfulness to Raise Children Who Thrive, 2020
The benefits of mindfulness extend to the wisdom-related abilities required by parenting. Mindfulness practice fosters reflective function, intra/interpersonal attunement, receptiveness, connection with the present moment, resonance (right-brain to right-brain communication), attentiveness and compassion, all abilities promoting attachment and fulfilling parenting (Siegel, 2007). Studies of secure attachment and mindful awareness practices have overlapping findings (Sroufe et al., 2005). In fact, both processes affect the prefrontal cortex and amygdala activity (emotional regulation) of the brain. This book aims to inform future preventive strategies to support the prenatal relationship and intersubjectivity, prevent psychological distress in the early postnatal period and birth complications and promote infant and child well-being.
Tending to painful sex: applying the neuroscience of trauma and anxiety using mindfulness and somatic embodiment in working with genito-pelvic pain and penetration disorders
Published in Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 2023
Information enters the brain at the thalamus (van der Kolk, 2014) which in turn signals the limbic system, the oldest known part of the brain and the location of the amygdala and hippocampus. The information then makes its way to the mid-prefrontal cortex. The amygdala, according to van der Kolk (2014) operates as a smoke detector, associating emotion with memory and stored in the hippocampus. When the amygdala senses danger, it signals the hypothalamus, activating the autonomic nervous system (ANS) comprised of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which in turn, may activate physiological fight, flight, or freeze (immobilisation) responses (Field et al., 2016; Porges, 2009; Rothschild, 2017) and are thought to be responsible for reflexive autonomic contractions of the pelvic floor muscles, contributing to painful sexual penetration (Spoelstra et al., 2019). The mid-prefrontal cortex, operates as a ‘watchtower’ (van der Kolk, 2014) receiving the information to determine ‘safety’ or ‘oncoming threat’. This would intercept the signal sent by the limbic system to the hypothalamus, restoring the body to a regular state (Field et al., 2016; van der Kolk, 2014). Kahneman (2011) describes this double-tier system as System 1 (bottom up), a rapid processing of the brain, and System 2 (top down), a more advanced and slower moving system.
Effects of current smoking severity on brain gray matter volume in opioid use disorder – a voxel-based morphometry study
Published in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 2023
Zhenhao Shi, Xinyi Li, Juliana I. Byanyima, Charles P. O’Brien, Anna Rose Childress, Kevin G. Lynch, James Loughead, Corinde E. Wiers, Daniel D. Langleben
The prefrontal cortex is involved in a myriad of higher-order cognitive processes, and disruption of normal prefrontal functioning in individuals with substance use disorders is associated with impairments in executive functioning, decision making, and incentive salience attribution (28). GMV, as measured by sMRI, is a robust marker of brain structural integrity and has been linked to neurocognitive functioning and behavioral outcomes (29). Meta-analysis of healthy adults showed that prefrontal GMV is positively associated with executive functioning (30). Among OUD patients, lower prefrontal GMV was linked to weaker impulse control (11). Here, we found lower dorsolateral prefrontal GMV in CS-OUD than CS individuals with comparable smoking severity, suggesting an independent OUD contribution to prefrontal structural abnormality.
Acute improvement in the attention network with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in Parkinson’s disease
Published in Disability and Rehabilitation, 2022
Wei Wei, Xingyang Yi, Zexiu Wu, Jianghai Ruan, Hua Luo, Xiaodong Duan
In our study, regarding the ANT, although the RT on almost every subtask was reduced, the improvements in the three attention networks by rTMS were not identical. The reduction in RT under the incongruent condition was greater than that under the congruent condition. Therefore, the RTs based on the executive control network were significantly reduced. The ANT is a useful test for evaluating the executive control network by assessing elapsed time differences between tasks involving congruent and incongruent targets [70]. The executive control network is related to addressing conflict produced by different stimuli [5]. This network is impaired in PD probably because the executive control network is modulated by dopamine [71], and there is abnormal activation in frontoparietal and dorsal attention networks during executive challenges in PD [14]. The prefrontal cortex prompts more effective responses to conflicting stimuli and coordinates the executive control network [72]. The prefrontal cortex is a common anatomical region shared by the executive control network and executive functions. However, although rTMS showed a selective effect on executive functions as assessed by the neuropsychological tests mentioned above, the ANT data showed definite effects of rTMS on the executive control network.