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57EEG-Guided Meditation: A Personalized Approach.Journal of Physiology-Paris 109 (4-6): 180-190. 2015.The therapeutic potential of meditation for physical and mental well-being is well documented, however the possibility of adverse effects warrants further discussion of the suitability of any particular meditation practice for every given participant. This concern highlights the need for a personalized approach in the meditation practice adjusted for a concrete individual. This can be done by using an objective screening procedure that detects the weak and strong cognitive skills in brain functi…Read more
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75Persistent operational synchrony within brain default-mode network and self-processing operations in healthy subjectsBrain and Cognition 75 (2): 79-90. 2011.Based on the theoretical analysis of self-consciousness concepts, we hypothesized that the spatio-temporal pattern of functional connectivity within the default-mode network (DMN) should persist unchanged across a variety of different cognitive tasks or acts, thus being task-unrelated. This supposition is in contrast with current understanding that DMN activated when the subjects are resting and deactivated during any attention-demanding cognitive tasks. To test our proposal, we used, in retrosp…Read more
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227‘Is Our Brain Hardwired to Produce God, Or is Our BrainHardwired to Perceive GodCognitive Processing 10 (4): 293-326. 2009.To figure out whether the main empirical question “Is our brain hardwired to believe in and produce God, or is our brain hardwired to perceive and experience God?” is answered, this paper presents systematic critical review of the positions, arguments and controversies of each side of the neuroscientific-theological debate and puts forward an integral view where the human is seen as a psycho-somatic entity consisting of the multiple levels and dimensions of human existence (physical, biological,…Read more
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85Cortex functional connectivity as a neurophysiological correlate of hypnosis: An EEG case studyNeuropsychologia 45 (7): 14521462. 2007.Cortex functional connectivity associated with hypnosis was investigated in a single highly hypnotizable subject in a normal baseline condition and under neutral hypnosis during two sessions separated by a year. After the hypnotic induction, but without further suggestions as compared to the baseline condition, all studied parameters of local and remote functional connectivity were significantly changed. The significant differences between hypnosis and the baseline condition were observable (to …Read more
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77Present moment, past, and future: mental kaleidoscope.Frontiers Psychology 5 395. 2014.It is the every person's daily phenomenal experience that conscious states represent their contents as occurring now. Following Droege (2009) we could state that consciousness has a peculiar affinity for presence. Some researchers even argue that conscious awareness necessarily demands that mental content is somehow held “frozen” within a discrete progressive present moment. Thus, phenomenal content seems to be minimally conscious if it is integrated into a single and coherent model of reality d…Read more
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29Altered Structure of Dynamic Electroencephalogram Oscillatory Pattern in Major Depression.Biological Psychiatry 77 (12): 1050-1060. 2015.Research on electroencephalogram (EEG) characteristics associated with major depressive disorder (MDD) has accumulated diverse neurophysiologic findings related to the content, topography, neurochemistry, and functions of EEG oscillations. Significant progress has been made since the first landmark EEG study on affective disorders by Davidson 35 years ago. A systematic account of these data is important and necessary for building a consistent neuropsychophysiologic model of MDD and other affecti…Read more
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162Natural World Physical, Brain Operational, and Mind Phenomenal Space-TimePhysics of Life Reviews 7 (2): 195-249. 2010.Concepts of space and time are widely developed in physics. However, there is a considerable lack of biologically plausible theoretical frameworks that can demonstrate how space and time dimensions are implemented in the activity of the most complex life-system – the brain with a mind. Brain activity is organized both temporally and spatially, thus representing space-time in the brain. Critical analysis of recent research on the space-time organization of the brain’s activity pointed to the exis…Read more
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129Emergentist Monism, Biological Realism, Operations and Brain-Mind ProblemPhysics of Life Reviews 7 (2): 264-268. 2010.We would like to thank all the commentators who responded to our target review paper for their thought-provoking ideas and for their initially positive characterization of our theorizing. Our position provoked a broad range of reactions, from enthusiastic support to some kind of opposition. Regardless of the type of the response, one common factor appears to be the plausibility of a presented attempt to apply insights from physics, biology (neuroscience), and phenomenology of mind to form a unif…Read more
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48Trait lasting alteration of the brain default mode network in experienced meditators and the experiential selfhoodSelf and Identity 15 (4): 381-393. 2016.Based on the finding in novices that four months of meditation training significantly increases frontal default mode network (DMN) module/subnet synchrony while decreasing left and right posterior DMN modules synchrony, the current study tested the prediction whether experienced meditators (those who are practising meditation intensively for several years) had a change in the DMN “trinity” of modules as a baseline trait characteristic and whether this change is in a similar direction as in the n…Read more
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62Information Flow in the Brain: Ordered Sequences of Metastable StatesInformation 8 (1): 22. 2017.In this brief overview paper, we analyse information flow in the brain. Although Shannon’s information concept, in its pure algebraic form, has made a number of valuable contributions to neuroscience, information dynamics within the brain is not fully captured by its classical description. These additional dynamics consist of self-organisation, interplay of stability/instability, timing of sequential processing, coordination of multiple sequential streams, circular causality between bottom-up an…Read more
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98Timing in cognition and EEG brain dynamics: Discreteness versus continuityCognitive Processing 7 (3): 135-162. 2006.This article provides an overview of recent developments in solving the timing problem (discreteness vs. continuity) in cognitive neuroscience. Both theoretical and empirical studies have been considered, with an emphasis on the framework of Operational Architectonics (OA) of brain functioning (Fingelkurts and Fingelkurts, 2001, 2005). This framework explores the temporal structure of information flow and interarea interactions within the network of functional neuronal populations by examining t…Read more
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90Emerging from an unresponsive wakefulness syndrome: Brain plasticity has to cross a threshold levelNeuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 37 (10): 2721-2736. 2013.Unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS, previously known as vegetative state) occurs after patients survive a severe brain injury. Patients suffering from UWS have lost awareness of themselves and of the external environment and do not retain any trace of their subjective experience. Current data demonstrate that neuronal functions subtending consciousness are not completely reset in UWS; however, they are reduced below the threshold required to experience consciousness. The critical factor that…Read more
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91Mind as a nested operational architectonics of the brainPhysics of Life Reviews 9 (1): 49-50. 2012.The target paper of Dr. Feinberg is a testimony to an admirable scholarship and deep thoughtfulness. This paper develops a general theoretical framework of nested hierarchy in the brain that allows production of mind with consciousness. The difference between non-nested and nested hierarchies is the following. In a non-nested hierarchy the entities at higher levels of the hierarchy are physically independent from the entities at lower levels and there is strong constraint of higher upon lower le…Read more
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95DMN operational synchrony relates to self-consciousness: Evidence from patients in vegetative and minimally conscious statesOpen Neuroimaging Journal 6 55-68. 2012.The default mode network (DMN) has been consistently activated across a wide variety of self-related tasks, leading to a proposal of the DMN’s role in self-related processing. Indeed, there is limited fMRI evidence that the functional connectivity within the DMN may underlie a phenomenon referred to as self-awareness. At the same time, none of the known studies have explicitly investigated neuronal functional interactions among brain areas that comprise the DMN as a function of self-consciousnes…Read more
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129Prognostic Value of Resting-State EEG Structure in Disentangling Vegetative and Minimally Conscious States: A Preliminary StudyNeurorehabilitation and Neural Repair 27 (4): 345-354. 2013.Background: Patients in a vegetative state pose problems in diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. Currently, no prognostic markers predict the chance of recovery, which has serious consequences, especially in end-of-life decision-making. Objective: We aimed to assess an objective measurement of prognosis using advanced electroencephalography (EEG). Methods: EEG data (19 channels) were collected in 14 patients who were diagnosed to be persistently vegetative based on repeated clinical evaluation…Read more
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140Consciousness as a phenomenon in the operational architectonics of brain organization: Criticality and self-organization considerationsChaos, Solitons and Fractals 55 13-31. 2013.In this paper we aim to show that phenomenal consciousness is realized by a particular level of brain operational organization and that understanding human consciousness requires a description of the laws of the immediately underlying neural collective phenomena, the nested hierarchy of electromagnetic fields of brain activity – operational architectonics. We argue that the subjective mental reality and the objective neurobiological reality, although seemingly worlds apart, are intimately connec…Read more
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226Operational architectonics of the human brain biopotential field: Toward solving the mind-brain problemBrain and Mind 2 (3): 261-296. 2001.The understanding of the interrelationship between brain and mind remains far from clear. It is well established that the brain's capacity to integrate information from numerous sources forms the basis for cognitive abilities. However, the core unresolved question is how information about the "objective" physical entities of the external world can be integrated, and how unifiedand coherent mental states (or Gestalts) can be established in the internal entities of distributed neuronal systems. Th…Read more
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191EEG oscillatory states as neuro-phenomenology of consciousness as revealed from patients in vegetative and minimally conscious statesConsciousness and Cognition 21 (1): 149-169. 2012.The value of resting electroencephalogram (EEG) in revealing neural constitutes of consciousness (NCC) was examined. We quantified the dynamic repertoire, duration and oscillatory type of EEG microstates in eyes-closed rest in relation to the degree of expression of clinical self-consciousness. For NCC a model was suggested that contrasted normal, severely disturbed state of consciousness and state without consciousness. Patients with disorders of consciousness were used. Results suggested that …Read more
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78The value of spontaneous EEG oscillations in distinguishing patients in vegetative and minimally conscious statesIn Eror Basar & et all (eds.), Application of Brain Oscillations in Neuropsychiatric Diseases. Supplements to Clinical Neurophysiology, Elsevier. pp. 81-99. 2013.Objective: The value of spontaneous EEG oscillations in distinguishing patients in vegetative and minimally conscious states was studied. Methods: We quantified dynamic repertoire of EEG oscillations in resting condition with closed eyes in patients in vegetative and minimally conscious states (VS and MCS). The exact composition of EEG oscillations was assessed by the probability-classification analysis of short-term EEG spectral patterns. Results: The probability of delta, theta and slow-alpha …Read more
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70Long-term meditation training induced changes in the operational synchrony of default mode network modules during a resting state.Cognitive Processing 17 (1): 27-37. 2016.Using theoretical analysis of self-consciousness concept and experimental evidence on the brain default mode network (DMN) that constitutes the neural signature of self-referential processes, we hypothesized that the anterior and posterior subnets comprising the DMN should show differences in their integrity as a function of meditation training. Functional connectivity within DMN and its subnets (measured by operational synchrony) has been measured in ten novice meditators using an electroenceph…Read more
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108Toward operational architectonics of consciousness: basic evidence from patients with severe cerebral injuriesCognitive Processing 13 (2): 111-131. 2012.Although several studies propose that the integrity of neuronal assemblies may underlie a phenomenon referred to as awareness, none of the known studies have explicitly investigated dynamics and functional interactions among neuronal assemblies as a function of consciousness expression. In order to address this question EEG operational architectonics analysis (Fingelkurts and Fingelkurts, 2001, 2008) was conducted in patients in minimally conscious (MCS) and vegetative states (VS) to study the d…Read more
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69Long-lasting coma.Functional Neurology 29 (3): 201-205. 2014.In this report, we describe the case of a patient who has remained in a comatose state for more than one year after a traumatic and hypoxic brain injury. This state, which we refer to as long-lasting coma (LLC), may be a disorder of consciousness with significantly different features from those of conventional coma, the vegetative state, or brain death. On the basis of clinical, neurophysiological and neuroimaging data, we hypothesize that a multilevel involvement of the ascending reticular acti…Read more
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127“Machine” Consciousness and “Artificial” Thought: An Operational Architectonics Model Guided ApproachBrain Research 1428 80-92. 2012.Instead of using low-level neurophysiology mimicking and exploratory programming methods commonly used in the machine consciousness field, the hierarchical Operational Architectonics (OA) framework of brain and mind functioning proposes an alternative conceptual-theoretical framework as a new direction in the area of model-driven machine (robot) consciousness engineering. The unified brain-mind theoretical OA model explicitly captures (though in an informal way) the basic essence of brain functi…Read more
Andrew And Alexander Fingelkurts
BM-Science - Brain and Mind Technologies Research Centre
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BM-Science - Brain and Mind Technologies Research CentreOther
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