Joao Pereira

This book explores the relationship between schizophrenia and common sense. It approaches this theme from a multidisciplinary perspective. Coverage features contributions from phenomenology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, psychology, and social cognition. The contributors address the following questions: How relevant is the loss of common sense in schizophrenia? How can the study of schizophrenia contribute to the study of common sense? How to understand and explain this loss of common sense? They also consider: What is the relationship of practical reasoning and logical formal reasoning with schizophrenia? What is the relationship between the person with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and social values? Chapters examine such issues as rationality, emotions, self, and delusion. In addition, one looks at brain structure and neurotransmission. Others explore phenomenological and Wittgensteinian theories. The book features papers from the Schizophrenia and Common Sense International Workshop, held at New University of Lisbon, November 2015. It offers new insights into this topic and will appeal to researchers, students, as well as interested general readers.

Introduction: The potential therapeutic efficacy of real-time fMRI Neurofeedback has received increasing attention in a variety of psychological and neurological disorders and as a tool to probe cognition. Despite its growing popularity, the success rate varies significantly, and the underlying neural mechanisms are still a matter of debate. The question whether an individually tailored framework positively influences neurofeedback success remains largely unexplored.Methods: To address this question, participants were trained to modulate the activity of a target brain region, the visual motion area hMT+/V5, based on the performance of three imagery tasks with increasing complexity: imagery of a static dot, imagery of a moving dot with two and with four opposite directions. Participants received auditory feedback in the form of vocalizations with either negative, neutral or positive valence. The modulation thresholds were defined for each participant according to the maximum BOLD signal change of their target region during the localizer run.Results: We found that 4 out of 10 participants were able to modulate brain activity in this region-of-interest during neurofeedback training. This rate of success is consistent with the neurofeedback literature. Whole-brain analysis revealed the recruitment of specific cortical regions involved in cognitive control, reward monitoring, and feedback processing during neurofeedback training. Individually tailored feedback thresholds did not correlate with the success level. We found region-dependent neuromodulation profiles associated with task complexity and feedback valence.Discussion: Findings support the strategic role of task complexity and feedback valence on the modulation of the network nodes involved in monitoring and feedback control, key variables in neurofeedback frameworks optimization. Considering the elaborate design, the small sample size here tested impairs external validity in comparison to our previous studies. Future work will address this limitation. Ultimately, our results contribute to the discussion of individually tailored solutions, and justify further investigation concerning volitional control over brain activity.

Schizophrenia is usually described as a fragmentation of subjective experience and the impossibility to engage in meaningful cultural and intersubjective practices. Although the term schizophrenia is less than 100 years old, madness is generally believed to have accompanied mankind through its historical and cultural ontogeny. What does it mean to be “mad”? The failure to adopt social practices or to internalize cultural values of common sense? Despite the vast amount of literature and research, it seems that the study of schizophrenia and of the psychoses is suffering from a generic disintegration. In this introduction, we offer an historical overview of the variety of theories and approaches to schizophrenia. We also provide an overview of how the authors in this volume attempt an integrative account where training, practice, theory and research are considered as parts of a larger whole. This is a varied and pluralistic volume, and it is up to the readers to make use of different chapters according to their own needs.

O enfoque principal deste artigo é a relação da ética com a vivência e a prática religiosas. A presença de uma ética não se restringe ao vasto campo da tradição semítica ou religiões proféticas, mas se entende também às raízes da religiosidade mística e sapiencial. O texto tem como um dos principais objetivos aprofundar a compreensão dessa relação, seja nos códigos e normas das diversas religiões, como também na prática religiosa das comunidades. A ética ocupa um lugar fundamental como ciência do ethos. Fazem parte ainda desse estudo algumas distinções terminológicas e semânticas dos termos ética e moral. Dentro do universo religioso, o lugar fundamental da ética será pesquisado através da racionalidade dos valores morais das principais religiões do planeta. Palavras-chave: Filosofia; Ética; Moral; Religião; Antropologia. ABSTRACT This article focuses on the relation between ethics and religious practice and experience. The presence of ethics is not restricted to the wide scope of Semitic tradition or prophetic religions, but reaches the roots of mystical and sapient religiosity. The text aims at understanding that relation in depth, in what concerns the codes and norms of various religions, as well as the religious practice of communities. Ethics plays a fundamental role as a science of ethos. The article also comprises some terminological and semantic distinctions between the terms ‘ethics’ and ‘morals’. Within the religious universe, the fundamental place of ethics is investigated through the rationality of moral values of the main world religions. Key words: Philosophy; Ethics; Morals; Religion; Anthropology