Mental body, a clinical expression of the mind Summary: The author presents the "mental body" as an alternative hypothesis for the approach of the mind. At present the mind is seen as a particular set of functions performed by the brain. This model seems to give the mind a notion compatible with the organism as a whole.

Using the method as neurological examination, we demonstrate the existence of a "mental body", which is shown in many clinical situations such as in hysteria, hypnosis, in narcolepsy, the phantom limb and called out of body experiences.

This way of studying the mind from the perspective of a body that identifies semiology can open a vast field of experimentation, and interpretation of both psychological and neurological phenomena. 

Introduction 

The math tells us that the elements of a set cannot explain the entire nature of this set. The concept of the whole escapes that each party alone can represent (1.2 Bertrand Russell). Considering the brain neurons as elements of a set which is assumed to contain the mind, we question whether it is possible a thorough understanding of the concept of mind based on the functions of neurons. This question allows us, at least theoretically, put the mind as lying, both outside and within the set of brain neurons. 

Moreover, new theories (Ilya Prigogine in Del Nero 3), suggest that "systems of high complexity" have the capacity to organize themselves. The nervous system in addition to their physical structure, can be seen as a highly complex biosystem, endowed with specific properties and peculiarities of living beings. A "theory of mind" in April, taken as monistic, materialistic and "emerging", identifies the "mental states" as a distinct subset of the "brain states" that are clearly of a physical nature, and that would, in turn, a subset of states of the nervous system. According to this theory, the activities of neurons in your trading electrochemical produce a new quality of phenomena "emerge" as a mental function, similar to the order which results in systems of high complexity. 

The various theories of mind four currently available cannot, however, with good chances of passing theoretic framework, without which they can realize a whole range of phenomena known that mental activity expresses. No theory has yet managed to make specific predictions about the mental phenomena, much less assured us the opportunity to test it in clinical or laboratory. 

      Objective and method          

It is precisely the possibility of testing the hypothesis both in terms of clinical and laboratory, I am suggesting the concept of "mental body" instead of the mind. I present several situations where the neurological examination can confirm this hypothesis as consistent with the clinical expressions. In this work, consider the mental body as a model that has an identity clinic, which can be revealed by assessment tools that offers a neurological examination. 

Semiological models 

Hysteria - Patients who present hysterical sensory or motor disorders show a pattern typical semiological, noting, first of all, they do not obey the anatomical distributions appropriate to the various pathways of innervation of the nervous system. 

On the other hand, in organic brain lesions, the map shows distributions of anesthesia very familiar to neurologists, who have learned to see the levels of anesthesia metameric (1) or halomeric and syndromes called alternate, characterized by impairment of an anesthetic in hemifacial side and the trunk and limbs on the contralateral hemisphere. 

Semiological studies show that the hysterical patient is a different pattern of anesthesia, compromising, sometimes your whole body, he does not know that the sensory innervation of the face runs through the trigeminal nerve, while the posterior regions of the scalp, neck, follow innervations very distant, at the level of cervical spinal cord. Anesthesia in members of the hysterical spare no way sensitivity of impairment of global sensitivities and shallow. The organization of this "anatomy" produced by the hysteric is the product of mental conception than it does in your body. The hysteric symptomatology is expressed as having a "body" organized by his mind and not his brain. This attitude is known in the history of hysteria and, undoubtedly, is universal, as can be read in one of the classics of neurology, "sémiologie des Affections du système nerveux" J. Dejerine (1914), 5. In the symptomatic evaluation of the hysteric can identify how he expresses his mental body. 

Hysterical paralysis also reveals contrasts with the semiology of lesional organic syndromes. The sagging is extravagant, hypertonia usually diffuse throughout the muscle, not respecting the distribution between agonists (2) and antagonists that the end system demands. The leg of this patient will offer much resistance to being bent as to be extended. The hemiplegic or paraplegic hysterical builds a disability within an imaginary model, under a mental construct and not a loss of nerve pathways. 

Hypnosis - individuals who assimilate the suggestions that induce hypnosis can produce both anesthesia and paralysis. The medical experience, this vast área6 has demonstrated that the paralysis and anesthesia follow the same pattern of hysterical frames (7, 8, 9). In either picture, we realize that the "body" built by the hysterical and is mesmerized by the rise in their "mental models" and does not obey the systematization of neural pathways.

The memories of the hypnotized - The common experience of the hypnotic trance we know that upon awakening, the hypnotized does not retain the memories of what he heard or played during the trance. A second induction made soon after the rescue makes these memories returning to the scene of the first trance, without realizing now what he heard or did in the interval between two trances. This experience seems to reveal two distinct files of memorization. I would say that one of them is located in the physical brain, when he is awake, and others in the mental body when he is in a trance. This situation can be compared to what we do on the computer: we create a file for certain text does not open the text of another. For that to happen, you need to copy and paste each other to carry out this reading. In the case of hypnosis, we can use hypnotic suggestion to transfer memories from one environment to another, which is achieved with relative ease.   

Narcolepsy - Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder in which the patient suddenly goes into a state of drowsiness he cannot control. The episodes are repeated often uncomfortably disturbing the patient's daily activities. The episodes often varied and may be a few minutes or hours. On awakening, these patients are reported curious. Apparently can remain lucid during drowsiness, performing complex activities during this period. They feel they leave the physical body and live with different scenarios and characters. Some report a timeless experience, may be witnesses of past episodes or that will be confirmed in the future. Anyway, they seem to be in possession of a body with which they experience their experiences. The classics of neurology label these frames hypnagogic hallucinations. Also included here would be called lucid dreams that normal subjects report. It seems, however, that in narcolepsy experience is more conscious and less symbolic than the experiences we all dream of. It is not difficult for these patients describe the physical and mental functional body that allows them to pass through their "dreams." 

Phantom limb - amputations often occur in violent accidents can have on patient perceptions of continuity of existence of his amputated limb (amputation of other body parts such as breast, nose, tongue, penis and scrotum can produce symptoms similar to phantom limb) 10 . Melzack 11, 12, believes in the existence in the brain, an image of the entire body in a neural array. It would consist of a network of neural interconnections, organized and genetically from sensory stimuli, creating a pattern of identification that I Melzack 10 calls "neuro signature. Even children born without limbs can reveal the existence of such a matrix body 11. Notwithstanding the neurophysiological hypotheses that attempt to explain the symptoms of phantom limb, their clinical manifestation can complement the examples of the mental body we want to study. The phantom limb gives the patient the whole feel of a real member (réalité concrète du sentiment, according Lhermitte) 10, where he feels pain, tickling, spontaneous movements and reactions of avoidance (3) how to tap into a mobile. Considering that member as part of the mental body, we see that the consciousness of the patient does not exercise control over its functions, whether motor or sensory. We can say that this lack of control is relevant to the tables of hysteria and hypnosis that noted. 

A number of other clinical phenomena seem to suggest that representation of the embodied mind that we are analyzing. The construction of body image and the syndromes of neglect are good examples. The lay and neuropsychiatric literature produced for some time on a multitude of texts referring to out of body experiences and near-death experiences. We neurologists often encounter between the mental symptoms of epilepsy, the "notion of a presence," where an "entity" appears to follow the proceedings as a witness of the seizure. 

Comments 

We have no doubt that the dilemma brain / mind is inexhaustible, sometimes contradictory and irreconcilable. Propose to discuss the issue in terms of the mental body, we know the difficulty of introducing a new idea in the context of such complexity. Remember, however, a statement of evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould proposed 13 that the evolution of the species off. "New facts, collected the old way, under the tutelage of old theories, they rarely lead to any substantial revision of thought. The facts do not "speak for themselves" are read in light of the theory. Creative thinking, both science and the arts, is the engine for change of opinion." 

The discussion of the mind seem to run out between Philosophy and Science without coming to an end. The "mental body" seems to me that has the merit of specifying a more appropriate object of study because their clinical behavior and experimental. 

We hope that subsequent studies can prove the validity of our proposal. We still need to explore the clinical features of the mental body and identify their anatomical and functional characteristics crucial since it can be clinically evaluated in hysteria, tested experimentally in hypnosis, recognized in the phantom limb, confirmed in narcolepsy and out of body experiences, as exemplify.          

Nubor Facure Orlando, Campinas-SP, is a former professor of neurosurgery at UNICAMP and director of the Brain Institute.

Notes: 

(1) comes from metameric metamerism, ie division into shares or similar segments, arranged in a linear series along the longitudinal axis. 

(2) agonist, in anatomy, it is said that promotes muscle action which is contrasted with another muscle, called the antagonist. 

(3) Avoidance is the same as avoidance: avoidance. 

References: 

1 - B. Russell History of Western thought: the adventure of the Presocratics to Wittgenstein. Rio de Janeiro - Ediouro 2001

2 - Macrone M. Eureka! A book about ideas - Sao Paulo - Ed Rotterdan, 1997, pp. 121 and 122.

3 - Del Nero H.S. The site of the mind: thought, emotion and desire in the human brain. São Paulo: Collegium Cognitio, 1977, Page 193.

4 - The Tripicchio, Tripicchio AC. Theories of mind - Ribeirão Preto, SP, Ed Tecmedd, 2003, Page 72-77

5 - Dejerine J. Sémiologie des Affections du Systeme nerveux - 12 ed - Masson et Cie Éditeurs, Paris, 1914, pp. 540-549 and 927.

6 - Ferreira MV. Hypnosis in clinical practice, São Paulo, Ed Atheneu, 2003

7 - Halligan PW, Athwal, BS, Oakley DA, Franckowiak, RSJ. Imaging Hipnotic paralysis: Implications for conversion hysteria. The Lancet 2000, 355:986-987

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9 - Marshall JC, Halligan PW, Fink GR, Wade DT, Frackwdak, RSJ. The functional anatomy of a hysterical paralysis. Cognition 1997, 64 (1), p. B1B8

10 - Jensen TS, Rasmussen P. Amputation. Pag 402-412. Textbook of pain, Ed Patrick D. Wall, Ronald Melzack (Churchill Livingstone), London, 1984

11 - Melzack R, Israel R, Lacroix R, Schultz G. Phantom limbs in people with congenital limb deficiency or amputation in early childhood. Brain, 1997, 120 (9) 1603-1620

12 - Melzack R. Phantom limbs. Sci Am April 1992, 266: 120-126

13 - S. Gould J. Darwin and the great riddles of life. Translated by Mary Elizabeth Martinez, 2nd Ed São Paulo - Martins Fontes, 1999, Page 158.