Background The use of lengthy, detailed, and complex informed consent forms is of paramount concern in biomedical research as it may not truly promote the rights and interests of research participants. The extent of information in ICFs has been the subject of debates for decades; however, no clear guidance is given. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the perspectives of research participants about the type and extent of information they need when they are invited to participate in (...) biomedical research. Methods This multi-center, cross-sectional, descriptive survey was conducted at 54 study sites in seven Asia-Pacific countries. A modified Likert-scale questionnaire was used to determine the importance of each element in the ICF among research participants of a biomedical study, with an anchored rating scale from 1 to 5. Results Of the 2484 questionnaires distributed, 2113 were returned. The majority of respondents considered most elements required in the ICF to be ‘moderately important’ to ‘very important’ for their decision making. Major foreseeable risk, direct benefit, and common adverse effects of the intervention were considered to be of most concerned elements in the ICF. Conclusions Research participants would like to be informed of the ICF elements required by ethical guidelines and regulations; however, the importance of each element varied, e.g., risk and benefit associated with research participants were considered to be more important than the general nature or technical details of research. Using a participant-oriented approach by providing more details of the participant-interested elements while avoiding unnecessarily lengthy details of other less important elements would enhance the quality of the ICF. (shrink)

Subjects perceived touch sensations as arising from a table (or a rubber hand) when both the table (or the rubber hand) and their own real hand were repeatedly tapped and stroked in synchrony with the real hand hidden from view. If the table or rubber hand was then ‘injured’, subjects displayed a strong skin conductance response (SCR) even though nothing was done to the real hand. Sensations could even be projected to anatomically impossible locations. The illusion was much less vivid, (...) as indicated by subjective reports and SCR, if the real hand was simultaneously visible during stroking, or if the real hand was hidden but touched asynchronously. The fact that the illusion could be significantly diminished when the real hand was simultaneously visible suggests that the illusion and associated SCRs were due to perceptual assimilation of the table (or rubber hand) into one’s body image rather than associative conditioning. These experiments demonstrate the malleability of body image and the brain’s remarkable capacity for detecting statistical correlations in the sensory input. (shrink)

Summary Apotemnophilia, or body integrity image disorder (BIID), is characterised by a feeling of mismatch between the internal feeling of how one’s body should be and the physical reality of how it actually is. Patients with this condition have an often overwhelming desire for an amputation- of a specific limb at a specific level. Such patients are not psychotic or delusional, however, they do express an inexplicable emotional abhorrence to the limb they wish removed. It is also known that such (...) patients show a left-sided preponderance for their desired amputation. Often they take drastic action to be rid of the offending limb. Given the left-sided bias, emotional rejection and specificity of desired amputation, we suggest that there are clear similarities to be drawn between BIID and somatoparaphrenia. In this rare condition, which follows a right parietal stroke, the patient rejects (usually) his left arm as ‘‘alien’’. We go on to hypothesis that a dysfunction of the right parietal lobe is also the cause of BIID. We suggest that this leads to an uncoupling of the construct of one’s body image in the right parietal lobe from how one’s body physically is. This hypothesis would be amenable to testing by response to cold-water vestibular caloric stimulation, which is known to temporarily treat somatoparaphrenia. It could also be investigated using functional brain imaging and skin conductance response. If correct our hypothesis not only suggests why BIID arises, but also, in caloric stimulation a therapeutic avenue for this chronic and essentially untreatable condition. (shrink)

An interview with Anthony Freeman, in which one of the original authors of ‘The Science of Art’ [JCS, 6, No. 6/7, 1999] responds to to ongoing commentary.

Here we outline a simple method of using two mirrors which allows one to stand outside oneself. This method demonstrates that registration of vision with touch and proprioception is crucial for the perception of the corporeal self. Our method may also allow the disassociation of taste from touch, proprioception, and movement.

Neurological syndromes in which consciousness seems to malfunction, such as temporal lobe epilepsy, visual scotomas, Charles Bonnet syndrome, and synesthesia offer valuable clues about the normal functions of consciousness and ‘qualia’. An investigation into these syndromes reveals, we argue, that qualia are different from other brain states in that they possess three functional characteristics, which we state in the form of ‘three laws of qualia ’ based on a loose analogy with Newton’s three laws of classical mechanics. First, they are (...) irrevocable: I cannot simply decide to start seeing the sunset as green, or feel pain as if it were an itch; second, qualia do not always produce the same behaviour: given a set of qualia, we can choose from a potentially infinite set of possible behaviours to execute; and third, qualia endure in short-term memory, as opposed to non-conscious brain states involved in the on-line guidance of behaviour in real time. We suggest that qualia have evolved these and other attributes (e.g. they are ‘filled in’) because of their role in facilitating non-automatic, decision-based action. We also suggest that the apparent epistemic barrier to knowing what qualia another person is experiencing can be overcome simply by using a ‘bridge ’ of neurons; and we offer a hypothesis about the relation between qualia and one’s sense of self. (shrink)

How the brain constructs one's inner sense of gender iden-tity is poorly understood. On the other hand, the phenomenon of phantom sensations-- the feeling of still having a body-part after amputation--has been much studied. Around 60% of men experience a phantom penis post-penectomy. As transsexuals report a mismatch between their inner gender identity and that of their body, we won-dered what could be learnt from this regarding innate gender-specific body image. We surveyed male-to-female transsexuals regarding the incidence of phantoms post-gender (...) reassignment surgery. Addition-ally, we asked female-to-male transsexuals if they had ever had the sensation of having a penis when there was not one physically there. In post-operative male-to-female transsexuals the incidence of phan-tom penises was significantly reduced at 30%. Remarkably, over 60% of female-to-male transsexuals also reported phantom penises. We explain the absence/presence of phantoms here by postulating a mis-match between the brain's hardwired gender-specific body image and the external somatic gender. Further studies along these lines may provide penetrating insights into the question of how nature and nur-ture interact to produce our brain-based body image. (shrink)

Summary Transsexuals are individuals who identify as a member of the gender opposite to that which they are born. Many transsexuals report that they have always had a feeling of a mismatch between their inner gender-based ‘‘body image’’ and that of their body’s actual physical form. Often transsexuals undergo gender reassignment surgery to convert their bodies to the sex they feel they should have been born. The vivid sensation of still having a limb although it has been amputated, a phantom (...) limb, was first described by Weir Mitchell over a century ago. The same phenomenon is also occurs after amputation of the penis or a breast. Around 60% of men who have had to have their penis amputated for cancer will experience a phantom penis. It has recently been shown that a significant factor in these phantom sensations is ‘‘cross-activation’’ between the de-afferented cortex and surrounding areas. Despite this it also known that much of our body image is innately ‘‘hard-wired’’ into our brains; congenitally limbless patients can still experience phantom sensations. We hypothesise that, perhaps due to a dissociation during embryological development, the brains of transsexuals are ‘‘hard-wired’’ in manner, which is opposite to that of their biological sex. We go on to predict that male-to-female transsexuals will be much less likely to experience a phantom penis than a ‘‘normal’’ man who has had his penis amputated for another reason. The same will be true of female-to-male transsexuals who have had breast removal surgery. We also predict that some female-to-male transsexuals will have a phantom penis even although there is not one physically there. We believe that this is an easily testable hypothesis, which, if correct, would offer insights into both the basis of transsexuality and provide farther evidence that we have a gender specific body image, with a strong innate component that is ‘‘hard-wired’’ into our brains. This would furnish us with a better understanding the mechanism by which nature and nurture interact to link the brain-based internal body image with external sexual morphology.. (shrink)

Summary Ideomotor apraxia is a cognitive disorder in which the patient loses the ability to accurately perform learned, skilled actions. This is despite normal limb power and coordination. It has long been known that left supramarginal gyrus lesions cause bilateral upper limb apraxia and it was proposed that this area stored a visualkinaesthetic image of the skilled action, which was translated elsewhere in the brain into the pre-requisite movement formula. We hypothesise that, rather than these two functions occurring separately, both (...) are complementary functions of chains of ‘‘mirror neurons’’ within the left inferior parietal lobe. We go on to propose that this neural mechanism in the supramarginal gyrus and its projection zones, which originally evolved to allow the creation of a direct map between vision and movement, was subsequently exapted to allow other sorts of cross-domain mapping and in particular those sorts of abstract re-conceptualisation, such as metaphor, that make mankind unique. (shrink)

A t first glance you might not noorder, which afflicts about 0.5 percent of tice anything odd on meeting a American children. Neither researcher young boy with autism. But if had any knowledge of the other’s work, you try to talk to him, it will and yet by an uncanny coincidence each quickly become obvious that gave the syndrome the same name: autism, something is seriously wrong. He may not which derives from the Greek word autos, make eye contact with (...) you; instead he may meaning “self.” The name is apt, because avoid your gaze and fidget, rock his body the most conspicuous feature of the disorto and fro, or bang his head against the der is a withdrawal from social interacwall. More disconcerting, he may not be tion. More recently, doctors have adopted able to conduct anything remotely resemthe term “autism spectrum disorder” to bling a normal conversation. Even though make it clear that the illness has many rehe can experience emotions such as fear, lated variants that range widely in severity rage and pleasure, he may lack genuine but share some characteristic symptoms. empathy for other people and be oblivious Ever since autism was identified, reto subtle social cues that most children searchers have struggled to determine would pick up effortlessly. what causes it. Scientists know that sus- In the 1940s two physicians—Americeptibility to autism is inherited, although.. (shrink)

Simulation and Similarity is a novel and comprehensive account of, in first place, models and modeling. The author’s writing is exceptionally clear and intelligible. Simulation is referred to in the book only once, where it is defined as a kind of numerical analysis involving “computing the behavior of the model using a particular set of initial conditions” (82). Modeling, which is defined as “the indirect study of real-world systems via the construction and analysis of models” (4), appears to be the (...) primary focus of this book. This emphasis seems legitimate because the modeling practice precedes any simulation and is the key to its understanding as well.Chapter 2 “Three kinds of models” presents an account of the following kinds of models: concrete models (San Francisco Bay model being an example), mathematical models (Lottka–Volterra model of predation as an example), and computational models (illustrated by Schelling’s segregation model). First model example is a hydraulic one; the .. (shrink)

First Published on: 21 June 2007 To cite this Article: Ramachandran, Vilayanur S., McGeoch, Paul D., Williams, Lisa and Arcilla, Gerard (2007) 'Rapid Relief of Thalamic Pain Syndrome Induced by Vestibular Caloric Stimulation', Neurocase, 13:3, 185 - 188 To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/13554790701450446 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13554790701450446..