Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Assumed Identities And The Construction Of Self Among The West Indian Diaspora In The Greater Toronto Area (Gta), Badarinarayan A. Maharaj

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis I explore the (re) construction of identity and sense of self among members of the West Indian diaspora in the Greater Toronto Area. The research took place between October 2021 and March 2022, taking the form of semi-structured interviews with people who identify as West Indian and participant observation at various West Indian establishments. My objective is to show how the cultural elements of sport, food, and music are experienced and engaged with by the members of the West Indian diaspora, and the ways in which it allows for the development and expression of a West Indian …

Muting, Not Fragmentation, Of Functional Brain Networks Under General Anesthesia, Corson N. Areshenkoff, Joseph Y. Nashed, R. Matthew Hutchison, Melina Hutchison, Ron Levy, Douglas J. Cook, Ravi S. Menon, Stefan Everling, Jason P. Gallivan

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2021 Changes in resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) under general anesthesia have been widely studied with the goal of identifying neural signatures of consciousness. This work has commonly revealed an apparent fragmentation of whole-brain network structure during unconsciousness, which has been interpreted as reflecting a break-down in connectivity and a disruption of the brain's ability to integrate information. Here we show, by studying rs-FC under varying depths of isoflurane-induced anesthesia in nonhuman primates, that this apparent fragmentation, rather than reflecting an actual change in network structure, can be simply explained as the result of a global reduction in FC. Specifically, …

Modeling An Auditory Stimulated Brain Under Altered States Of Consciousness Using The Generalized Ising Model, Sivayini Kandeepan, Jorge Rudas, Francisco Gomez, Bobby Stojanoski, Sree Ram Valluri, Adrian Mark Owen, Lorina Naci, Emily Sophia Nichols, Andrea Soddu

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Propofol is a short-acting medication that results in decreased levels of consciousness and is used for general anesthesia. Although it is the most commonly used anesthetic in the world, much remains unknown about the mechanisms by which it induces a loss of consciousness. Characterizing anesthesia-induced alterations to brain network activity might provide a powerful framework for understanding the neural mechanisms of unconsciousness. The aim of this work was to model brain activity in healthy brains during various stages of consciousness, as induced by propofol, in the auditory paradigm. We used the generalized Ising model (GIM) to fit the empirical fMRI …

Conscious Perception And Implicit Memory Formation Of A Narrative Presented During Sleep, Sarah E. Hollywood

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The present study sought to determine the extent of conscious awareness and implicit memory formation of a narrative presented during sleep. Participants were played an excerpt of J.D. Salinger’s Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes while napping. Afterwards, participants completed a task designed to assess implicit memory to determine if they had formed any memories about words that were either directly stated in the story, or directly related to the plot. Participants who heard the story while asleep responded more quickly to words that had appeared in the story than to words from another story they had not heard. Exactly …

Formation Of Implicit Memories From A Narrative Played During Sleep, Amanat Ludhar

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Though, it was previously thought that the sleeping brain was dormant, research suggests that participants can process salient stimuli and form implicit memories of simple stimuli (e.g. words) during sleep. Thus, the current study aimed to determine whether participants could form implicit memories of a narrative played during sleep, and what role different sleep stages played in this memory formation. Participants were played a story while taking a nap, and EEG was used to track time spent in different sleep stages. Later, participants completed an implicit memory task where they were asked to differentiate between animal and non-animal words through …

Alive Inside, Andrew Peterson, Adrian M. Owen, Jason Karlawish

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

This article provides an ethical analysis of the U.S. practice guideline update on disorders of consciousness. Our analysis focuses on the guideline’s recommendations regarding the use of investigational neuroimaging methods to assess brain-injured patients. Complex and multifaceted ethical issues have emerged because these methods alter the clinical understanding of consciousness. We address issues of false hope, patient suffering, and cost. We argue that, in spite of these concerns, there is significant benefit to using neuroimaging to assess brain-injured patients in most cases.

Consciousness: Where We Are At, Imants Barušs

Psychology

It is useful every couple of years to take a bird’s eye view of consciousness studies and reflect on what we see. When I look, I still see two streams, one of which is the social and political framework for the study of consciousness, and the other of which is the substance of what we know about consciousness. The former is still largely defined by the extent to which the scientific study of consciousness has been freed from a materialist agenda. The latter includes recent research into the clarity of cognitive functioning in the absence of sufficient neurological support for …

Resting-State Network-Specific Breakdown Of Functional Connectivity During Ketamine Alteration Of Consciousness In Volunteers., Vincent Bonhomme, Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, Athena Demertzi, Marie-Aurélie Bruno, Oceane Jaquet, Mohamed Ali Bahri, Alain Plenevaux, Melanie Boly, Pierre Boveroux, Andrea Soddu, Jean François Brichant, Pierre Maquet, Steven Laureys

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

BACKGROUND: Consciousness-altering anesthetic agents disturb connectivity between brain regions composing the resting-state consciousness networks (RSNs). The default mode network (DMn), executive control network, salience network (SALn), auditory network, sensorimotor network (SMn), and visual network sustain mentation. Ketamine modifies consciousness differently from other agents, producing psychedelic dreaming and no apparent interaction with the environment. The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore ketamine-induced changes in RSNs connectivity.

METHODS: Fourteen healthy volunteers received stepwise intravenous infusions of ketamine up to loss of responsiveness. Because of agitation, data from six subjects were excluded from analysis. RSNs connectivity was compared between absence of …

Prohibited Practice: Drug Use, Harm Reduction And Benefit Enhancement In Toronto Rave Culture, Hilary Agro

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Based on fieldwork in Toronto, ON, I use ethnographic methods and analysis to answer the question of why people at electronic music events (‘raves’) and festivals use legal and illegal psychoactive drugs, exploring how the subjective effects of consciousness alteration factor into individual and group experiences of affective change. I examine the effects of stigma on the lives of these ‘drug practitioners’, as well as how the structures of prohibition shape the ways in which recreational substances are able to be consumed safely, resulting in a moral economy of trust and a culture of interreliance in the rave scene. Finally, …

Propofol-Induced Frontal Cortex Disconnection: A Study Of Resting-State Networks, Total Brain Connectivity, And Mean Bold Signal Oscillation Frequencies., Pieter Guldenmund, Ithabi S Gantner, Katherine Baquero, Tushar Das, Athena Demertzi, Pierre Boveroux, Vincent Bonhomme, Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, Marie-Aurélie Bruno, Olivia Gosseries, Quentin Noirhomme, Muriëlle Kirsch, Mélanie Boly, Adrian M Owen, Steven Laureys, Francisco Gómez, Andrea Soddu

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Propofol is one of the most commonly used anesthetics in the world, but much remains unknown about the mechanisms by which it induces loss of consciousness. In this resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we examined qualitative and quantitative changes of resting-state networks (RSNs), total brain connectivity, and mean oscillation frequencies of the regional blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal, associated with propofol-induced mild sedation and loss of responsiveness in healthy subjects. We found that detectability of RSNs diminished significantly with loss of responsiveness, and total brain connectivity decreased strongly in the frontal cortex, which was associated with increased mean oscillation …

Acute Alcohol Consumption Impairs Controlled But Not Automatic Processes In A Psychophysical Pointing Paradigm., Kevin Johnston, Brian Timney, Melvyn A Goodale

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Numerous studies have investigated the effects of alcohol consumption on controlled and automatic cognitive processes. Such studies have shown that alcohol impairs performance on tasks requiring conscious, intentional control, while leaving automatic performance relatively intact. Here, we sought to extend these findings to aspects of visuomotor control by investigating the effects of alcohol in a visuomotor pointing paradigm that allowed us to separate the influence of controlled and automatic processes. Six male participants were assigned to an experimental "correction" condition in which they were instructed to point at a visual target as quickly and accurately as possible. On a small …

Multiple Mechanisms Of Consciousness: The Neural Correlates Of Emotional Awareness., Jayna M Amting, Steven G Greening, Derek G V Mitchell

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Emotional stimuli, including facial expressions, are thought to gain rapid and privileged access to processing resources in the brain. Despite this access, we are conscious of only a fraction of the myriad of emotion-related cues we face everyday. It remains unclear, therefore, what the relationship is between activity in neural regions associated with emotional representation and the phenomenological experience of emotional awareness. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging and binocular rivalry to delineate the neural correlates of awareness of conflicting emotional expressions in humans. Behaviorally, fearful faces were significantly more likely to be perceived than disgusted or neutral faces. Functionally, …

Speculations About The Direct Effects Of Intention On Physical Manifestation, Imants Barušs

Psychology

A possible mechanism by which mental acts may be synchronized with physical states is postulated. It is argued that a layer of deep consciousness, similar to David Bohm’s implicate order, underlies and gives rise to both subjective, intentional consciousness and objective, physical manifestation. The influence of volition at the level of intentional consciousness can be conceptualized in the context of the Kochen-Specker theorem as the exercise of the unconstrained choice of observables, and, at the level of deep consciousness, as modulation of the activity of the creation and annihilation operators of a quantum field. The discrete nature of observations …

Quantum Theories Of Consciousness, Imants Barušs

Psychology

The assumption is often made in conventional cognitive science that consciousness is a computational process resulting from macroscopic neural activity as described by classical physics. That assumption has been questioned both because it has been unsuccessful in explaining consciousness and because it is based on outdated ideas about the nature of matter. More contemporary quantum theories may be more successful for understanding cognition. For example, Mari Jibu, Kunio Yasue, and Yasushi Takahashi have proposed a theory of memory as a spinor field underlying cortical dipoles in which quantum mechanical tunnelling instantiates memory decay and in which the creation of Goldstone …

The Art Of Science: Science Of The Future In Light Of Alterations Of Consciousness, Imants Barušs

Psychology

In presenting the data concerning altered states of consciousness in an even-handed manner, I have found that I cannot at the outset assume that materialism is the correct theory of reality. As demonstrated by survey data, the beliefs about consciousness and reality of academics and scientists who could write about consciousness in the academic literature range along a material-transcendent dimension from materialist through conservatively transcendent to extraordinarily transcendent positions, each with its corresponding notions of consciousness and proper methodology. Scientists need to undertake a process of self-examination in order to determine their personal beliefs and learn to set them aside …

Overview Of Consciousness Research, Imants Barušs

Psychology

The purpose of this paper is to orient the reader to the contemporary scientific study of consciousness. One of the most noticeable features of research concerning consciousness is that there are three domains of discourse, the physiological, computational and experiential, each with its own methodology, and concerns. While confusion is often expressed about what it is that one is discussing, there are four main categories of definitions of the term consciousness: consciousness is the registration, processing and acting on information; behavioural consciousness is the explicit knowledge of one's situation, mental states or actions as demonstrated by one's behaviour; subjective consciousness …

Beliefs About Consciousness And Reality Of Participants At ‘Tucson Ii’, Imants Barušs, Robert J. Moore

Psychology

In previous studies we had found correlations between the material-transcendent dimension underlying the Western intellectual tradition and the diversity of ideas concerning consciousness. In the course of our work we developed the Beliefs About Consciousness and Reality Questionnaire that could be used for measuring fundamental beliefs about consciousness and reality. A survey of participants at the scientific meeting Toward a Science of Consciousness 1996 “Tucson II” was conducted using this questionnaire. Results from 212 respondents indicated scores substantially in the transcendent direction, both for scales underlying the questionnaire as well as for some of its individual items, relative to a …

Measurement Of Beliefs About Consciousness And Reality, Imants Barušs, Robert J. Moore

Psychology

No abstract provided.