terça-feira, 28/01/2020
Anfiteatro Multimédia - Escola de Psicologia | 15h00
“The spontaneous brain and its self – relevance for
mental health”
Georg Northoff
Institute of Mental Health Research,
University of Ottawa, Canada
Prof Georg Northoff holds a degree in psychiatry, neuroscience and
philosophy and is the director of the Mind,
Brain Imaging and Neuroethics Research Unit of University of Ottawa. His research is focused on the relationship
between the brain and mind in its various facets trying to answer to complex
questions such as: Why and how can our brain construct subjective phenomena
like self, consciousness, emotions?
Recent imaging studies suggest that cortical midline structures (CMS)
may be involved in the neural processing of self, but the exact physiological
and psychological mechanisms required to provide a mental-neural link have yet
to be elucidated. In this talk Prof Georg will cover some
of the results of his work in which distinct components of subjective emotional
experience (attention, feeling, judgment, observation, etc.) and of the
experience of self are investigated using various imaging studies fMRI, PET,
DTI, EEG, MEG, and TMS as well as neurochemical studies in both healthy and
psychiatric subjects. Neuroscientific investigation into the subjective
experience of the self may substantially improve our understanding of the
underlying neuronal mechanisms of emotional disorders such as depression or
anxiety, along with those who experience alterations in the self. The
implications of these findings for philosophical problems such as the
mind-brain relation and “the self” will also be discussed.
Moderator: Steven Gouveia
Discussants: Adriana Sampaio, Joana Coutinho & Manuel Curado
