I have published a book about the brain and mental health. It is available on Amazon and Outskirts Press with the above title. The following chapter insights give some feeling for what is included and whether the reader will be interested:
Chapter one: The brain is a biological information processing system, sending messages from region to region over defined pathways which produce, among other actions, social adaptation.
Chapter two: Many regions of the brain participate in social interaction, but areas containing “mirror neurons” are particularly important for mimicry and the ability to differentiate self and other. Emotions are messages created by the social brain for group communication.
Chapter three: The interactions between body and brain occur in the tegmental-hypothalamic region, which regulates bodily functions, and coordinates them with external social demands. The interactions are often difficult to define, as in post partum syndrome.
Chapter four: The significance, linking sensory data with rewards, is stored in the Papez pathway through hippocampus. Disturbances by various etiologies produce the “schizophrenias”.
Chapter five: The “locking-on” process of sustained attention uses “working memory” to experience subjective awareness (also called consciousness)
to focus brain activities. Psychosis occurs when focus is disturbed, and meditation and hypnosis are methods that use the process for repair.
Chapter six: The executive choice system includes both attention processes in chapter five and the prefrontal regions, where multiple pathways converge to select behaviors. The “choice” of behavior is transmitted through basal ganglia nuclei that have previously learned and stored sequences to be activated.
Personality is the pattern of learned social interactions, (the analogy to posture in response to gravity), stored in basal ganglia pathways, which may be altered by experience.
Chapter seven: The two primary social learning experiences are primary attachment and sexuality. Detailed studies of attachment have been performed and related to borderline syndrome. The factors regulating the patterns of sexual identity and behavior have been poorly researched, and are not understood.
Chapter eight: The response to danger is organized over pathways from amygdala to other brain regions, similar to the hippocampal papez circuit. The five aspects of amygdala response can be related to five clinical patterns seen in anxiety disorders, including PTSD. Aggression also originates in amygdala but its control is poorly understood.
Chapter nine: Addiction is the “hijacking” of the motivation system by non survival motivation. This was traditionally focused on chemical substances, but other behaviors may also result in maladaptive motivation. Multiple factors contribute to the vulnerability.
Chapter ten: The revised diagnostic system is based on the function of the pathways responsible for adaptive behavior, and the disturbances, called etiologies, that alter them, including social factors. Illness is measured by the severity of impaired adaptation, not the presence of symptoms. Adaptation is bidirectional both superior and impaired adaptation.
Chapter eleven: Psychopharmacology, the preferred intervention at present, involves three decisions: Does the medication work (and how?)? What is the balance of intended and other effects? When should the medication be discontinued? There is confusion in dealing with each one.
Chapter twelve: Altering pathways by input of information (psychotherapy, etc) involves five factors: the level of interpersonal interaction, the balance of verbal and non-verbal information, the channels of communication, the balance of cognitive and emotional focus, and the extend of control of process (agency) by the client or programmer. No current system of treatments attempts to balance these in therapist and client, and evaluate the results.
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