Conscious and Unconscious Programs in the Brain

For almost a century now, since Freud described the basic motivations and Pavlov the basic mechanisms of human behavior, we have had a reasonable concept of the forces that drive us. Only recently have we gained any real insight into how the brain really works to produce such behavior. The new developments in cognitive psychology and neuroscience have taught us things about the function of the brain that would have been inconceivable even ten years ago. Yet, there still remains a tremendous gap between the two studies-human behavior and brain function-a gap which often seems irrec­ oncilable in view of the basic differences in the methodologies and approaches of the two fields. Students of behavior are frequently disinterested in the underlying neu­ rophysiology while neurophysiologists tend to consider the concepts of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists too vague and theoretical to be applicable to their own more limited schemata. Several valiant attempts have been made by experimentalists to develop a theoretical context in which behavior is described, not separately from brain function but rather as its direct outgrowth. This present work is still another attempt to develop a theoretical system which, given the limitations of our present knowledge, as completely as possible, the underlying brain mechanisms that influ­ will describe ence and determine human behavior. The main emphasis of this work, however, will be not on normal behavior but rather on more neurotic manifestations.

I. Fundamentals of Psychobiology.- 1.Anatomical and Functional Organization of the Central Nervous System.- The Brain—Mind Dichotomy.- A Brief Description of the Anatomy of the Central Nervous System.- Biological Homeostasis and the Nervous System.- The Biological Organization of Behavioral Modalities.- Generalized versus Localized Organization of Brain Function.- 2.The Biological Origins of Motivated Behavior.- Classification of Drives.- The Elaboration of Biological and Psychosocial Drives.- The Interaction of Biological and Psychosocial Drives.- 3.Adaptive and Affective Roles of the Emotions.- Adaptive Aspects of the Emotions.- Affective Aspects of Emotions.- Hierarchical Control of Objective Emotional Behavior.- The Role of Cognition in Motivational—Emotional Behavior.- 4.Perception, Learning, and Engram Formation.- Progressive Encoding of Sensory Stimulin.- Functional Organization of Sensory Processing Systems: Serial and Parallel Processing.- Abstraction in the Primary Classical Visual Pathway.- The Physiological Representation of Simple Engrams.- Learning and Memory.- Associative Learning.- The Posterior and Anterior Sensory Association Areas.- The Various Types of Engrams.- Evoked Potentials as Indices of Brain Activities.- 5.Language and the Higher Cognitive Processes.- The Anatomy of Language.- The Dynamics of Language.- The Structure of Language.- Information Processing and Thinking (Cognition).- Association of Cognitive and Motivational—Emotional Influences.- Classical and Operant Conditioning.- II. Mechanisms of Conscious and Unconscious Thought Processing.- 6.Functional Organization of the Consciousness System.- Behavioral Parameters of Consciousness.- Electrophysiological Measures of Brain Activity.- Activating Systems of the Brain.- The Physiology of Sleep.- Altered States of Consciousness.- Anatomy of the General Awareness System.- 7.Self-Awareness and the Anatomy of the Subjective Self.- Anatomy of the Cortical Self-Awareness System.- Mechanisms Underlying Activities in the Posterior Inferior Parietal Lobe Complex.- The Anatomy of the Self.- 8.Attention as Directed Consciousness.- The Phases of Attention—Early and Late.- Anatomy and Physiology of the Early Upstream Phase of Attention.- Anatomy and Physiology of the Late Upstream Phase of Attention.- Attentional Functions of the Thalamic—Basal Gangliar Complex.- The Orienting Response.- Anatomy and Physiology of the Downstream Phase of Attention.- The Role of the Amygdaloid—Hippocampal Complex in the Orienting Response and in Attention.- Directional Activities of the Amygdaloid—Hippocampal Complex.- Stimulatory Activity of the Amygdala.- Hippocampal ? Rhythm and Hippocampal Inhibition.- Relationship of the Thalamic—Basal Gangliar Complex and the Amygdaloid—Hippocampal Complex in Attentional Activities.- Experimental Demonstration of Upstream and Downstream Processing.- 9. Recognition, Memory Retrieval, Mental Set, and Other Decisional Operations of the Neocortex.- Cognitive Processing during Attention (Perception versus Recognition).- Affective Processing during Attention.- The Neurophysiology of Memory Retrieval.- The Diencephalic—Rhiencephalic Memory Retrieval System.- The Phenomenology of Mental Set.- The Neurophysiology of Mental Set.- Role of the Prefrontal Lobe in Attention and Mental Set.- A Theoretical Model for the Decision-Making Function in Attention, Recognition, Memory Retrieval, and Mental Set.- 10.The Alert Conscious State: Controlled Processing of Episodic and Affective Data.- Quantitative Aspects of Consciousness.- The Substantive Nature of Conscious and Unconscious Material—Episodic and Procedural Data.- Anatomy of the Affective Components of Consciousness.- >Experimental Studies Characterizing Controlled versus Automatic Information Processing in the Brain.- Intermediate Forms of Information Processing.- The Various Modes of Conscious Brain Activity.- The Role of the Unconscious in Conscious Experience.- 11.The Procedural Unconscious: Automatic Processing of Mechanical, Structural, and Semantic Data.- General Characteristics of Automatic Data Processing.- Neurophysiological Mechanisms of Procedural Processing.- Functional Programs in Procedural Operations.- Quantitative Studies of Neuronal Activity in Different States of Consciousness.- Unconscious Activity in Various Neural Systems.- Experimental Evidence for an Active Procedural Unconscious.- 12.The Episodic Unconscious: Semicontrolled Unconscious Processing of Episodic and Affective Material.- Unconscious Processing of Episodic Programs during Alert Conscious States.- Neurophysiology of Unconscious Episodic Data Processing in the Alert Conscious State.- Unconscious Processing of Episodic Data during REM Sleep.- Neurophysiology of Episodic Data Processing during REM Dreams.- The Episodic Unconscious in Altered States of Consciousness.- Unconscious Processing of Episodic and Affective Material during Deep Sleep.- The Psychobiological Model of an Active Episodic Unconscious.- III. Hierarchial and Hemispheric Origins of Repression and Other Defense Mechanisms.- 13.The Effects of Emotionality on Conscious and Unconscious Information Processing.- Behavioral Studies on Perceptual Threshold and Memory Retrieval.- The Relationship between Cognitive and Affective Elements in Perception.- Psychobiological Studies on the Effects of Emotional Charge on Cognitive Processing.- Differences in Processing Stimuli with Negative and Positive Emotional Valence.- Hierarchical Mechanisms for Reducing Excessive Emotional Charge.- 14.Differential Cognitive and Emotional Functions of the Cerebral Hemispheres.- Cognitive Differences in Hemispheric Function.- Psysiological Mechanisms of Differential Cognitive Hemispheric Processing.- Differences in Hemispheric Processing of Emotional Stimuli.- Differential Storing of Cognitive and Emotional Material in the Two Hemispheres.- 15.The Disparate Levels of Consciousness in the Two Hemispheres.- Differences in Activation of the Two Hemispheres.- Differences in Hemispheric Electrical Activities in Sleep and in Arousal.- Right-Hemispheric Consciousness as an Altered State of Consciousness.- The Special Significance of Interhemispheric Control Mechanisms in Humans.- 16.Psychological Defense Mechanisms as Interactions between Hierarchical and Hemispheric Functions.- Hierarchical and Hemispheric Defense Mechanisms.- Desensitizing and Sensitizing Defense Mechanisms.- Hypothesis on the Neurophysiology of Sensitizing and Desensitizing Defense Mechanisms.- Experimental Evidence for the Role of the Interhemispheric Control System in Psychological Defense Mechanisms.- Interaction between Hierarchical and Hemispheric Defense Mechanisms.- The Role of Mental Set in Psychological Defense Mechanisms.- Summary of the Behavioral and Physiological Characteristics of the Psychological Defense Mechanisms.- IV. Psychobiology and the Pathogenesis of Neurosis.- 17.A Psychobiological Model of Conscious and Unconscious Brain Activity.- Hierarchical Control Mechanisms in the Psychobiological Model of the Unconscious.- The Alert Conscious—Preconscious Level.- The Dynamic Unconscious.- General Characteristics of the Dynamic Unconscious.- Upward and Downward Influences of the Dynamic Unconscious.- The Procedural and Visceral Levels of the Unconscious.- The Operational Sequence of Interactions among the Three Levels of the Consciousness—Unconscious Continuum.- The Neurophysiology for Mutual Translation of Episodic and Procedural Paradigms.- Hemispheric Control System Effects in Unconscious Brain Function.- Activities in the Decathected Dynamic Unconscious.- 18.The Role of Childhood and Adult Stress in the Genesis of the Decathected Unconscious.- Normal Behavior and the Cathected Unconscious.- Normal Behavior and the Decathected Unconscious.- The Effects of Stress on Psychological Behavior.- The Effects of Childhood Stress.- 19.Psychobiological Mechanisms in Personality Development.- The General Characteristics of Temperament.- The Development of Personality.- The Development of Emotional Style.- The Dynamics of Defensive Style.- Eysenck’s Introvert—Extravert Personality Dimensions.- Control of Excitatory—Inhibitory Balance by the Amygdaloid-Hippocampal Complex.- The Field Dependence-Field Independence Dimension of Personality: “Cognitive Style”.- 20.Psychobiological Mechanisms in the Pathogenesis of the Neuroses.- Hereditary Factors in Neurosis.- Neuroses Secondary to Abnormal Reactivity of Compensatory Mechanisms: Manifestations in Introverts and Extraverts.- Homeostatic Decompensation in Dysthymic Neurosis.- The Neurophysiology of Hysterical and Related Clinical Symptomatology.- Interaction of the Dynamic and the Procedural Unconscious in Hysterical Neurosis.- The Frustration Dynamic Model and the Pathogenesis of Neurosis.- The Frustration Dynamic Model and Psychosomatic Disease.- 21.Hypnagogic States and Transcendent Experience.- The Underlying Dynamics of Transcendental Meditation.- The Role of Alcohol and Barbiturates in Transcendent Experience.- Human Sexual Activity as a Transcendent Experience.- The Effects of Alcohol and Barbiturates on Brain-Wave Activity.- The Significance of ?-Wave Activity in Altered States of Consciousness.- The Dynamics of Atypical Forms of Transcendent Experience.- The Role of the Internal Reward System in Producing Transcendent States.- Right-Hemispheric Dominance in Transcendent Experience.- 22.Psychobiology and Psychoanalytic Methodology.- A Critique of Psychoanalytic Methodology.- Repression as a Manifestation of Increased Noradrenergic-Driven RAS Activity.- Noradrenergic and Cholinergic Activation of Hippocampal Function.- Repression and Activity of the Cerebral Hemispheres.- Experimental Evidence for the Surfacing of Unconscious Data during Dreams.- Experimental Evidence for Release of Unconscious Material during Altered States of Consciousness.- Free Association as a Technique for Tapping the Unconscious.- Summation.- References.- Author Index.