Mental disorders present difficulties in the research of their mechanisms, considering the high levels of comorbidity and the lack of specific neuroscience data to evaluate them. Estipulating deficit circuits in the disorders and the best treatment is a complex task, given the limited comprehension of the factors that correlate to the disorders. The utilization of biomarkers has proved an efficient and reliable alternative to provide precise diagnosis. Among the biomarkers, the Error-Related Negativity component, an event-related cortical potential, has presented high indexes of stability and validity in correlating to anxiety, obsessive, and mood-related mental disorders. The present dissertation evaluated irritability traits in a community sample, using a Flanker task, that has consistently elicited Error-Related Negativity according to the literature. Our results corroborate literature and found a frontocentral negativity, that peaked around 100ms after the commission of an error in the Flanker Task. However, our manipulation of negative feedback did not support literature, and ERN amplitudes were less enhanced post negative feedback. The relationship between irritability and ERN remains unclear. Future studies should, therefore, address these questionings.

abstract: Clinically meaningful emotional and behavioral problems are thought to be present beginning in infancy, and may be reliably assessed in children as young as 12 months old. However, few studies have investigated early correlates of emotional and behavioral problems assessed in infancy. The current study investigates the direct and interactive contributions of early infant and caregiver characteristics thought to play an important role in the ontogeny of behavior problems. Specifically, the study examines: (1) the links between temperamental reactivity across the first year of life and behavior problems at 18 months, (2) whether children high in temperamental reactivity are differentially susceptible to variations in maternal sensitivity, (3) the extent to which child temperamental risk or susceptibility may further be explained by mothers’ experiences of stressful life events (SLEs) during and before pregnancy. Data were collected from 322 Mexican American families during prenatal, 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-week home interviews, as well as during 12- and 18-month lab interviews. Mother reports of SLEs were obtained between 23-40 weeks gestation; temperamental negativity and surgency at 6 weeks and 12 months; and internalizing and externalizing behaviors at 18 months. Maternal sensitivity during structured mother-infant interaction tasks at the 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-week visits was assessed by objective observer ratings. Study findings indicated that maternal SLEs before birth were associated with more infant negativity across the first year of life, and that negativity in turn was associated with more internalizing problems at 18 months. Ecological stressors thought to be associated with sociodemographic risk factors such as low-income and ethnic minority status may begin to exert cascades of influence on children’s developmental outcomes even before birth. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Psychology 2016

abstract: Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a severe motor speech disorder that is difficult to diagnose as there is currently no gold-standard measurement to differentiate between CAS and other speech disorders. In the present study, we investigate underlying biomarkers associated with CAS in addition to enhanced phenotyping through behavioral testing. Cortical electrophysiological measures were utilized to investigate differences in neural activation in response to native and non-native vowel contrasts between children with CAS and typically developing peers. Genetic analysis included full exome sequencing of a child with CAS and his unaffected parents in order to uncover underlying genetic variation that may be causal to the child’s severely impaired speech and language. Enhanced phenotyping was completed through extensive behavioral testing, including speech, language, reading, spelling, phonological awareness, gross/fine motor, and oral and hand motor tasks. Results from cortical electrophysiological measures are consistent with previous evidence of a heightened neural response to non-native sounds in CAS, potentially indicating over specified phonological representations in this population. Results of exome sequencing suggest multiple genetic variations contributing to the severely affected phenotype in the child and provide further evidence of heterogeneous genomic pathways associated with CAS. Finally, results of behavioral testing demonstrate significant impairments evident across tasks in CAS, suggesting underlying sequential processing deficits in multiple domains. Overall, these results have the potential to delineate functional pathways from genetic variations to the brain to observable behavioral phenotypes and motivate the development of preventative and targeted treatment approaches. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Speech and Hearing Science 2018

Os problemas decorrentes do uso, abuso e dependência de drogas tornaram-se uma preocupação mundial, mobilizando recursos e ações interventivas na atenção aos usuários e dependentes. Entre os grupos, encontramos as mulheres, com características próprias, exigindo pesquisas e programas de tratamento específicos. Esta pesquisa procura privilegiar as especificidades do feminino e a dependência de drogas, através dos referenciais teóricos da psicanálise sobre a sexualidade feminina e a feminilidade. Utilizam-se, também, as concepções sobre o sujeito do grupo, que implicam uma subjetividade constituída nos e pelos conjuntos intersubjetivos, conforme desenvolve René Kaës. Considera-se que, de acordo com os postulados desse autor, a negatividade está na base de todo laço social, configurando as alianças inconscientes e as formações intermediárias no vínculo entre os sujeitos. Nesse sentido, propõe-se uma linha de investigação psicanalítica sobre a dependência química como um sintoma partilhado, objetivando: a) investigar os processos psíquicos relacionados à produção de sintomas em mulheres dependentes químicas, através dos discursos produzidos em uma situação de grupo; b) investigar as formações intermediárias e as modalidades de negatividade na manutenção do sintoma e do laço social. Como procedimento, foi utilizado um grupo psicoterapêutico em um Centro de Atenção Psicossocial Álcool e outras drogas (CAPS ad) e na análise foram consideradas: a interdiscursividade e a linearidade dos enunciados; a transferência e a contratransferência; e a realidade psíquica do/no grupo. Através da análise do discurso em situação de grupo, foram elaboradas três categorias representantes da produção intersubjetiva: as formações intermediárias (porta-voz, porta-sintoma, porta-ideal), as modalidades de negatividade (a negatividade de obrigação e a negatividade radical) e o complexo fraterno. Conclui-se que a dependência química em mulheres é uma formação intermediária, representando aspectos denegados dos conjuntos intersubjetivos a que pertencem (família e instituição de tratamento). Através do pacto denegativo, a vulnerabilidade e o desamparo são expulsos da dinâmica intersubjetiva e intrapsíquica marcas da feminilidade na constituição subjetiva. A aliança inconsciente fundamenta-se, portanto, na denegação dos elementos relacionados à dimensão do sensível, do corpo, da sexualidade, do desejo e da incompletude humana. A dependência química feminina configura-se como portavoz do que é intolerável na feminilidade. / The problems arisen from drug use, abuse and dependence became a global issue, mobilizing resources and interventional actions concerning recreational users and addicts. Among different groups of users there are women, with their own characteristics that demand specific research and treatment programs. This research aims at focusing the specificity of the feminine and drug dependence through theoretical psychoanalytical references about feminine sexuality and femininity. We will also use the concept of subject of a group that implies constituted subjectivity within and by inter-subjective groups, according to René Kaës. He states that negativity is in the base of every social tie, configuring unconscious alliances and intermediary formations regarding connections among subjects. In this sense, we propose a psychoanalytical investigative method about chemical dependency as a shared symptom aiming at: a) investigating the chemical processes related to symptoms production in chemical dependent women through speeches produced in a group situation; b) investigating the intermediary formations and the modalities of negativity in symptoms and social ties maintenance. We worked with a psychotherapy group in an Alcohol and other drugs Psychosocial Attention Center (CAPS ad). In our analysis we considered: the interdiscursivity and the linearity of the utterances; the transference and the countertransference; the psychic reality of/in the group. Through discourse analysis, we elaborated three representative categories of the inter-subjective production: the intermediary formations (spokesperson, symptomatic-person, ideal-person), the modalities of negativity (the negativity of obligation and the radical negativity) and the sibling complex. We can conclude that chemical dependency in women is an intermediary formation, representing denied aspects of the inter-subjective groups which they belong to (family and treatment institution). Through the pact of denial, the vulnerability and the defenseless are driven out of the inter-subjective and intra-psychic dynamic which are aspects of the femininity in the subjective constitution. The unconscious alliance is founded, thus, on the denial of the elements related to the dimension of the sensibility, of the body, of the sexuality, of the desire and of the human incompleteness. The feminine chemical dependency takes form as the spokesperson of what is unbearable in femininity.

No description available.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A presente dissertação tem por objeto o tema da negatividade ontológica constitutiva da existência humana na obra Ser e Tempo de Martin Heidegger. Na primeira parte é analisada as descrições efetuadas por Heidegger na primeira seção de Ser e Tempo sobre a dinâmica existencial do homem compreendido como ser-aí (Dasein). Nesse primeiro momento é evidenciado o caráter negativo da existência. Para tanto, partiremos da reconstrução dos conceitos de existência e deu seu caráter intencional e poder-ser (Seinkonnen) em Ser e Tempo. Na segunda parte, a análise da tonalidade afetiva da angústia é o ponto de partida para se chegar ao modo de ser do homem, descrito por Heidegger como cuidado (Sorge). Argumentaremos também, que o cuidado é o único modo de ser compatível com um ente que em seu modo de ser mais próprio é marcado por uma negatividade (incompletude) radical. Por último, em nosso terceiro capítulo, apresentaremos, em seus traços gerais, a possibilidade compatível com o caráter de poder-ser do ser-aí: a possibilidade da morte, compreendida ontologicamente como ser-para-a-morte. Na conclusão, apontaremos o interesse maior de Heidegger em investigar a dinâmica existencial do ser-aí. Esse interesse consiste, em visualizar, por meio do que Heidegger chama de crise existencial do ser-aí (proporcionada pela angústia) o ponto de gênese das ontologias. / The present dissertation aims the theme of ontological negativity constitutive of human existence in the work Being and Time of Martin Heidegger. In the first part, we examine the descriptions made by Heidegger in the first section of Being and Time about the dynamics of the existential man understood as being-there (Dasein). Initially is shown the negative character of existence. To do that, we start with the reconstruction of existence concepts and its intentional characteristcs and able to be (Seinkonnen) in Being and Time. In the second part, the analysis of the affective tone of anguish is the starting point to get to the mode of being of man, described carefully by Heidegger (Sorge). We also argue that caution is the only way to be compatible with an entity that in its own way of being is marked by an radical negativity (incomplete). Finally, in the third chapter, we present, in its general features, the possibility compatible with the character of able to be of the being-there: the possibility of death, ontologically understood as being-for-death. In the conclusion, we pointed the greatest interest of Heidegger in his investigation of existential dynamics of the being-there. This interest consist in to visualize, through what Heidegger calls of existential crisis of being-there (provided by the anguish) the genesis point of the ontologies.

Este trabalho de doutorado esboça uma teoria negativa da comunicação a partir da reelaboração negativa dos seus três conceitos fundamentais: a comunicação, o medium e a comunidade. Grosso modo, a comunicação é figurada como uma experiência radical de alteridade; o medium como a descrição dos modos de percepção desta experiência e a comunidade como a incorporação das possibilidades de sua ocorrência. A comunicação manifesta uma experiência que transforma o \'eu\' em \'mim\', pois o sujeito não é necessariamente causa ou efeito desta experiência, mas é exposto à ela, como uma ferida aberta. O medium é o modo de percepção que opera esta experiência: ele não é uma ponte entre o abismo que separa o mim do outro, pois ele acentua esse abismo, na medida em que ele se imaterializa no momento da experiência, como uma materialidade que se descorporifica. E quando essa experiência efetua-se, é porque se toma parte em algo comum, em uma comunidade: mesmo que precária ou evanescente, ela incorpora a possibilidade da ocorrência deste fenômeno. Na teoria negativa da comunicação, o medium torna-se transparente, a comunidade torna-se expositória e a comunicação torna-se transcendente. Ponderar sobre a negatividade da comunicação é ir ao encontro de uma ex-comunicação: uma despalavra que busca ex-pôr aquilo que nos fenômenos comunicacionais escapa à discursividade, seja a medialidade do meio, a inefabilidade da relação ou a comunidade daqueles que não constituem qualquer comunidade. O prefixo ex assinala não apenas uma simples negação, mas um deslocamento fundamental: ele é o inegável que se pré-supõe, que constitui a comunicação, mas que resiste à qualquer conceituação. Ao mesmo tempo em que possibilita, o prefixo ex assegura a impossibilidade da sua re-presentação: um comunicar que não se estrutura em signos, mas se mostra - uma comunicação negativa, existencial, intransitiva, inexprimível, mística. / Ex-communication is an «un-word» that emphasizes what eludes in the communicational phenomenon: be it the mediality of the medium, the incomprehensibility of a relation or the community of those who have no community. The «ex» means not only a negation, but also a fundamental drift: it is the irrevocable and the irreconcilable that the communication presupposes and constitutes, although it defies conceptualization. The «ex» guarantees the impossibility of re-presentation. A communication that is not structured by signs, but rather shows itself: it is an existential, intransitive or mystical communication. This PhD thesis aims to establish the general outline for a negative theory of communication. By using the negative and posthermeneutic media philosophy developed by the philosopher Dieter Mersch, this dissertation intends a negative reelaboration of the three main concepts of a communicational theory: media, community and communication. In general, communication is taken as a radical alterity experience, medium as the modes of perception of this experience, and community as the possibility and condition of the communicacional event. In other words: in the negative theory of communication, the medium is transparent, the community is what ex-poses, and communication is transcendent.

L’œuvre de Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) est traversée de diverses figures du spectateur. Le terme de spectateur désigne le regardeur et le témoin oculaire d’un événement, et s’emploie souvent depuis l’Antiquité, avec une connotation négative soulignant la passivité. Penser « le » spectateur ne vise pas directement les spectateurs effectifs : c’est une manière de reconsidérer cette entité perceptive au niveau de l’idée. « Le » spectateur interroge sur la corrélation entre la position passive et la perceptivité. L’étude ici présentée, au travers de ce spectateur idéal, cherche à mettre au jour la manière dont il soutient, par sa force négative et perceptive, la créativité de Beckett. Il est indéniable que la philosophie rationaliste du XVIIe siècle, notamment celle d’Arnold Geulincx (1624-1669) influe sur la genèse des figures du spectateur beckettiennes. Elles apparaissent d’abord dans le roman, évoluent ensuite dans le théâtre et l’art audiovisuel, et finissent par engendrer les proses poétiques ultérieures pleines d’imagination perceptive. Tout en déjouant adroitement l’intention du philosophe, Beckett reconstitue l’ordre de l’univers fictif selon l’irrationnel, et ce geste donne naissance à une nouvelle forme d’écriture qui se libère des présupposés philosophiques et des conventions littéraires. Chez Beckett, la passivité n’est pas le contraire de l’activité ou la négation de l’acte, mais elle est la capacité à sentir et à percevoir les choses, de façon tout à fait originale et productive. Par leur passivité même, les figures du spectateur beckettiennes agissent sur le contenu, voire la forme même de l’œuvre. / The work of Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) is featured by various figures of “the” spectator. The term of spectator refers the viewer and the eyewitness of an event, and is often used since ancient times, with a negative connotation highlighting passivity. Thinking “the” spectator does not mean directly actual audience in the theatre, but it is a way to reconsider this perceptive entity at the level of the idea. “The” spectator questions the correlation between the passive position and perceptiveness. Through this ideal spectator, our study will try to clarify how it supports, by its negative and perceptive power, creativity of Beckett. It is undeniable that the rationalist philosophy of the seventeenth century, particularly Arnold Geulincx (1624-1669), influences the genesis of Beckettian figures of “the” spectator. They first appear in the novel, then develop in the theatre and audiovisual art, and at last, generate the later poetic prose full of perceptive imagination. By outmaneuvering ingeniously the intention of the philosopher, Beckett reconstructs the order of the fictional world according to the irrational, and this brings about a new form of writing that is free from philosophical presuppositions and literary conventions. In Beckett’s work, the passivity is not the opposite of the activity or the negation of the act, but it is the ability to feel and perceive things, in a way absolutely original and productive. Owing to their very passivity, the figures of “the” spectator act on the content and the shape of the work.

Nous ignorons ce qu’est l’Afrique, d’une ignorance qui a eu et continue d’avoir des conséquences insoutenables pour les Africain-e-s. Pour contribuer à y remédier, nous entreprenons de poser la question « Qu’est-ce que l’Afrique ? » comme une question philosophique et, pour y répondre, d’élaborer un concept d’Afrique. L’étude de l’histoire de l’Afrique, de la fin du XVe siècle aux indépendances, fait apparaître la productivité unificatrice et libératrice de la négation africaine de la négation coloniale de ce qui, de ce fait, devenait l’Afrique. Ce que nous proposons d’appeler « la négativité africaine » se caractérise par la contingence de son commencement, la relative circonscription de ses périodes et de ses espaces, l’hétérogénéité de ses processus. Sa connaissance requiert ainsi un concept singulier et empirique d’Afrique, dont l’ancrage dans le réel dépend d’un agencement épistémologique cohérent des différentes sciences humaines pour l’analyse, dans tous les domaines possibles (politique, droit, économie, art, etc.), des dispositifs de la domination de l’Afrique. La connaissance des modes d’accomplissement de la négativité africaine requiert aussi de la considérer dans l’horizon du monde. L’inadéquation entre le concept de monde (qui suppose son unité) et sa réalité (sa division, révélée par l’asymétrie des frontières) permet à la fois d’affirmer son inexistence et d’étudier l’intensité de sa scission en Afrique.Posant ainsi le problème philosophique de l’Afrique comme celui de l’inexistence du monde, nous élaborons son concept comme celui de l’u-topie de l’existence du monde, et nous soutenons la nécessité et la liaison des unifications politiques de l’Afrique et du monde. / We do not know what Africa is, and that ignorance has long had and still has unbearable consequences for African men and women. To bring a healing contribution to that, we undertake to raise the question: what is Africa? as a philosophical question and, in order to answer it, to put together a concept of Africa.Studying the history of Africa, from the end of the 15th century to the independencies, brings out the unifying and liberating productivity of the African negation of the colonial negation of what, thereby, became Africa. What we suggest to call “African negativity” is characterized by its contingent beginning, the relative circumscription of its periods and spaces, the heterogeneous nature of its processes. Its knowledge requires a singular empirical concept of Africa, whose rooting in reality depends on a coherent epistemological organizing of various human sciences in order to analyse, in all possible fields (politics, law, economics, art, and so on), the “dispositifs” of domination of Africa.The knowledge of the ways in which African negativity reaches completion also requires to take into consideration its worldwide dimension. The inadequacy between the concept of world (implying its unity) and its reality (its division, revealed by its asymmetrical frontiers) makes it possible at the same time to assert its inexistence and to fathom the intensity of its splitting apart in Africa.Thus raising the philosophical problem of Africa as that of the inexistence of the world, we further develop its concept as that of the u-topia of the existence of the world, and we maintain the need and radical interdependence of political unifying processes of Africa and the world.

The objectives of my PhD were to identify the spatial and the temporal dynamics of the brain areas involved in tactile change detection as well as the neural mechanisms responsible for the processing of tactile change detection. To that aim, three specific MEG studies were performed; each of them is addressing specific research aims.The first study investigated the spatiotemporal dynamics of the multilevel cortical processing of tactile change detection in human healthy subjects. This study disclosed a hierarchical organization from unimodal early tactile change detection at secondary somatosensory cortex to multi modal complex processing at bilateral temporo-parietal junctions, posterior parietal cortex and supplementary motor areas. The second study aimed at discriminating between debated neural mechanisms responsible for the genesis of the somatosensory mismatch negativity (sMMN). To do so, we manipulated the predictability of the deviant stimuli and the response to omissions in different kind of oddballs, the response to deviant stimuli paired with standards and occurring alone. We found out that mechanisms for early tactile change detection reflected by the sMMN were better explained by the predictive coding theory compared to the adaptation and adjustment theories. Finally we sought to characterize the alterations in early cortical tactile change detection in Friedreich Ataxia (FRDA); a neurological disorder characterized by somatosensory and cerebellar pathways degeneration. The aim of this work was to study the role of the cerebellum in the genesis of sMMN and its potential selectivity for somatosensory change detection compared to auditory. This study demonstrated that, in FRDA, both tactile and auditory pathways are affected at the level of primary sensory neurons and dorsal root/spiral ganglia in a genetically determined. By contrasts, early cortical sensory change detection in FRDA was impaired only in the tactile modality in line with the sMMN impairment described in patients with acquired cerebellar lesions or during cerebellar inhibition by trans cranial magnetic stimulation. These data brought novel empirical evidence supporting the contribution of spinocerebellar tracts in sMMN genesis at cSII cortex.In conclusion, this PhD contributed to identify the network responsible for tactile change detection that involves cuneocerebellar spinocerebellar tract and cSII cortex as somatosensory specific areas and TPJ, SMA & PPC as multimodal brain areas. We further provided evidence that early change detection mechanisms at SII cortex fall under the predictive coding framework and that change detection is hierarchically organized with inputs from low level areas for genesis of an adequate generative model of our environment and conscious representation of our body. / Doctorat en Sciences médicales (Médecine) / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished