No description available.

Society and technology are advancing, in which morality is being artificially implemented into machines, often known as artificial moral agency. Along with this implementation, knowledge about the underpinnings of morality, such as the neurocognitive and ethical basis are an important matter. Human moral judgment has been speculated to be a function for survival, as it favors altruism and prosocial behavior. The neural correlates of moral judgment stem from several structures of the human brain that control cognitive and affective functions such as decision making, cognitive control, theory of mind (ToM) and empathy. In relation to these, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) has been widely linked to moral behavior such as ToM and moral judgment. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) has been linked to regulation of conflict and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) to remain cognitive control, which both have strong correlations to moral behavior. Damage to areas such as the vmPFC and ACC have demonstrated abnormal response to guilt, ToM, empathy, risky behavior as well as sociopathic tendencies, which emphasizes the importance of these structures for human morality. By investigating research in the fields of cognitive neuroscience, moral psychology and machine ethics, this thesis aims at seeking out the importance of cognitive neuroscience for the development of artificial moral agency and to furthermore discuss the necessity of emotions in artificial moral agents, which naturally lack the affective part of moral judgment. Lastly, this thesis will cover some of the main dilemmas with this integration and some future implications.

The current review aims to unravel what is known regarding the neural substrates of empathicdistress and compassion fatigue. Empathic distress is a self-oriented feeling of anxietyexperienced in response to the suffering of another. It has been related to, and theorized to bea precursor of, compassion fatigue. This is a form of caregiver burnout received by secondaryexposure to trauma. In the current thesis, Scopus, Web of Science and PsycINFO weresearched identifying 301 articles that were subsequently screened. In the end, five studieswere included that measured either empathic distress or compassion fatigue in relation tobrain structure or function. Findings are largely inconsistent but areas involved in theory ofmind and that are important for the self-other distinction are discussed. A need for moreresearch is identified, together with a desire for conceptual clarification between compassionfatigue and burnout.

Until relatively recently, the overarching agreement in the clinical literature was that total cessation of dreaming is related to posterior parietal lesions. Two recent case reports (Bischof and Bassetti, 2004; Poza and Martí-Massó, 2006), in which patients with medial occipital lesions demonstrated total cessation of dreaming, cast doubt on this clinic-anatomical correlation, and the neuropsychological theory of dreaming associated with it (Solms, 1997). In the current study, seven patients with medial occipital lesions (with posterior cerebral artery ischemic lesions) were recruited. Three patients had total dream cessation and four had intact dreaming (confirmed on REM awakening). Acute phase clinical neuroimaging was reviewed and the extent of the lesions in both groups was meticulously analysed by a neuroanatomist, who was blind to the dreaming status of each patient. The three patients with total cessation of dreaming all demonstrated posterior thalamic infarctions involving the pulvinar nucleus. All four of the patients with intact dreaming demonstrated medial temporo-occipital lesions, and none had thalamic lesions. Upon review of the source images of one of the two case studies with medial occipital damage and total dream cessation (Bischof and Bassetti, 2004), it was noted that the patient also demonstrated infarction of the pulvinar of the thalamus. The pulvinar of the thalamus has discrete thalamo-cortical connections to the parietal lobe, which it innervates. Disruption in the pulvinar of the thalamus can, therefore, reasonably be expected to result in parietal dysfunction. This study represents the largest case-report comparison in patients with REM-confirmed dream cessation with suitably circumscribed pathology. These findings cast doubt on claims of medial occipital mechanisms of dream cessation and suggest that posterior parietal circuitry remains involved.

Mindfulness practice is used to treat mental and physical symptoms. The problem is that research on the long-term effects and the neural changes involved, correlated with well-being, are inconsistent. The purpose of this review is to create a deeper understanding of mindfulness and its neural correlates related to stress. In mindfulness, one can use focused attention meditation (FA), involving anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), prefrontal cortex (PFC), parietal areas, thalamus, visual cortex, intraparietal sulcus, and amygdala. In open monitoring meditation (OM), ACC, PFC, insula, somatosensory cortex, limbic areas and amygdala are involved. In exposure to a high amount of stress, the grey matter volume decreases in the hippocampus, PFC, and amygdala. Research has also shown that 19 000 hours of mindfulness practice increases activation in areas involved in FA and OM. This increased activation might also enhance the subject’s ability to control emotions. After 44 000 hours of meditation, areas involved in FA showed less activation which might imply that more hours of mindfulness practice involve less cognitive activity and a calmer state of mind. Regardless of hours spent on meditating, a decreased activation in the amygdala and ACC occurs, which correlates with less response towards negative stimuli. The neural changes involved in mindfulness practice was related to less experienced stress and enhanced psychological well-being. For future research, an investigation of the interaction between attentional networks and stress would be of relevance.

The ability to regulate emotions is essential for human well-being. Among posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients, the capability to control emotions is impaired. Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy is a recommended treatment for patients diagnosed with PTSD. Usually, cognitive reappraisal is considered the primary regulation technique in cognitive behavioral therapy treatment. The strategy aims to decrease negative or increase positive emotions by changing the interpretation of an event to alter the meaning of the situation. The aim of this thesis was to conduct a systematic review of the neural correlates of cognitive reappraisal among post-traumatic stress disorder patients. Through a systematic search, screening, and selection process out of initial 545 articles, six studies were included for data extraction and discussion. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants utilized the strategy of cognitive reappraisal during an emotion regulation task in the scanner. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the neural activity of the participants in the included studies was compared during a cognitive reappraisal task. The result revealed a tendency of decreased activity in prefrontal cortices in PTSD patients during reappraisal compared to controls, indicating deficient recruitment of prefrontal cortices in PTSD patients during reappraisal.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) is a mental disorder where the patient is preoccupied with a misperceived deficit in their appearance. It is a common disorder (~2% prevalence worldwide), leaving the patients significantly disabled and distressed. Comorbid disorders such as social phobia, depression, and anxiety disorders appear frequently. Previous neuroimaging studies have found heterogeneous abnormalities in brain regions involved in visual and emotional processing when comparing BDD patients to healthy controls. Some of these areas are involved in limbic structures. The emotional limbic system (involved in emotion recognition, reward, social behaviour, and decision-making) and the memory hippocampal limbic system (involved in episodic memory, information about objects, faces, and spatial locations) have been stated as two separate neural systems. The aim of this systematic review was to analyse the neural correlates of BDD focusing on structural changes in limbic structures, and further investigate whether the emotional limbic circuit exclusively is affected or solely higher influenced than the rest of the limbic structures. Abnormalities in information processing due to aberrant WM connectivity was found, as well as that volumetric alterations in GM and WM tracts correlate with clinical symptomatology. The relationship between visual and emotional processing system abnormalities and BDD severity suggests an involvement of the emotional limbic system in BDD.

Background: Ayahuasca is a South American psychoactive brew that contains Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). Research has experienced a resurgence of interest in exploring the potential of these substances in the last decade. Thus, the aim of this review was to systematically review studies that used a placebo-controlled design to explore the neural correlates and psychedelic experience induced by DMT and ayahuasca. Method: The search was conducted using the Web of Science and Scopus databases to select studies published between January 2000 and February 2022 that used neuroimaging techniques and recruited healthy participants. Thus, 7 papers were selected. Results: Ayahuasca alters electrical activity in the brain by decreasing spectralpower in all EEG frequency bands, predominantly in the alpha band. DMT caused a spatially widespread decrease in alpha bands and a more modest decrease in beta bands. Ayahuasca caused an increase in the flow of information in the brain from posterior regions to more frontal regions and an increase in scores in all the Hallucinogen Rating Scale (HRS) subscales. Ayahuasca decreased connectivity in the Default Mode Network (DMN) and increases connectivity between DMN and the salience network. Conclusion: Ayahuasca and DMT can reliably produce profound changes in perception, emotions, and sense of self. Moreover, the decrease in the alpha band, the alteration of information flow between posterior and frontal regions, and the decrease in connectivity in the DMN could be the keystone understanding the neural correlates and the psychedelic experience induced by DMT andayahuasca.

The phenomenal experience of our visual perception, what it is like to be in that state, is something that we might take for granted. However, looking closer at the neural correlates of visual processing in relation to phenomenal experience we recognize that it is a complex issue. Whether our subjective experience of our visual representation of the world is attached to cognitive functions, like working memory and attention, or whether some sort of richness overflows such functions, is an ongoing debate within cognitive neuroscience. Advocates for overflow argue that phenomenal experience is the result of activity in posterior occipito-temporo-parietal areas and is independent of attention, while those within the non-overflow position mean that for phenomenal awareness to arise activity in higher-level areas like the prefrontal lobe is needed. Finding evidence for unattended visual phenomenal consciousness without access consciousness would support the overflow position since it could indicate phenomenal experience as independent of attention. In addition to this debate, researchers need to keep in mind what methods are being used to measure phenomenal experience, since several biases potentially follow studies using introspective measures. Through this systematic review, a search string provided empirical studies based on fMRI that investigated unconscious and conscious visual processing. The results of this review show little or weak evidence for unattended visual phenomenal consciousness and do not seem to overflow cognitive functions.

No description available.