The most salient feature of the brain is connectivity; essentially we are talking about billions of neuronal units massively interconnected. 

 

Off course there are many levels of description for the brain including genetic molecular and cortical-regional.

 

However the network levels seems appropriate because:

1) As an intermediate level it has explanatory powers going down to the molecular level and up to the cortical regional level,

2) There is already an established science titled ‘neuralcomputation’ that deals with connectionism systems and has the mathematical potential to provide psychiatry with a scientific basis. 

 

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How can such a system of connected units’ create mental functions such as feeling, thinking, consciousness and personality character?

 The answer

EMERGENT PROPERTIES

Emergent property is a character of (non-linear) systems, the property of the whole system is more then the properties of the elements of the system.

Single neurons do not show properties such as feeling, thinking, consciousness and personality character, but the brain system as a whole does.

 

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Considering connectivity we are talking about two main phenomena of brain organizations:

1) Optimization of stability via connectivity balance, i.e., the brain performs a disconnection/overconnection balance allowing it to be flexibly balanced (to change via randomness and to persevere via orderliness)

2) Optimization of internal representations, Hebbian-like mechanisms together with experience-dependent-plasticity allows the brain to represent the experiential world within the brain. In an optimally developed brain the internal representations ‘match’ realty.

 

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CBP (clinical brain profiling) claims that disturbances to the optimizations of connectivity and internal representations can explain the etiology of mental disorders (and provide for a diagnostic conceptualization for psychiatry). 

 

Regarding connectivity optimization:

- Psychosis results from a breakdown of connectivity organization (Theodor Meynert stated it as back as the 18th century).

- Negative-symptoms schizophrenia reflects overconnectivity and hierarchical breakdown (i.e., higher level, transmodal collapse)

 

Regarding internal representations

- When internal representations are deoptimized (i.e., matching-complexity decreases) depression is the emergent property. Vice versa, when internal representations are hyperoptimized, mania ensues.

- Anxiety results as an emergent property of optimization imbalance when constraint frustration (i.e., synaptic-to-neuron inconsistency) ensues.

 - The psychosocial distortions typical to personality disorders occur when a considerable mismatch between internal representations and real events take-place. This is one variation (among others) of decreased matching-complexity explaining why personality disorders typically complain about depression and anxiety.

 

[- Neuropsychoanalysis commentary, -  ‘transference’ is a distortion of matching-complexity because one reacts according to internal representation (i.e., object) which does not match to the real object].

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Psychiatric diagnosis can become brain-related using terminology of ‘connectivity imbalance’ instead of ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘psychosis,’ - ‘optimization’ and ‘deoptimization’ of internal representations for ‘mood disorders,’ - and disorders of ‘constraints satisfaction’ for anxiety disorders (Psychoanalytic theory fits well with this conjecture).

For details see ‘Brain Dynamics,’ ‘Optimizers,’ and ‘CBP’ links at Neuroanalysis homepage