ObjectiveTo explore alterations in white matter network topology in de novo Parkinson's disease patients with rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder.Materials and MethodsThis study included 171 de novo PD patients and 73 healthy controls recruited from the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative database. The patients were divided into two groups, PD with probable RBD and PD without probable RBD, according to the RBD screening questionnaire. Individual structural network of brain was constructed based on deterministic fiber tracking and analyses were performed (...) using graph theory. Differences in global and nodal topological properties were analyzed among the three groups. After that, post hoc analyses were performed to explore further differences. Finally, correlations between significant different properties and RBDSQ scores were analyzed in PD-pRBD group.ResultsAll three groups presented small-world organization. PD-pRBD patients exhibited diminished global efficiency and increased shortest path length compared with PD-npRBD patients and HCs. In nodal property analyses, compared with HCs, the brain regions of the PD-pRBD group with changed nodal efficiency were widely distributed mainly in neocortical and paralimbic regions. While compared with PD-npRBD group, only increased Ne in right insula, left middle frontal gyrus, and decreased Ne in left temporal pole were discovered. In addition, significant correlations between Ne in related brain regions and RDBSQ scores were detected in PD-pRBD patients.ConclusionsPD-pRBD patients showed disrupted topological organization of white matter in the whole brain. The altered Ne of right insula, left temporal pole and left middle frontal gyrus may play a key role in the pathogenesis of PD-RBD. (shrink)

In this systematic review, we aim to describe the association between temporal lobe epilepsy and sleep, with bidirectional links in mechanisms and therapeutic aspects. Sleep stages may variably impact seizure occurrence, secondary generalization and the development, frequency and distribution of interictal epileptiform discharges. Conversely, epilepsy affects sleep micro- and macroarchitecture. TLE, the most frequent form of drug resistant epilepsy, shares an enduring relationship with sleep, with some intriguing potential mechanisms specific to anatomic localization, linking the two. (...) Sleep characteristics of TLE may also inform localizing properties in persons with DRE, since seizures arising from the temporal lobe seem to be more common during wakefulness, compared to seizures of extratemporal origin. Polysomnographic studies indicate that persons with TLE may experience excessive daytime somnolence, disrupted sleep architecture, increased wake after sleep onset, frequent shifts in sleep stages, lower sleep efficiency, decreased rapid eye movement sleep, and possibly, increased incidence of sleep apnea. Limited literature suggests that effective epilepsy surgery may remedy many of these objective and subjective sleep-related concerns, via multipronged effects, apart from reduced seizure frequency. Additionally, sleep abnormalities also seem to influence memory, language and cognitive-executive function in both medically controlled and refractory TLE. Another aspect of the relationship pertains to anti-seizure medications, which may contribute significantly to sleep characteristics and abnormalities in persons with TLE. Literature focused on specific aspects of TLE and sleep is limited, and heterogeneous. Future investigations are essential to understand the pathogenetic mechanisms linking sleep abnormalities on epilepsy outcomes in the important sub-population of TLE. (shrink)

Extending a normal 24 hours day by four hours is unexpectedly highly disruptive to daily rhythms in gene expression in the blood. Using a paradigm in which human subjects were exposed to a 28 hours day, Archer and colleagues show how this sleep‐altering forced desynchrony protocol caused complex disruption to daily rhythms in distinct groups of genes. Such perturbations in the temporal organisation of the blood transcriptome arise quickly, and point to the fragile nature of coordinated genomic activity. (...) Chronic disruption of the daily and circadian rhythms in sleep compromise health and well‐being and this study reveals potential new molecular targets to combat the disruptive effects of shift work and jetlag. (shrink)

Rotating shifts are common among nurses to ensure continuity of care. This scheduling system encompasses several adverse health and performance consequences. One of the most injurious effects of night-time shift work is the deterioration of sleep patterns due to both circadian rhythm disruption and increased sleep homeostatic pressure. Sleep problems lead to secondary effects on other aspects of wellbeing and cognitive functioning, increasing the risk of errors and workplace accidents. A wide range of interventions has been (...) proposed to improve the sleep quality of nurses and promote an increase in attention levels. In recent years, particular attention has been paid to individual and environmental factors mediating the subjective ability to cope with sleep deprivation during the night shift. Given the predictive role of these factors on the negative impact of a night shift, an individualized intervention could represent an effective countermeasure by ensuring suitable management of shift schedules. Therefore, the aims of this mini-review are to: provide an updated overview of the literature on sleep problems in night shift nurses and their adverse consequences; and critically analyze the psychosocial factors that mediate the negative impact of shift work with the ultimate goal of defining an effective countermeasure based on an individualized approach. (shrink)

AimWhite matter changes in individuals at ultra-high risk for psychosis (UHR) may be involved in the transition to psychosis. Sleep-wake disturbances commonly precede the first psychotic episode and predict development of psychosis. We examined associations between white matter microstructure and sleep-wake disturbances in UHR individuals compared to healthy controls (HC), as well as explored the confounding effect of medication, substance use, and level of psychopathology.MethodsSixty-four UHR individuals and 35 HC underwent clinical interviews and diffusion weighted imaging. Group differences (...) on global and callosal mean fractional anisotropy (FA) was tested using general linear modeling. Sleep-wake disturbances were evaluated using the subjective measures disturbed sleep index (DSI) and disturbed awakening index (AWI) from the Karolinska Sleep Questionnaire, supported by objective sleep measures from one-night actigraphy. The primary analyses comprised partial correlation analyses between global FA/callosal FA and sleep-wake measures. Secondary analyses investigated multivariate patterns of covariance between measures of sleep-wake disturbances and FA in 48 white matter regions of interest using partial least square correlations.ResultsUltra-high risk for psychosis individuals displayed lower global FA (F = 14.56, p < 0.001) and lower callosal FA (F = 11.34, p = 0.001) compared to HC. Subjective sleep-wake disturbances were significantly higher among the UHR individuals (DSI: F = 27.59, p < 0.001, AWI: F = 36.42, p < 0.001). Lower callosal FA was correlated with increased wake after sleep onset (r = −0.34, p = 0.011) and increased sleep fragmentation index (r = −0.31, p = 0.019) in UHR individuals. Multivariate analyses identified a pattern of covariance in regional FA which were associated with DSI and AWI in UHR individuals (p = 0.028), but not in HC. Substance use, sleep medication and antipsychotic medication did not significantly confound these associations. The association with objective sleep-wake measures was sustained when controlling for level of depressive and UHR symptoms, but symptom level confounded the covariation between FA and subjective sleep-wake measures in the multivariate analyses.ConclusionCompromised callosal microstructure in UHR individuals was related to objectively observed disruptions in sleep-wake functioning. Lower FA in ventrally located regions was associated with subjectively measured sleep-wake disturbances and was partly explained by psychopathology. These findings call for further investigation of sleep disturbances as a potential treatment target. (shrink)

Cellular mechanisms hypothesized to underlie sleep-dependent memory consolidation are expressed throughout the brain during sleep. Use of sleep deprivation to evaluate the functional importance of these mechanisms is confounded by degradation in waking performance resulting from impaired vigilance. There is a need for methods that will permit disruption of specific mechanisms during sleep only in the neuronal circuits most critically involved in learning. This should be accomplished without global sleep disruption and with preservation (...) of the restorative aspects of sleep. (shrink)

Previous research has indicated an increase in stress levels and cognitive intrusions after natural disasters. These previous studies have not, however, assessed the impact disaster induced cognitive disruption has on human performance. In the present report, we investigated the impact of the 7.1 magnitude 2010 Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake on self-reported earthquake-induced cognitive disruption and its relationship to performance on the Sustained Attention to Response Task . Participants who self-reported greater cognitive disruption induced by the earthquake also (...) had higher levels of errors of commission during SART . This was even the case when controlling for earthquake-induced anxiety, depression, participant sex, and self-reported sleep amount. Post-disaster assessments need to include the impact of the events directly on cognitive self-regulation and conscious thoughts, in addition to more clinical constructs, such as anxiety and depression. (shrink)

We present evidence disputing the hypothesis that memories are processed or consolidated in REM sleep. A review of REM deprivation (REMD) studies in animals shows these reports to be about equally divided in showing that REMD does, or does not, disrupt learning/memory. The studies supporting a relationship between REM sleep and memory have been strongly criticized for the confounding effects of very stressful REM deprivation techniques. The three major classes of antidepressant drugs, monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), tricyclic antidepressants (...) (TCAs), and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), profoundly suppress REM sleep. The MAOIs virtually abolish REM sleep, and the TCAs and SSRIs have been shown to produce immediate (40–85%) and sustained (30–50%) reductions in REM sleep. Despite marked suppression of REM sleep, these classes of antidepressants on the whole do not disrupt learning/memory. There have been a few reports of patients who have survived bilateral lesions of the pons with few lingering complications. Although these lesions essentially abolished REM sleep, the patients reportedly led normal lives. Recent functional imaging studies in humans have revealed patterns of brain activity in REM sleep that are consistent with dream processes but not with memory consolidation. We propose that the primary function of REM sleep is to provide periodic endogenous stimulation to the brain which serves to maintain requisite levels of central nervous system (CNS) activity throughout sleep. REM is the mechanism used by the brain to promote recovery from sleep. We believe that the cumulative evidence indicates that REM sleep serves no role in the processing or consolidation of memory. Key Words: antidepressant drugs; brain stem lesions; dreams; functional imaging; memory consolidation; REM deprivation; REM sleep; theta rhythm. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 has been causing major disruptions in the sporting world. Negative physiological and psychological effects on athletes have been reported, such as respiratory issues and increased stress. Therefore, it is timely to support this population by presenting cost-effective and accessible intervention techniques to reduce this impact. Slow-paced breathing has the potential to counteract many of the detrimental effects of COVID-19 that can directly affect sports performance. In this article, we present and justify the use of SPB in (...) athletes by focusing on three key outcomes, namely aerobic endurance performance, emotional well-being, and sleep quality. We examine the physiological mechanisms that underpin these three outcomes and review literature showing that SPB can activate anti-inflammatory pathways, increase lung capacity and, in turn, improve aerobic endurance, emotional well-being, and sleep quality. We conclude that interventions using SPB can have preventive and rehabilitative properties for athletes. Future studies should empirically test the potential of SPB to help this specific population. (shrink)

Although Foucault's early writings were strongly influenced by the discourse of existential phenomenology, he later considered it an obstacle to a better understanding of social and political power. This essay seeks to understand some of the reasons for his shift, specifically with respect to Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. I argue that Foucault diverges from existential phenomenology according to an alternative tendency within the Kantian inheritance they both share: one which stresses the world-disruptive rather than the unifying or world-disclosive power of transcendental (...) imagination. Examining the role played by dreams and death in Foucault's early introduction to Binswanger's Dream and Existence allows us to situate his later analysis of the historical and political (rather than existential) meaning of death with respect to larger philosophical currents. (shrink)

This study adds to a small but growing literature that situates sleep within gendered work— family responsibilities. We conducted interviews with 25 heterosexual dual-earner working-class couples with children, most of whom had one partner who worked at night. A few men suffered disrupted sleep because of their commitment to being a coparent to their children, but for most their provider status gave them rights to longer and more continuous sleep. By contrast, as they were the primary caregiver (...) during sentient hours, women’s sleep was curtailed and interrupted by responding to the needs of family members at night and at the beginning of each day, and this was true for women who worked nights as well as days. Furthermore, in struggling to meet their daily employment and familial obligations while tired and sleepy, women further stressed their bodies in ways that can cause cumulative sleep debt. This article demonstrates that sleep deficits are another manifestation of gender inequality, with important implications for long-term health and well-being. (shrink)

Kafka's writings are frequently interpreted as representing the historical period of modernism in which he was writing. Little attention has been paid, however, to the possibility that his writings may reflect neural mechanisms in the processing of self during hypnagogic (i.e., between waking and sleep) states. Kafka suffered from dream-like, hypnagogic hallucinations during a sleep-deprived state while writing. This paper discusses reasons (phenomenological and neurobiological) why the self projects an imaginary double (autoscopy) in its spontaneous hallucinations and how (...) Kafka's writings help to elucidate the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms. I further discuss how the proposed mechanisms may be relevant to understanding paranoid delusions in schizophrenia. Literature documents and records cognitive and neural processes of self with an intimacy that may be otherwise unavailable to neuroscience. To elucidate this approach, I contrast it with the apparently popularizing view that the symptoms of schizophrenia result from what has been called an operative (i.e., pre-reflective) hyper-reflexivity. The latter approach claims that pre-reflective self-awareness (diminished in schizophrenia) pervades all conscious experience (however, in a manner that remains unverifiable for both phenomenological and experimental methods). This contribution argues the opposite: the. (shrink)

Feminist investigations into caring technologies emphasise the tension between their reproduction of care’s assumed femininity and their ability to destabilise gendered markers and systems. However, the existing literature ignores the historical racialisation of care and its perpetuation in the form of the posthuman caring object. This article examines how racialised relations of power shape the posthumanisation of care in three science-fiction works, Channel 4’s television show Humans (2015), Alex Riviera’s film Sleep Dealer (2008) and Spike Jonze’s film Her (2013). (...) While Her’s disembodied operating systems are premised upon an implicit whiteness, posthuman caring objects in Humans and Sleep Dealer take a racialised, embodied form. Drawing upon the work of Saidiya Hartman and Fred Moten, this article examines how the racialised objects in Humans and Sleep Dealer are constituted as both labourers and commodities, purchased for the purpose of facilitating white reproductivity. Nonetheless, this article also documents how these caring technologies complicate key binaries such as subject/object, human/machine and productive/reproductive labour. In doing so, they disrupt the whiteness of the social reproduction paradigm. The article concludes by calling for greater feminist engagement with the racialisation of care labour in human and posthuman forms, in order to challenge white, heterosexual models of reproductivity based upon the exploitation of racialised labour. (shrink)

This paper examines the forms of life established through the visual governance of the Australian social security mobile app —the Express Plus Centrelink app. It is argued that the app exceeds established accounts of juridical and administrative power. The app involves a seeing that is not public, a responding that is not writing and a de-materialisation of an institution and its disciplinary apparatus. It is argued that the app creates proto-literate subjects that are required to respond to a real-time sequence (...) of images in a highly structured and circumscribed manner to become complicit in the digitalisation of their life. (shrink)

The power of the application of bioinformatics across multiple publicly available transcriptomic data sets was explored. Using 19 human and mouse circadian transcriptomic data sets, we found that NR1D1 and NR1D2 which encode heme‐responsive nuclear receptors are the most rhythmic transcripts across sleep conditions and tissues suggesting that they are at the core of circadian rhythm generation. Analyzes of human transcriptomic data show that a core set of transcripts related to processes including immune function, glucocorticoid signalling, and lipid metabolism (...) is rhythmically expressed independently of the sleep‐wake cycle. We also identify key transcripts associated with transcription and translation that are disrupted by sleep manipulations, and through network analysis identify putative mechanisms underlying the adverse health outcomes associated with sleep disruption, such as diabetes and cancer. Comparative bioinformatics applied to existing and future data sets will be a powerful tool for the identification of core circadian‐ and sleep‐dependent molecules. (shrink)

Circadian rhythms in the sleep/wake cycle, along with a range of physiological measures, are severely disrupted in individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). Moreover, several central circadian genes have been implicated as potential genetic factors underlying the illness through candidate gene studies and some genome wide association studies. However, investigations into the molecular underpinnings of circadian disturbances in the human brain have been quite challenging. In their recent publication, Li and colleagues have used a novel approach to determine the (...) rhythmic patterns of circadian gene expression in several regions of the human brain, and how these patterns are disrupted in MDD. Their findings demonstrate that in healthy subjects, several brain regions outside the suprachiasmatic nucleus (the master clock) exhibit diurnal gene expression patterns that are disrupted in the brains of MDD subjects. These findings will provide the foundation for future studies of gene‐specific drug targets, and biomarkers for the disease. (shrink)

To fight against the spread of the coronavirus disease, more than 3 billion people in the world have been confined indoors. Although lockdown is an efficient solution, it has had various psychological consequences that have not yet been fully measured. During the lockdown period in France, we conducted two surveys on two large panels of participants to examine how the lockdown disrupted their relationship with time and what this change in their experiences of time means. Numerous questions were asked about (...) the experience of time but also the nature of life during the lockdown: the emotions felt, boredom, the activities performed, sleep quality, and the daily rhythm. The participants also completed a series of self-reported scales used to assess depression, anxiety, and impulsivity. The results showed that time seemed to pass more slowly during the lockdown compared to before. This feeling of a slowing down of time has little to do with living conditions during the lockdown and individual psychological characteristics. The main predictor of this time experience was boredom and partly mediated by the lack of activity. The feeling of being less happy and the presence of sleep disturbance also explained this specific experience of time albeit to a lesser extent. (shrink)

Clinical and experimental evidence suggests that hippocampal damage causes more severe disruption of episodic memories if those memories were encoded in the recent rather than the more distant past. This decrease in sensitivity to damage over time might reflect the formation of multiple traces within the hippocampus itself, or the formation of additional associative links in entorhinal and association cortices. Physiological evidence also supports a two-stage model of the encoding process in which the initial encoding occurs during active waking (...) and deeper consolidation occurs via the formation of additional memory traces during quiet waking or slow-wave sleep. In this article I will describe the changes in cholinergic tone within the hippocampus in different stages of the sleep-wake cycle and will propose that these changes modulate different stages of memory formation. In particular, I will suggest that the high levels of acetylcholine that are present during active waking might set the appropriate dynamics for encoding new information in the hippocampus, by partially suppressing excitatory feedback connections and so facilitating encoding without interference from previously stored information. By contrast, the lower levels of acetylcholine that are present during quiet waking and slow-wave sleep might release this suppression and thereby allow a stronger spread of activity within the hippocampus itself and from the hippocampus to the entorhinal cortex, thus facilitating the process of consolidation of separate memory traces. (shrink)

The intellectualist position held by structuralists does not explain the extremes of emotional reaction to the disruption of social categories. An approach from neuroscience based on the functions of the limbic system in the creation of long‐term memory through the role of the hippocampus and REM sleep is proposed to account for the emotive loading of cognitive categories.

This piece, included in the drift special issue of continent. , was created as one step in a thread of inquiry. While each of the contributions to drift stand on their own, the project was an attempt to follow a line of theoretical inquiry as it passed through time and the postal service(s) from October 2012 until May 2013. This issue hosts two threads: between space & place and between intention & attention . The editors recommend that to experience the (...) drifiting thought that attention be paid to the contributions as they entered into conversation one after another. This particular piece is from the BETWEEN INTENTION & ATTENTION thread: Jeremy Fernando, Sitting in the Dock of the bay, watching... * R.H. Jackson, Reading Eyes * Gina Rae Foster, Nyctoleptic Nomadism: The Drift/Swerve of Knowing * Bronwyn Lay, Driftwood * Patricia Reed, Sentences on Drifitng * David Prater, drift: a way * * * * * Australia, Summer, 2012. …. essential humanity exists, and runs its course, within a system whose first principle is the preservation of balance. And arching over it all, is the logos of The Dreaming. How shall we state this when we fully understand it I do not know, but I should think we are more likely to ennoble it than not. Equilibrium ennobled is abidingness.” 1 On return to birthplace I write. Caught between jetlag and surprise, a relentless sun cracks my skin. Upright words fall under cockatoo roars. The attempt to settle, to be attentive, is shaken. Some kind of Dreaming surrounds and elements intrude without consent. Homeless at home. Exhausted, I fight sleep’s hard currents. Their victory would confuse the body clock, so the in-between wins. Half-there — half-awake — here in this place — I am driftwood. Driftwood: wood floating in or washed ashore by a body of water. A severed limb set adrift from the birthing body. Tossed from home it’s cast into processes of wind, water, sand, bacteria, decay and movement. Driftwood is orphaned members at the mercy and agency of weather, currents, submersion, and being thrown into dry world. Driftwood — singular plural. White man got no dreaming. Him go ‘nother way. White man, him go different Him got road belong himself. 2 photo: Bronwyn Lay The old man comes from the northern rivers. A while ago, he could no longer pay attention to wage slavery, so retreated north to be with dead redgum that lay abandoned in dry riverbeds. Derived from driftwood peoples tossed here by the sea, he followed the fragile river veins of his birth. He walked along water bodies and through country’s lungs. Some kind of displaced ancestral song compelled his leathered hands to pick up centuries old driftwood from flood plains. It emerged from under muddy creeks, was flung up by salt soaked coves, pushed underground by cracks in the claypan and lay embedded in mud and salinized soil. Smoothed and grooved in equal measure, the branches were marked by an organic alphabet that preceded him. As he held the wood, he touched decomposing circles that started with a blast and never ceased writing into abandoned flesh. When the ute was full the old man returned home having been away with the stuff that ‘growed him up’. His shed filled with red sawdust and the sound of tools at labour. His hands sculptured driftwood. History carved into itinerant skin. I sit opposite the old man. His body no longer holds the repetition of carpentry. He can no longer gift driftwood its detail. Outside redgum bits lie scattered around the fence line and beside the dam. He crouches over an unreliable computer researching the massacres of indigenous peoples that occurred along the same river veins that ‘growed him up’ long ago. Staring into the remnants of frontier resistance that he and I inherit, his eyes nurture fire. He discovers severed limbs and the slicing of tribes. In the ashes of sentences he sifts the lies that smoulder into our histories. In the 30’s the anthropologist Stanner said that due to certain factors — lack of change and isolation — the ideal and real come very close together in indigenous Dreaming. They are a people who were able to defeat history. 3 “If the Ideal and the Real drift too far away from one another (as they did at the end of the middle ages and seem increasingly to do this century) men face some difficult options. They have to change their way of life, or their philosophy, or both, or live unhappily somewhere in-between.” 4 Stanner says Indigenous Dreaming is blackfella thinking. 5 Dreamtime is not ethereal, not utopic, or otherworldly. It’s fused with the real and it’s not mine. I might never understand, but it’s the substance of my home. This here place ‘growed me up’. Is driftwood the unhappy in-between? Is it a radical itinerant written upon by currents? Where are we? The settler restless? photo: Alison Pouliot I return to the bush late one night, tired from high talk in city cafes, to find the old man at his computer. He’s either researching his white farming ancestors, or tracing unrecorded massacres of blackfellas. I laugh, “You know Dad, if you were indigenous you might go out by the dam and sing up your ancestors rather than try find them on a screen.” He peers over his glasses. His stare delivers an ancestral scold. He’s white man. Of course he archives. This is our way. One may see that, like all men, he is a metaphysician in being able to transcend himself. With the metaphysician goes a mood and spirit, which I can only call a mood or spirit of assent, neither despair nor resignation, optimism not pessimism, quietism nor indifference. The mood, and the outlook beneath it, make him hopelessly out of place in a world in which the renaissance has triumphed only to be perverted, and in which the products of secular humanism, rationalism and science challenge their own hopes, indeed their beginnings.” 6 The clinamen sometimes comes abstract — the rarefied swerve of possibility. But in the place we gather &mdash where this text has landed — in the heart of settler colony denial — the clinamen reminds of familiar violence and goes maximum. The earth’s swerve. Topography’s tip. Physics gone violent. Here, drift is initiated by the tear of flesh, scurvy voyages, frontier blood and the deracination from belonging. Here, war precedes drift. We all got tossed. Here. Pay attention. The country has its own gaze. ‘Lest we forget’. The seasonal turn on aborescent substances starts with a fall, an upwards rupture, a drop, a cut, a storm, a violence, a loss, forced migration, refugees, agricultural imperialism, settler wheat and poisoned rations. Pay attention to aftermath debris. Don’t drift too far from the real. History hasn’t settled into the water. It still tosses limbs back and forth. Surrounded by the backdrop of Dreaming country the old man archives and dreams. Both ways of settling into the real. But lest we forget, time, in this place, has no textual tick — tock. Our bodies know this, even though we persist with shipwreck illusions. It’s difficult being here. Here. Pay inattention. I walk through eucalyptus, over dried out clay pans and under kookaburras. It’s been two years in-between. This time country speaks strong underfoot. Forget books, forget texts, forget other lands and times, beginning and end. Be here. All falls raw. Leaves drop and refuse to compost. Bark untethers quick. Light denudes worlds. The heated horizon melts monoliths. It’s enough to make Cartesians shiver. Awake. Refuse the temptation to run. Have enough courage to drift into here. Love with a gum tree. Stand with her whole and dissolving. She moves light between our limbs, tossing them to wind. She — the original romance — is the dream that dares touch flesh and reaches over nightmares with elemental desire. I gaze and lose me. There’s no distance. The land that ‘growed me up’ speaks with symbiotic breath. There’s no division, no separation, no other. The gum is plastic arborescence. You be my body for me, always were. …..but I wake to driftwood histories and recall slaughters. Drifted, wicked fellow citizen — the other is someone else’s blind sleep. Betrayal maintains the other as mine. Archives reveal this place doesn’t belong to me. Body articulates that it became here. Gumtree cares not………her arms take me in anyway. “Like all men he is a philosopher in being able to use his power of abstract reason. His genius, his metier, and in some sense — his fate is that because of endowment and circumstance this power has channelled itself mainly into one activity, making sense out of social relations among men living together.” 7 The old man excavates seven generations of settler ancestors. They’re an ordinary lot with written-upon skin. He records genocides that occurred alongside his peoples fertility. Bodies rise from riverbeds like sovereign sacrifices. It hurts. It disrupts. He labours at the past with gestures that might go unnoticed in a country suffocated by rich amnesia. Inside walls, he seems attentive to historical details. Outside he seems inattentive to time, lost to us and embedded in a family of active matter — the bush. His driftwood skin appears around my eyes - grooves of experience, the rush of cruel sun, the push of blind winds, and the love of everything. The sovereign’s reluctant children are thrown here by, with and through blood, but country gets in and sculpts us here. photo: Chris Corrigan “But his abstractions do not put him at war with himself.” 8 The kangaroo family appears at dusk. When the sun is soft I follow the old man into the back paddock. Children skip behind us. In-between generations, I step into the old man’s driftwood leanings. My feet find traces of his understanding – the archivist that reads trees. Here, on home dirt, inattention and attention collapse as we wander into where we are. The roo family gaze at us. Through the grass the old man’s wooden finger articulates kin’s details. He points to the head male, the mother holding a joey in pouch and the young warriors side by side. My children, quieter than ever, meet the laser - eyed silence of another family. In half-light Dad, me, and the kids mirror the kangaroo constellation and stand gentle together. At the bushblock’s limit we encounter ancestral desires. White peoples are subject to driftwood histories. We’re severed limbs attempting to fuse here now, with what was, only to discover our skin becomes racked and embedded with the weather. Into the shelter and fissures of this difficult and ambiguous inheritance, I fall into dream light until balance saturates. Light breaks when the kangaroos move. They bounce someplace else without effort or impact. We turn and tread through the dark towards home. It’s time to sleep. Driftwood skin covers the country. Dreaming is still. photo: Bronwyn Lay NOTES W.E.H. Stanner, The Dreaming and Other Essays , (Melbourne: Black Inc. Agenda, 2009), 72. Ibid., 56. Stanner is recalling one intelligent old man who said to him, “with a cadence almost as though he had been speaking in verse.” Ibid., 60. Ibid., 69. Ibid., 58. Ibid., 67. Ibid., 68. Ibid., 59.  . 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This article explains how the most recommended treatment for obstructive sleep apnea, the continuous positive airway pressure device, acts and interacts with users’ bodies, sleep partners’ bodies, and cultural discourses to produce emotions and practices that generate the subjectivity of a disabled or abled person. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with OSA patients, this article illustrates how introducing CPAP devices into patients’ lives may disturb their sleep and breathing, diminish their independence, disfigure their appearance, and problematize intimacy with (...) bed partners, thereby disrupting both the fleshy body and the culturally preferred image of a healthy, independent, and attractive individual. In response, many patients reject this treatment. ability as a subjective state is shown to emerge from associations in a network composed of heterogeneous entities that have agency. That is, disabled subjectivity emerges when the device prevents individuals from accomplishing what they consider to be the essential and socially significant aspects of sleep and primarily its disembodied and interembodied aspects. (shrink)

This review discussed the effects of the impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic on the psychological wellbeing of people with Parkinson's disease focusing specifically on depressive symptoms, anxiety levels, sleep, and quality of life. Together with motor symptoms, psychological symptoms are common and disabling conditions in the clinical course of PD becoming a relevant topic as a result of the lockdown measure due to alter their everyday life. We searched on PubMed online electronic databases for English articles published (...) between January 2020 and 31 December 2021. Twenty-eight relevant studies were found and included in the review. Heterogeneous data emerged from the topics analyzed. Overall, data from depression studies showed significant depressive symptoms if the patient was analyzed longitudinally or vs. a control group consisting in healthy subjects, while these differences become minimal when the control group is a family member. Differently, in most of the studies reviewed there is no evidence of a statistically significant impact on anxiety disorders, nor on the quality of sleep. Conversely, PD patients showed a statistically significant negative impact of QoL compared with control groups or other neurological conditions. Although these findings must be interpreted carefully in the light of the studies' limitations, both in methodology and design, collectively our review showed that COVID-19 pandemic has had negative effects on the mental health of people with PD, due to disruption of healthcare services, loss of usual activities and supports and reduction in physical activity. (shrink)

The two waves of COVID-19 in India have had severe consequences for the lives of people. The Indian State-imposed various regulatory mechanisms like lockdowns, encouraged remote work, online teaching in academic institutions, and enforced adherence to the COVID protocols. The use of various technologies especially digital/online technologies not only helped to adapt to the “new normal” and cope with the disruptions in pursuing everyday activities but also to manage one’s well-being. However, the availability and accessibility of digital technologies to various (...) sections of the population were not uniform. This paper reports a series of three studies examining the nature of pandemic stress, the impact of technology use on people’s emotional well-being during turbulent times, and the effects of technology use on psychological resources like resilience, self-efficacy, motivation to work, and emotional well-being. The differences in the residential background and SES in the extent of the use of technology and strength of psychological resources were assessed. The findings indicated that the most common causes of concern included worrying about family, friends, partners, fears of getting and giving the viral infection to someone; frustration and or boredom; and changes in normal sleep patterns. It was noted that technology was a double-edged sword and created barriers as well as opportunities for the people. Also, self-efficacy mediated the relationship between the use of technology and emotional wellbeing. The results have policy implications for building resilient communities in the post COVID period. (shrink)

In this paper we consider mechanistic explanations for biologic malfunctions. Drawing on Lipton’s work on difference making, we offer three reasons why one should distinguish i) mechanistic features that only make a difference to the malfunction one aims to explain, from ii) features that make a difference to both the malfunction and normal functioning. Recognition of the distinction is important for a) repair purposes, b) mechanism discovery, and c) understanding. This analysis extends current mechanistic thinking, which fails to appreciate the (...) distinction. We illustrate our contribution with a case on sleeping disorders as arising from disruptions of circadian rhythms. (shrink)

This paper provides an introduction to the history of the concept of “emerging infectious diseases” (EID) and reflects on how humanities and social science scholars have interacted with it. It starts with a chronological outline of the coinage of the concept in the early 1990s in the wake of the shocks provoked by Ebola and HIV/AIDS, which disrupted the idea that the West was transitioning from a period of infectious diseases to one of chronic diseases. We argue that humanities and (...) social science scholars in disciplines such as history, anthropology, STS, and literature studies have critically explored the concept, showing how entrenched it was in the perceptions of the US and Europe about threats posed by the rest of the globe. Moreover, we explore how scholars in the humanities have used the EID concept to comment on contemporary realities and mobilized it to create dialogues with scientists, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, we explore how the growing contemporary interest in EID has pushed historians to research the ontological and epistemological factors that enabled the “emergence” of diseases long before the invention of the EID concept, such as plague, Chagas disease, and sleeping sickness, as well as the factors that transformed these and other emerging diseases into pandemics. We conclude by outlining a few neglected factors in the EID literature that could be addressed: the circulation and reception of the concept outside of the West, the examination of EID as a problem for wild animals and not just for humans, and global histories of disease emergence as an epistemological and social process. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 46, no. 2. © 2020 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 327 Callie Danae Hirsch pandemic daydreams Artist’s Statement I am a painter who works in oils and acrylics on canvas and found objects. I am also a photographer as part of my daily practice. My work is an exploration of everything that surrounds me in my daily life, observing the overlooked, honing in and reimagining it. I seek (...) out discarded items on the streets, in parks, and on the beaches around the five boroughs of New York City and imagine their reincarnation. This series, pandemic daydreams, explores my subconscious in a time of profound anxiety. I sometimes drift off into sleep and, upon waking, remember clearly for a moment the scenario the dreamlet contained. A dream fragment during the day, or as I reframe it here as a daydream, allows my subconscious to float to the surface of consciousness. What is revealed is not always easily understood, but now it is the plague that plagues my sleeping life. Strange ideas emerge; comical, nightmarish, filled with chaos and disruption, the invisible made visible, interpreted from brush to canvas. The paintings serve as a visual diary of my psyche during the coronavirus outbreak, created using acrylic on canvas, measuring from 24 by 20 inches to 44 by 36 inches. My quarantine cocoon strolls include Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where newly dug soil can be seen on numerous fresh graves as I make my way through the hills seeking fresh air and exercise. Rising smoke from the crematorium is a constant reminder of those we have lost. Migrating birdsong fills my ears, but death hovers in the whirlwind 328 Callie Danae Hirsch around us. Who are we losing today? What will remain of our pre-COVID life and society when this is over? When can we hug each other again? As the pandemic hit, I felt the desire to connect and reflect with others about what we are all losing: our elders, our community members, our friends, our family, and our “IRL” connections with each other. I look forward to the day when this chapter is a distant memory, but for now I will investigate the discomfort of our present moment.  All images shown in this art essay courtesy of Callie Danae Hirsch: Pandemic daydreams i– xvii, 2020. Acrylic on canvas, variable dimensions.  Pandemic daydreams vii, 24 × 36 × 1 inches. left to right  Pandemic daydreams i, 20 × 24 × ½ inches.  Pandemic daydreams xvii, 20 × 24 × ½ inches. this page, top to bottom  Pandemic daydreams xiii, 20 × 24 × ½ inches.  Pandemic daydreams xvi, 20 × 24 × ½ inches. opposite, top to bottom  Pandemic daydreams v, 20 × 24 × ½ inches.  Pandemic daydreams xv, 44 × 36 × 1 ½ inches. left to right  Pandemic daydreams ix, 16 × 20 × ½ inches.  Pandemic daydreams xii, 20 × 30 × 1 ½ inches. left to right  Pandemic daydreams xi, 20 × 24 × ½ inches.  Pandemic daydreams ii, 20 × 24 × ½ inches.  Pandemic daydreams viii, 20 × 24 × ½ inches.  Pandemic daydreams xiv, 20 × 24 × ½ inches. previous page  Pandemic daydreams vi, 20 × 28 × 1 ½ inches.  Pandemic daydreams iii, 20 × 24 × ½ inches.  Pandemic daydreams x, 48 × 36 × 1 ½ inches.... (shrink)

A new philosophical analysis is provided of the notorious Sleeping Beauty Problem. It is argued that the correct solution is one-third, but not in the way previous philosophers have typically meant this. A modified version of the Problem demonstrates that neither self-locating information nor amnesia is relevant to the core Problem, which is simply to evaluate the conditional chance of heads given an undated Monday-or-Tuesday awakening. Previous commentators have failed to appreciate the significance of the information that Beauty gains upon (...) waking, and which is relevant to the conditional chance of heads: de re acquaintance with the awakening itself and the non-locating knowledge that it is an experimental awakening. David Lewis and company are committed to several unjustifiable and unacceptable probability assessments. Previous commentators have in effect confused the information that Beauty undergoes this particular experimental awakening for the information that she undergoes some experimental awakening or other. Lewis in particular thereby illegitimately tips the scales both in favor of heads and in favor of Monday. The Sleeping Beauty Problem is equivalent to a ball-in-urn word problem in elementary probability theory. (shrink)

This paper examines three accounts of the sleeping beauty case: an account proposed by Adam Elga, an account proposed by David Lewis, and a third account defended in this paper. It provides two reasons for preferring the third account. First, this account does a good job of capturing the temporal continuity of our beliefs, while the accounts favored by Elga and Lewis do not. Second, Elga’s and Lewis’ treatments of the sleeping beauty case lead to highly counterintuitive consequences. The proposed (...) account also leads to counterintuitive consequences, but they’re not as bad as those of Elga’s account, and no worse than those of Lewis’ account. (shrink)

Adam Elga takes the Sleeping Beauty example to provide a counter-example to Reflection, since on Sunday Beauty assigns probability 1/2 to H, and she is certain that on Monday she will assign probability 1/3. I will show that there is a natural way for Bas van Fraassen to defend Reflection in the case of Sleeping Beauty, building on van Fraassen’s treatment of forgetting. This will allow me to identify a lacuna in Elga’s argument for 1/3. I will then argue, however, (...) that not all is well with Reflection: there is a problem with van Fraassen’s treatment of forgetting. Ultimately I will agree with Elga’s 1/3 answer. David Lewis maintains that the answer is 1/2; I will argue that cases of forgetting can be used to show that the premiss of Lewis’s argument for 1/2 is false. (shrink)

The strong law of large numbers and considerations concerning additional information strongly suggest that Beauty upon awakening has probability 1/3 to be in a heads-awakening but should still believe the probability that the coin landed heads in the Sunday toss to be 1/2. The problem is that she is in a heads-awakening if and only if the coin landed heads. So, how can she rationally assign different probabilities or credences to propositions she knows imply each other? This is the problem (...) I address in this article. I suggest that ‘p whenever q and vice versa’ may be consistent with p and q having different probabilities if one of them refers to a sample space containing ordinary possible worlds and the other to a sample space containing centred possible worlds, because such spaces may fail to combine into one composite probability space and, as a consequence, ‘whenever’ may not be well defined; such is the main contribution of this article. 1The Sleeping Beauty Game2Groisman’s and Peter Lewis’s Approaches3Discussing Beauty’s Credences4The Principle of Equivalence's Failure5Making Sense of the Principle of Equivalence's Failure6Elga’s and Lewis’s Approaches7ConclusionAppendix. (shrink)

I defend the suggestion that the rational probability in the Sleeping Beauty paradox is one third. The reasoning in its favour is familiar: for every heads-waking, there are two tails-wakings. To complete the defense, I rebut the reasoning which purports to justify the competing suggestion – that the correct probability is half – by undermining its premise, that no new information has been received.

Sleep and dreaming are important daily phenomena that are receiving growing attention from both the scientific and the philosophical communities. The increasingly popular predictive brain framework within cognitive science aims to give a full account of all aspects of cognition. The aim of this paper is to critically assess the theoretical advantages of Predictive Processing (PP, as proposed by Clark 2013, Clark 2016; and Hohwy 2013) in defining sleep and dreaming. After a brief introduction, we overview the state (...) of the art at the intersection between dream research and PP (with particular reference to Hobson and Friston 2012; Hobson et al. 2014). In the following sections we focus on two theoretically promising aspects of the research program. First, we consider the explanations of phenomenal consciousness during sleep (i.e. dreaming) and how it arises from the neural work of the brain. PP provides a good picture of the peculiarity of dreaming but it can’t fully address the problem of how consciousness comes to be in the first place. We propose that Integrated Information Theory (IIT) (Oizumi et al. 2014; Tononi et al. 2016) is a good candidate for this role and we will show its advantages and points of contact with PP. After introducing IIT, we deal with the evolutionary function of sleeping and dreaming. We illustrate that PP fits with contemporary researches on the important adaptive function of sleep and we discuss why IIT can account for sleep mentation (i.e. dreaming) in evolutionary terms (Albantakis et al. 2014). In the final section, we discuss two future avenues for dream research that can fruitfully adopt the perspective offered by PP: (a) the role of bodily predictions in the constitution of the sleeping brain activity and the dreaming experience, and (b) the precise role of the difference stages of sleep (REM (Rapid eye movement), NREM (Non-rapid eye movement) in the constitution and refinement of the predictive machinery. (shrink)

This paper develops a philosophical account of moral disruption. According to Robert Baker, moral disruption is a process in which technological innovations undermine established moral norms without clearly leading to a new set of norms. Here I analyze this process in terms of moral uncertainty, formulating a philosophical account with two variants. On the harm account, such uncertainty is always harmful because it blocks our knowledge of our own and others’ moral obligations. On the qualified harm account, there (...) is no harm in cases where moral uncertainty is related to innovation that is “for the best” in historical perspective or where uncertainty is the expression of a deliberative virtue. The two accounts are compared by applying them to Baker’s historical case of the introduction of mechanical ventilation and organ transplantation technologies, as well as the present-day case of mass data practices in the health domain. (shrink)

A new AI system, called AlphaGeometry, trained under synthetic data has demonstrated the ability to solve geometric problems at the International Olympiad level. This essay considers the fact that human abilities to learn and do math as well as many other tasks are increasingly augmented with AI. Clearly, smart technologies like AlphaGeometry are redefining a number of concepts and institutions such as learning, schools, education, teacher-student relationships, creativity, etc, which are so fundamental for what we’ve thought of as modern society, (...) economy, and culture. What are we preparing for in mathematics education in the face of the possibility of the continued emergence of disruptive technologies, signaling the beginning of the end, if a new reality of mathematics is not taken into account? (shrink)

Gaston Bachelard distinguishes the radical novelty and newness of the imagination from pre-existing sensory impressions. In this article, I explore Bachelard's connections between time, the imagined image and poetic form, and I consider their implications for the cinema. Concentrating my analysis on Ildikó Enyedi's Testről és lélekről/ On Body and Soul — a film that alternates between doubled worlds, depictions of human and animal life — I draw out the temporality and the diversity of Bachelard's imagined images. Bringing Bachelard's instant, (...) vertical time and the crystalline to bear on Enyedi's film, I argue that, under the pretext of sleep, rest and dreaming, On Body and Soul engages the temporality and attentiveness of the Bachelardian imagination, together with its poetic effects. (shrink)

A long history of research has revealed many neurophysiological changes and concomitant behavioral impacts of sleep deprivation, sleep restriction, and circadian rhythms. Little research, however, has been conducted in the area of computational cognitive modeling to understand the information processing mechanisms through which neurobehavioral factors operate to produce degradations in human performance. Our approach to understanding this relationship is to link predictions of overall cognitive functioning, or alertness, from existing biomathematical models to information processing parameters in a cognitive (...) architecture, leveraging the strengths from each to develop a more comprehensive explanation. The integration of these methodologies is used to account for changes in human performance on a sustained attention task across 88 h of total sleep deprivation. The integrated model captures changes due to time awake and circadian rhythms, and it also provides an account for underlying changes in the cognitive processes that give rise to those effects. The results show the potential for developing mechanistic accounts of how fatigue impacts cognition, and they illustrate the increased explanatory power that is possible by combining theoretical insights from multiple methodologies. (shrink)

This paper develops a philosophical account of moral disruption. According to Robert Baker (2013), moral disruption is a process in which technological innovations undermine established moral norms without clearly leading to a new set of norms. Here I analyze this process in terms of moral uncertainty, formulating a philosophical account with two variants. On the Harm Account, such uncertainty is always harmful because it blocks our knowledge of our own and others’ moral obligations. On the Qualified Harm Account, (...) there is no harm in cases where moral uncertainty is related to innovation that is “for the best” in historical perspective, or where uncertainty is the expression of a deliberative virtue. The two accounts are compared by applying them to Baker’s historical case of the introduction of mechanical ventilation and organ transplantation technologies, as well as the present-day case of mass data practices in the health domain. (shrink)

The Sleeping Beauty paradox in epistemology and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics both raise problems concerning subjective probability assignments. Furthermore, there are striking parallels between the two cases; in both cases personal experience has a branching structure, and in both cases the agent loses herself among the branches. However, the treatment of probability is very different in the two cases, for no good reason that I can see. Suppose, then, that we adopt the same treatment of probability in each (...) case. Then the dominant ‘thirder’ solution to the Sleeping Beauty paradox becomes incompatible with the tenability of the many-worlds interpretation. (shrink)

I defend the suggestion that the rational probability in the Sleeping Beauty paradox is one third. The reasoning in its favour is familiar: for every heads-waking, there are two tails-wakings. To complete the defense, I rebut the reasoning which purports to justify the competing suggestion – that the correct probability is half – by undermining its premise, that no new information has been received.

Cian Dorr (2002) gives an argument for the 1/3 position in Sleeping Beauty. I argue this is based on a mistake about Sleeping Beauty's epistemic position.

Currently, the most popular views about how to update de se or self-locating beliefs entail the one-third solution to the Sleeping Beauty problem.2 Another widely held view is that an agent‘s credences should be countably additive.3 In what follows, I will argue that there is a deep tension between these two positions. For the assumptions that underlie the one-third solution to the Sleeping Beauty problem entail a more general principle, which I call the Generalized Thirder Principle, and there are situations (...) in which the latter principle and the principle of Countable Additivity cannot be jointly satisfied. The most plausible response to this tension, I argue, is to accept both of these principles, and to maintain that when an agent cannot satisfy them both, she is faced with a rational dilemma. (shrink)

Explores deep sleep (susupti), one of the three states of consciousness in Advaita Vedanta, and the major role it plays in this philosophy.

The Sleeping Beauty problem is test stone for theories about self-locating belief, i.e. theories about how we should reasons when data or theories contain indexical information. Opinion on this problem is split between two camps, those who defend the "1/2 view" and those who advocate the "1/3 view". I argue that both these positions are mistaken. Instead, I propose a new "hybrid" model, which avoids the faults of the standard views while retaining their attractive properties. This model _appears_ to violate (...) Bayesian conditionalization, but I argue that this is not the case. By paying close attention to the details of conditionalization in contexts where indexical information is relevant, we discover that the hybrid model is in fact consistent with Bayesian kinematics. If the proposed model is correct, there are important lessons for the study of self-location, observation selection theory, and anthropic reasoning. (shrink)

What degrees of belief does Sleeping Beauty's evidence support? That depends.

The Sleeping Beauty problem—first presented by A. Elga in a philosophical context—has captured much attention. The problem, we contend, is more aptly regarded as a paradox: apparently, there are cases where one ought to change one’s credence in an event’s taking place even though one gains no new information or evidence, or alternatively, one ought to have a credence other than 1/2 in the outcome of a future coin toss even though one knows that the coin is fair. In this (...) paper we argue for two claims. First, that Sleeping Beauty does gain potentially new relevant information upon waking up on Monday. Second, his credence shift is warranted provided it accords with a calculation that is a result of conditionalization on the relevant information: “this day is an experiment waking day” (a day within the experiment on which one is woken up). Since Sleeping Beauty knows what days d could refer to, he can calculate the probability that the referred to waking day is a Monday or a Tuesday providing an adequate resolution of the paradox. (shrink)

Terence Horgan defends the thirder position on the Sleeping Beauty problem, claiming that Beauty can, upon awakening during the experiment, engage in “synchronic Bayesian updating” on her knowledge that she is awake now in order to justify a 1/3 credence in heads. In a previous paper, I objected that epistemic probabilities are equivalent to rational degrees of belief given a possible epistemic situation and so the probability of Beauty’s indexical knowledge that she is awake now is necessarily 1, precluding such (...) updating. In response, Horgan maintains that the probability claims in his argument are to be taken, not as claims about possible rational degrees of belief, but rather as claims about “quantitative degrees of evidential support.” This paper argues that the most plausible account of quantitative degree of support, when conjoined with any of the three major accounts of indexical thought in such a way as to plausibly constrain rational credence, contradicts essential elements of Horgan’s argument. (shrink)

This paper explores the meaning of dreamless sleep. First, I consider four reasons why we commonly pass over sleep's ontological significance. Second, I compare and contrast death and sleep to show how each is oriented to questions regarding the possibilities of "being-a-whole." In the third and final part, I explore the meaning and implications of "being-toward-sleep," arguing that human existence emerges atop naturally anonymous corporeality (i.e. living being). In sum, I try to show that we can (...) recover an authentic — if somewhat ambiguous — sense of "being-a-whole" only by recognizing the ontological significance of dreamless sleep. (shrink)

Argues for the "thirder" solution to the Sleeping Beauty puzzle. The argument turns on an analogy with a variant case, in which a coin-toss on Monday night determines whether one's memories of Monday are permanently erased, or merely suspended in such a way that they will return some time after one wakes up on Tuesday.