Effect of Structured Cognitive-Behavioral Group Therapy on Body Weight, Mental Status and the Quality of Life in Obese and Overweight Individuals: A 16-Week Follow Up Study. / Obez ve Asiri Kilolu Bireylerde Yapilandirilmis Bilissel Davranisçi Grup Terapisinin Vücut Agirligi, Ruhsal Durum ve Yasam Kalitesi Üzerine Etkisi: 16 Haftalik Bir Takip Çalismasi.

OBJECTIVE: It was aimed in this study to investigate the effects of group cognitive and behavioral therapy (CBT) on the body weight, depression, anxiety, quality of life, self-esteem, dietary cognitive distortions and eating behavior of obese and overweight people. METHOD: The study was carried out at the Department of Psychiatry, Gazi University Faculty of Medicine, between 01.07.2017 and 31.12.2017. The participants attended group CBT sessions once weekly for eight weeks. Reinforcement sessions took place at the 12th and 16th weeks. At the first, 8th, 12th and the 16th weeks, body weights were measured and the participants were asked to complete the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), the Obese Individuals Specific Quality of Life Scale (OISQLS), the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) and the Diet Related Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (DRDAS). RESULTS: The group mean age was 41.71±4.46 years, 32 (91.4%) being female. Significant improvements were found in body weight and the scores on the BDI, BAI, DEBQ, OISQLS, DRDAS, and the RSES (p<0.001 for each). The average percent weight loss was 10.2%. The BDI score was the best predictor of the change in body mass index (BMI). CONCLUSION: CBT-based group treatments for obese and overweight people are effective in losing weight. Therapy participants with less depression symptoms benefit more from treatment and lose more weight. These results should be re-evaluated in randomized controlled trials.

CONNECTOME or COLLECTOME? A NEUROPHILOSOPHICAL Perspective.

Human beings exist in a biological and social system from a micro to a macro level, by means of "collectivity", a dynamic collaboration that they have established together with the elements in that system in a way to complement each other and realize a common goal. Many neuroscientific concepts used today to explain neuronal processes from which mental functions originate are far from searching answers to traditional philosophical questions. However, the brain - as the generator of highly abstract concepts - is so complex that it cannot be explained by minimalistic approaches. The concept of connectome used in recent years to describe neuronal connections from which brain functions originate exemplifies this minimalistic approach, because it only describes structural and functional connections but does not look at brain functions in a holistic view. For this reason, we propose the concept of collectome - to replace the concept of connectome - that describes a homeomorphic and homotopic neuronal framework that has a bicontinuous style of work from micro to macroscale which is based on fractal rules.

Behavioral and Neurodevelopmental Effects of Early Interventions in Adult Wistar Rats.

INTRODUCTION: Interventions performed in the early period of life are associated with cognitive and behavioral changes in adulthood. The effects of interventions such as exposure to an early stressful life event or environmental enrichment on cognitive and behavioral development are studied. The aim of this study is to develop a new intervention method, to investigate the effects of early interventions on social interaction, memory anxiety levels and NR2B levels in prefrontal and hippocampus in adulthood. The hypothesis of the study is that exposure to the ambivalent mother will affect the behavioral performance of rats at least as much as one hour apart from the mother in the adult period and cause changes in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus in the NR2B levels. METHOD: In the study, the Wistar rats were divided into four groups as control group (12), group that remained 15 minutes apart from mother (Mild Stress) (12), group that remained 60 minutes apart from mother (Severe Stress) (14) and ambivalent mother group (13). In adulthood, the social interaction test, elevated plus maze and new object recognition test performances of rats were evaluated. ELISA method was used to evaluate the effect of interventions on the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus NMDA R2B levels. RESULTS: The important findings of the study were that in the new object recognition test, separation from the mother did not affect the recognition memory regardless of gender, while the short-term recognition memory of the females of the ambivalent mothers' group was better than the females in the other groups and the long-term memory performance of the mild stress groups men was better than the man in the other groups. In addition, in the social interaction test, the males of the ambivalent group and the mild stress group showed more aggressive behavior. It was determined that the prefrontal cortex NR2B level was higher in the mild stress and ambivalent mother group compared to the severe stress group, and NR2B level was increased in all intervention groups compared to the control group. CONCLUSION: In contrast to the hypothesis, the results of this study support that the ambivalent mother's group rats are not more adversely affected than the severe group rats and that the model created may be an environmental enrichment model rather than an early stressful life event exposure.

The psycho-periodic cube.

The current diagnostic classification systems in psychiatry have been developed primarily for evidence-based clinical decision making with both categorical and dimensional approaches having their own advantages and disadvantages. Efforts have been made to improve these classification systems, and we are now at the point where we must expand beyond the one-dimensionality of these systems. In this paper, we propose that psychiatric disorders can be arranged in a three-dimensional classification system according to the degree of dysfunctions on three specific axes in a way that is similar to the arrangement of chemical elements according to their atomic weights in Mendeleyev's periodic table. For the three axes, we chose externalization, drive, and attention to represent the three-dimensional descriptions of mental health, namely, well-being in social, motivational, and cognitive areas, respectively. Throughout the paper, we explain our reasons for choosing these three axes and compare our hypothesis with categorical diagnostic systems as well as Cloninger's dimensional diagnostic system using personality disorders, affective disorders, and schizophrenia as the specific diagnostic samples.

The Soul, as an Uninhibited Mental Activity, is Reduced into Consciousness by Rules of Quantum Physics.

This paper is an effort to describe, in neuroscientific terms, one of the most ambiguous concepts of the universe-the soul. Previous efforts to understand what the soul is and where it may exist have accepted the soul as a subjective and individual entity. We will make two additions to this view: (1) The soul is a result of uninhibited mental activity and lacks spatial and temporal information; (2) The soul is an undivided whole and, to become divided, the soul has to be reduced into unconscious and conscious mental events. This reduction process parallels the maturation of the frontal cortex and GABA becoming the main inhibitory neurotransmitter. As examples of uninhibited mental activity, we will discuss the perceptual differences of a newborn, individuals undergoing dissociation, and individuals induced by psychedelic drugs. Then, we will explain the similarities between the structure of the universe and the structure of the brain, and we propose that consideration of the rules of quantum physics is necessary to understand how the soul is reduced into consciousness.

Neural synchronization as a hypothetical explanation of the psychoanalytic unconscious.

Cognitive scientists have tried to explain the neural mechanisms of unconscious mental states such as coma, epileptic seizures, and anesthesia-induced unconsciousness. However these types of unconscious states are different from the psychoanalytic unconscious. In this review, we aim to present our hypothesis about the neural correlates underlying psychoanalytic unconscious. To fulfill this aim, we firstly review the previous explanations about the neural correlates of conscious and unconscious mental states, such as brain oscillations, synchronicity of neural networks, and cognitive binding. By doing so, we hope to lay a neuroscientific ground for our hypothesis about neural correlates of psychoanalytic unconscious; parallel but unsynchronized neural networks between different layers of consciousness and unconsciousness. Next, we propose a neuroscientific mechanism about how the repressed mental events reach the conscious awareness; the lock of neural synchronization between two mental layers of conscious and unconscious. At the last section, we will discuss the data about schizophrenia as a clinical example of our proposed hypothesis.

Affect development as a need to preserve homeostasis.

In this review, we aim to present our hypothesis about the neural development of affect. According to this view, affect develops at a multi-layered process, and as a mediator between drives, emotion and cognition. This development is parallel to the evolution of the brain from reptiles to mammals. There are five steps in this process: (1) Because of the various environmental challenges, changes in the autonomic nervous system occur and homeostasis becomes destabilized; (2) Drives arise from the destabilized homeostasis; (3) Drives trigger the neural basis of the basic emotional systems; (4) These basic emotions evolve into affect to find the particular object to invest the emotional energy; and (5) In the final stage, cognition is added to increase the possibility of identifying a particular object. In this paper, we will summarize the rationale behind this view, which is based on neuroscientific proofs, such as evolution of autonomic nervous system, neural basis the raw affective states, the interaction between affect and cognition, related brain areas, related neurotransmitters, as well as some clinical examples.

The Contribution of the Cerebellum in the Hierarchial Development of the Self.

What distinguishes human beings from other living organisms is that a human perceives himself as a "self". The self is developed hierarchially in a multi-layered process, which is based on the evolutionary maturation of the nervous system and patterns according to the rules and demands of the external world. Many researchers have attempted to explain the different aspects of the self, as well as the related neural substrates. In this paper, we first review the previously proposed ideas regarding the neurobiology of the self. We then suggest a new hypothesis regarding the hierarchial self, which proposes that the self is developed at three stages: subjective, objective, and reflective selves. In the second part, we attempt to answer the question "Why do we need a self?" We therefore explain that different parts of the self developed in an effort to identify stability in space, stability against constantly changing objects, and stability against changing cognitions. Finally, we discuss the role of the cerebellum as the neural substrate for the self.

Systematizing cultural awareness: Toward a model for modification of trauma therapy and an application in Turkey.

A cross-cultural team including a U.S.-trained clinical cross-cultural psychologist and two Turkish psychiatrists conducted research on a set of five trauma treatment psychotherapy groups for adult women survivors of sexual abuse in Ankara, Turkey. Based upon observational comparisons between trauma treatment groups in U.S. and Turkish settings, the team developed an approach to assist in adaptation of treatment methods from one cultural setting to another. This is a preliminary effort to develop a conceptual tool to focus the attention of therapists on salient dimensions of culture that may influence the psychotherapy process. This article describes six possible dimensions: (a) relational/individual self; (b) situationalism/universalism; (c) high/low power differential; (cc) high/low gender differential; (d) internal/external control; (e) emotional expressivity/containment; and (f) short-term/long-term time orientation. Comparative cultural examples from trauma psychotherapy group field notes illustrate the use of the tool.