Modeling intentionality in the human brain.

This paper is focusing on a rather neglected issue that concerns both aspects of philosophy and neurobiology in relation to the concept of intentionality. Intentionality is concerned with the 'directedness' or 'aboutness' of mental phenomena towards an object. Despite the fact that in philosophy both concepts of aboutness and directedness are conceptually identical with intentionality, a careful neuroscientific approach can demonstrate that these two phenomena represent two distinct conceptual and neurobiological aspects of intentionality with complementary functions. We described the interaction between a series of intentionality and pathogenetic psychobiological factors, the corresponding brain topography, and the resulting clinical manifestation and psychopathology. A permanent failure of intentionality dominates in psychosis, which includes an inappropriateness of the intentional object or connection, from the outset, or even from the prodromal phase of the disorder. Affective disorders may result from imprecise interoceptive prediction error signals, due to a confused identification of the intentional object. In suicidal patients there is an emotional intentionality failure, characterized by an absence of intentional object or a loss of conscious access to normal intentional objects. We may model an 'intentional system' as a higher order system, with a monitoring and regulatory role attributed to the brain and behavior. Also, we may consider mental disorders as the result of a radical disruption of intentionality, due to an inappropriateness or lack of the intentional object or due to an inappropriate connection in some points of the suggested brain pathways of intentionality.

Modelling disruptions of intentionality in psychosis.

In philosophy, intentionality involves directedness, aboutness, or reference of mental states. It seems to have intense connections with mental representation, consciousness, as well as evolutionary selected functions. Naturalizing intentionality, in terms of tracking or functional roles, is one of the most important goals in philosophy of mind. Such what-matters models would be useful, employing a combination of the principles of intentionality and causality. For example, the brain contains a seeking system that is responsible for its capacity of having an instinct-like urge towards something or towards wanting. Reward circuits are linked with emotional learning, reward seeking, reward learning, as well as with the homeostatic system and the hedonic system. We may suggest that such brain systems reflect components of a broad intentional system, whereas non-linear dynamics can explain the complex behavior of such chaotic or fuzzy systems. Historically, the cusp catastrophe model has been used to predict health behaviors. It can explain why relatively small changes in a parameter can result in catastrophic changes in the state of a system. If distal risk is low, then proximal risk will be linearly related to psychopathology. If distal risk is high, then proximal risk is nonlinearly related to a severe psychopathology and small changes in proximal risk predict a sudden lapse. The phase of hysteresis can explain how a network stays active long after the events in the external field that triggered its activation have waned. It seems that in psychotic patients there is a failure of intentionality, due to the inappropriateness of an intentional object or connection, or due to the absence of an intentional object altogether. In psychosis, these failures seem to occur through a non-linear and multifactor fluctuating pattern of intentionality. The ultimate goal is to provide a better understanding of relapse. The sudden collapse can be explained by an already fragile intentional system rather than by a novel stressor. The catastrophe model may help individuals remove themselves from a hysteresis cycle, and strategies for sustainable management of such cases should focus on maintaining resilience. Focusing on disruptions of intentionality can deepen and enrich our understanding of radical disturbances involved in different psychopathologies, including psychosis.

Fake news in the age of COVID-19: evolutional and psychobiological considerations.

The COVID-19 outbreak has been accompanied by a massive infodemic: an overabundance of information, some accurate and some not. At this pandemic we have seen a large scale of fake news and misinformation, leading to anti-vaccine, anti-mask, and anti-5G protests.1 Fake news is intentionally misleading and deceptive news that is written and published with the intent to damage an entity or a person. They may contain false, misleading, imposter, manipulated or fabricated content. Much of the discourse on fake news conflates three notions, named "information disorders": (a) Misinformation: false information someone shares without knowing it's untrue, (b) Disinformation: false information that's shared with the intention to harm or mislead, and (c) Malinformation: true information that's used to harm others.2 False beliefs generally arise through the same mechanisms that establish accurate beliefs. People appear to encode all new information as if it were true and later tag the information as being either true or false. Different cognitive, social and affective factors lead people to form or endorse misinformed views. The emotional content of the information shared also affects false-belief formation. An angry mood can boost misinformation sharing, while social exclusion, which is likely to induce a negative mood, can increase susceptibility to conspiratorial content.3 As shown by the Illusory Truth Effect, repeated exposure to an article, whether real or fake, increases people's perceptions of its accuracy. In social media, falsehood seems to diffuse significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information, and the effects are more pronounced for false political news than for false news about terrorism, natural disasters, and science. Moreover, although prior knowledge of a statement leads people to confirm the statement the next time, they see it (confirmation bias), novelty facilitates decision making since it updates our understanding of the world.4 The fitness value of accurate information seems so obvious, while self-deception seems to threaten such hard-won informational gains. Then, why has not it selected out? The American evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist Robert Trivers5 suggested that although our senses have evolved to give us an exquisitely detailed perception of the outside world, as soon as that information hits our brains, it often becomes biased and distorted, usually without conscious effort. Why should this be so? For Trivers, the evolutionary origins of the human propensity for self-deception lie in the adaptive benefits of deceiving others. An animal becomes a better liar when it believes its own lies, or we deceive ourselves the better to deceive others. Deception in animals is the transmission of misinformation by one animal to another, and natural selection favors deceptive signaling when aggression either confers a great benefit to signalers or imposes a great cost to receivers.6 In humans, self-deception process may have a protective role against depression, while depression on its own may reduce mechanisms of self-deception.7, 8 Humans are biased information-seekers that prefer to receive information that confirms their values and worldviews. Maybe, this is why myths and conspiracy theories around COVID-19 and vaccines exist. We may suggest that underlined neuropsychological processes, probably based on biologically determined self- or other-deceptive mechanisms, may serve in the development, and even the conservation, of at least some of the social behaviors related to the fake news phenomenon. These mechanisms may support the human tendency for biased information-seeking, and even the evolutionary persistence of the fake news phenomenon.9 However, in cases such as of COVID-19 pandemic, the native urge to deceive ourselves and others is not without risk. Beliefs in COVID-19-related conspiracy narratives and fake news are negatively associated with vaccination willingness and infection-preventive behavior.1 The COVID-19 pandemic and associated infodemic have magnified the underlying problem of trust. The vaccine hesitancy is primarily a trust issue rather than an informational problem. Fake news, rumors and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and vaccines should not be understood only as false beliefs, but also as indicators of popular anxieties and fears. Stress inoculation treatment can help people prepare for subsequent misinformation exposure and to increase misinformation detection.10 Finally, policymakers are advised to build information literacy skills for different levels and environments, and to move away from polarization attitudes and behaviors.

A negative association between lithium in drinking water and the incidences of homicides, in Greece.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the association between lithium levels in the public water supply and incidences of homicide in Greece. A total of 149 samples of drinking water were collected from 34 out of 52 prefectures, and data for homicides were taken from National Statistic Service of Greece (Hellenic Statistical Authority - EL.STAT). The average lithium level was 11.10 µg/l (SD = 21.16). The results indicate that there is a tendency for lower mean number of homicides in the prefectures with high levels of lithium in drinking water (R(2) = 0.054, ß = -0.38, p = .004). Considering the results of our previous study, which showed an inverse association between the lithium levels in drinking water and the incidence of suicide, homicide, rape, and drug abuse, we suggest that natural lithium level intake may influence impulsiveness, a factor that mediate to the manifestation of both suicidality and aggressiveness.

Lithium in the public water supply and suicide mortality in Greece.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the association between lithium levels in the public water supply and prefecture-based suicide rates in Greece. Analyses were conducted with respect to lithium levels in 149 samples from 34 prefectures of Greece. The average lithium level was 11.10 µg/l (range 0.1 to 121 µg/l). The results indicate that there is a tendency for lower suicide rates in the prefectures with high levels of lithium in drinking water. Ecological studies explained by researchers Schrauzer and Shrestha have revealed the existence of statistically significant inverse associations between the lithium levels in drinking water and the incidence of suicides, homicides, rapes, possession of narcotic drugs, and in juveniles, the rates of runaway from home. Such a result of inverse relationship was not proven by Kabacs et al., most likely because the differences of the lithium levels in the selection of their case-control samples were not large enough. In addition, probably the selection of random regions in Japan and East England might have been biased. Thus, the addition of small amounts of lithium to the drinking water could provide an effective means to lower the incidence of these conditions in the general population. Furthermore, the nutritional importance of lithium in the form of the carbonate named lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) is currently still viewed primarily as a pharmacological agent. The study by Al-Chalabi et al. state that the therapeutic activity of lithium in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is worth investigating. Any drug that can be shown to slow the course of ALS in a clinically significant way and to be safe and well tolerated will be an important advance for patients with this disease.

Smoking in prison: a hierarchical approach at the crossroad of personality and childhood events.

BACKGROUND: Smoking has long been considered part of prison culture and studies have shown a high prevalence of smoking within correctional facilities. METHODS: A self-administered, anonymous questionnaire was administered to 173 male prisoners in the Chalkida prison, Greece. To assess current smoking habits, a hierarchical approach was adopted. The underlying conceptual framework included: (i) demographic parameters, (ii) adverse childhood history (physical abuse, parental neglect, parental divorce, alcoholism in the family, sexual abuse and psychiatric condition in the family), (iii) education, personality traits, such as impulsivity (Barrat Impulsivity Scale-11), aggression (Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire and Lifetime History of Aggression), and personal history of mental disease, (iv) prison-related features (duration of sentence, sentence already served and change in smoking habits during imprisonment). RESULTS: Eighty percentage of the study sample reported current smoking; 43.4% disclosed deterioration in their smoking habits during imprisonment. The hierarchical approach pointed to: (i) adverse childhood events, i.e. alcoholism in the family [adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 6.29, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.44-16.25], psychiatric condition in the family (adjusted OR = 4.10, 95% CI: 1.31-12.84), physical abuse (adjusted OR = 2.90, 95% CI: 1.30-6.46), parental neglect (adjusted OR = 2.66, 95% CI: 1.19-5.95), parental divorce (adjusted OR = 2.14, 95% CI: 1.00-4.56), and (ii) impulsivity (adjusted OR = 2.26, 95% CI: 1.12-4.58) as independent risk factors. In addition, deterioration of smoking habits during imprisonment exerted an effect of borderline significance (adjusted OR = 2.02, 95% CI: 0.97-4.24). CONCLUSIONS: Heavy smoking in prison principally integrates two components: unfavourable childhood and current personality traits (impulsivity).

Sex hormones and biogenic amine turnover of sex offenders in relation to their temperament and character dimensions.

Relationships between Cloninger's temperament and character dimensions and plasma sex hormone levels and biogenic amine turnover were studied in male prison inmates convicted of rape (n=61) or child molestation (n=24) and normal male controls (n=25). The participants completed the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), which includes the temperament dimensions Novelty Seeking, Harm Avoidance, Reward Dependence and Persistence as well as the character dimensions Self-Directedness, Cooperativeness and Self-Transcendence. Plasma levels of testosterone, dihydrotestosterone, sex hormone binding globulin, luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone were estimated in plasma samples and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), homovanillic acid (HVA), and 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG) in urine samples. Both sex offender groups had higher Novelty, Seeking and lower Reward Dependence, Self-Directedness and Cooperativeness scores compared with the controls. Plasma levels of testosterone and dihydrotestosterone were significantly higher in rapists than in controls. Novelty Seeking scores were positively correlated with LH levels in rapists, and with testosterone levels in child molesters. Harm Avoidance scores were negatively correlated with 5-HIAA levels in rapists and with HVA levels in child molesters. In rapists, the calculated free androgen index showed a negative correlation with 5-HIAA. For the sex offender sample as a whole, the subgroup with high testosterone levels had higher Harm Avoidance scores, the subgroup with low HVA levels had lower Cooperativeness scores, and the subgroups with high 5HIAA or MHPG levels had lower Persistence scores. The results indicate that Novelty Seeking behavior in the group of rapists is associated with a hyperactive hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. In addition, low serotonin turnover and low dopamine turnover seem to be associated with a passive-avoidant behavioral style in rapists and child molesters, respectively.

Handedness and hobby preference.

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between handedness and hobby preference in healthy individuals. For this reason, the Annett handedness questionnaire and a standard questionnaire on preference for hobbies were administered to 879 healthy young men (age, M = 22.3, SD = 4.8 yr.). Analysis showed more cultured individuals were much less likely to be strongly right-handed. Especially, pure right-handedness highly overrepresented among those who mainly preferred doing sports, pure left-handedness among those who preferred reading books, collecting, or going to the cinema/theater, and mixed-handedness among those who preferred arts, like playing music, drawing, or handicraft. The findings support evidence that handedness is associated with hobby preference.

Aggression, impulsivity, plasma sex hormones, and biogenic amine turnover in a forensic population of rapists.

The aim of the present study was to assess androgen plasma levels and biogenic amine metabolites in a sex-offender group as well as to investigate the relationship between the biological findings and the impulsive, aggressive, and suicidal profile of the offenders. Fifty-seven males convicted for rape and 25 normal males comprised the study sample. We found that although both testosterone levels and aggression-impulsivity scores were higher in the group of rapists, testosterone levels were not associated with the aggression and impulsivity scores. Nevertheless, aggression-impulsivity scores were clearly associated with luteinizing hormone levels. This association may indicate a hyperactive hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, possibly the result of a reduced serotonergic activity.

Suicidal ideation, substance use, and sense of coherence in Greek male conscripts.

This study aimed to estimate the comorbidity of suicidal behavior and substance use in young male conscripts and to analyze the association between personal coping resources and the severity of these behaviors. A total of 1,098 Greek male conscripts participated in this study, completing the Antonovsky's sense of coherence questionnaire and a standard questionnaire concerning their lifetime and current suicidal and substance-use behavior. A proportion of 11.7% and 24%, respectively, had lifetime and current feelings that life is not worth living. The differences between past and current death wishes (8.9% vs. 9.2%), suicidal thoughts (8.3% vs. 7.6%), and suicide attempts (2.4% vs. 2.9%) were not significant. All of the subgroups with suicidal ideation or behavior showed a significantly lower sense of coherence questionnaire score as compared with the whole sample. The comorbidity of past and current suicide thoughts and substance use ranged from 16.4% to 33.3% and 31.4% to 44.2%, respectively, depending on the kind of the substance. Finally, the subjects with past or current substance use had a significantly higher incidence of past or current, respectively, suicidal ideation or behavior, as compared with those without a history of substance use. We suggest the necessity of the early detection of these high-risk behaviors applying closer monitoring and integrated prevention programs.

Parenting received in childhood and early separation anxiety in male conscripts with adjustment disorder.

The purpose of this study was to investigate parenting received in childhood and early separation anxiety experiences in young male soldiers with adjustment disorder. Fifty-four conscripts suffering from adjustment disorder completed the following questionnaires: the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R), the Measurement of Parental Style (MOPS), and the Separation Anxiety Symptom Inventory (SASI). Seventy-eight conscripts, matched for age and education, were used as a control sample. The research showed that compared with the controls, patients had significantly increased scores on the SCL-90-R (p < 0.001), the SASI (p < 0.03), and the father's and mother's MOPS Abuse subscale (p < 0.001). The father's MOPS Abuse score, the mother's MOPS Overcontrol score, and the SASI score were also significantly correlated with the SCL-90-R score (p < 0.01). Finally, a patient's separation anxiety can be predicted from the mother's overcontrol behavior, and the severity of the disorder can be predicted from the father's abuse behavior. These findings are in agreement with previous findings in patients with depression and anxiety disorders.

Crossed hand-eye dominance in male psychiatric patients.

Increased incidence of left-eye and crossed hand-eye dominance have been considered as indicating left hemispheric dysfunction in many neuropsychiatric disorders. This study investigates the incidence of left-eye and crossed hand-eye dominance in patience with schizophrenia (n = 68), panic disorder (n = 62), personality disorder (n = 35), heroin addiction (n = 54), and mental retardation (n = 33), in comparison with controls (n = 944). All psychiatric groups, except the group with panic disorder, had significantly greater frequency of left-eye dominance than the control group. Furthermore, all psychiatric groups, except the personality-disordered group, had significantly greater frequency of crossed hand-eye dominance than the control group. These findings further support the evidence of an anomaly in hemispheric lateralization among different psychiatric populations, particularly among those with psychotic symptoms and cognitive deficits.