The default-mode, ego-functions and free-energy: a neurobiological account of Freudian ideas
Brain February 28, 2010 R. L. Carhart-Harris, K. J. Friston 580 citations
Freudian constructs may have neurobiological substrates. Descriptions of primary and secondary processes align with self-organized activity in hierarchical cortical systems, and descriptions of the ego align with functions of the default-mode network and its exchanges with subordinate brain systems. This account views the brain as a hierarchical inference machine that minimizes free-energy, a process formally similar to Freudian energy treatments. The synthesis is substantiated by showing that descriptions of the primary process are consistent with the phenomenology and neurophysiology of rapid eye movement sleep, early acute psychotic states, temporal lobe epilepsy auras, and hallucinogenic drug states.