Resting state activity and the "stream of consciousness" in schizophrenia--neurophenomenal hypotheses.

Schizophrenia involves symptoms like auditory hallucinations and delusions, often linked to abnormal contents of consciousness, or 'substantive parts,' which are associated with sensory and cognitive brain functions. However, patients also experience temporal fragmentation, where thoughts feel disconnected, reflecting abnormalities in the 'transitive parts' that normally glue the stream of consciousness together. This article proposes a neurophenomenal hypothesis focusing on the brain's intrinsic resting state activity, rather than task-evoked activity, as the neural basis for this temporal linkage. In schizophrenia, disruptions in this intrinsic activity may directly cause the fragmented experience of the transitive parts of consciousness.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a multifaceted disorder with various symptoms including auditory hallucinations, egodisturbances, passivity phenomena, and delusions. Recent neurobiological approaches have focused on, especially, the abnormal contents of consciousness, the "substantive parts" as James said, to associate them with the neural mechanisms related to sensory, motor, and cognitive functions, and the brain's underlying stimulus-induced or task-evoked activity. This leaves open, however, the neural mechanisms that provide the temporal linkage or glue between the various contents, the transitive parts that makes possible the "stream of consciousness." Interestingly, schizophrenic patients seem to suffer from abnormalities specifically in the "transitive parts" when they experience contents as temporally disconnected or fragmented which in phenomenological psychiatry has been described as "temporal fragmentation." The aim of this article is to develop so-called neurophenomenal hypothesis about the direct relationship between phenomenal features of the "stream of consciousness," the "transitive parts," and the specific neuronal mechanisms in schizophrenia as based on healthy subjects. Rather than emphasizing stimulus-induced and task-evoked activity and sensory and lateral prefrontal cortical regions as in neurocognitive approaches with their focus on the "substantive parts," the focus shifts here to the brain's intrinsic activity, its resting state activity, which may account for the temporal linkage or glue between the contents of consciousness, the transitive parts.