Towards a better understanding of mental disorder: exploring the common space between neurobiology and phenomenology
3 September__ 5 September > 2024
Introduction
Mental disorder is one of the critical challenges of current medicine, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Clinically treated by psychologists and psychiatrists and investigated by neuroscientists and philosophers, there is no agreement on either considering it as the product of brain malfunctioning or a global affectation of the person. Which one of these points of view is more adequate? Is mental illness a brain disorder or a pathology affecting the human being as a whole?
This seminar course has four main goals:
1) Describe brain alterations in schizophrenia, dementia and addiction
2) From an embodied-cognition perspective, explain these disorders as impairments of the person and their relationship with the environment
3) Find the shared space where both views can contribute to a better understanding of mental illness
4) Discuss the ethical issues arising from these viewpoints.
Directors:
Javier BERNÁCER MARÍA
Scientific Director of the International Center of Neuroscience and Ethics (CINET) and research fellow in the Mind-Brain Group (Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra)
Miguel Ángel GARCÍA CABEZAS
Professor in the Department of Anatomy, Histology, and Neuroscience at the Autonomous University of Madrid
