Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience: The Bridge Between Mind and Brain.
Filippo Cieri, Roberto Esposito
Frontiers in Psychology August 28, 2019 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01983 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Default mode network |
| Keywords | Psychoanalysis Resting state network Free energy principle |
| Key points | Argues that Freud's early project of integrating psychology and neurology was abandoned for technological rather than conceptual reasons, and that neuroimaging, neural network research, and the free energy principle now make a renewed dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience possible. The authors emphasize a proposed link between the Default Mode Network and the Self, and suggest connecting Bion's "Alpha Function" to neuroscience. |
Abstract
In 1895 in the Project for a Scientific Psychology, Freud tried to integrate psychology and neurology in order to develop a neuroscientific psychology. Since 1880, Freud made no distinction between psychology and physiology. His papers from the end of the 1880s to 1890 were very clear on this scientific overlap: as with many of his contemporaries, Freud thought about psychology essentially as the physiology of the brain. Years later he had to surrender, realizing a technological delay, not capable of pursuing its ambitious aim, and until that moment psychoanalysis would have to use its more suitable clinical method. Also, he seemed skeptical about phrenology drift, typical of that time, in which any psychological function needed to be located in its neuroanatomical area. He could not see the progresses of neuroscience and its fruitful dialogue with psychoanalysis, which occurred also thanks to the improvements in the field of neuroimaging, which has made possible a remarkable advance in the knowledge of the mind-brain system and a better observation of the psychoanalytical theories. After years of investigations, deriving from research and clinical work of the last century, the discovery of neural networks, together with the free energy principle, we are observing under a new light psychodynamic neuroscience in its exploration of the mind-brain system. In this manuscript, we summarize the important developments of psychodynamic neuroscience, with particular regard to the free energy principle, the resting state networks, especially the Default Mode Network in its link with the Self, emphasizing our view of a bridge between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. Finally, we suggest a discussion by approaching the concept of Alpha Function, proposed by the psychoanalyst Wilfred Ruprecht Bion, continuing the association with neuroscience.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on default mode network, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The entropic brain: a theory of conscious states informed by neuroimaging research with psychedelic drugs | 2014 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The default mode network in cognition: a topographical perspective | 2021 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The default mode network: where the idiosyncratic self meets the shared social world | 2021 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The default-mode, ego-functions and free-energy: a neurobiological account of Freudian ideas | 2010 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Cooperation between the default mode network and the frontal–parietal network in the production of an internal train of thought | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 11
- Neural Mechanisms and Psychology of Psychedelic Ego Dissolution Pharmacological Reviews September 9, 2022
- Brain Entropy During Aging Through a Free Energy Principle Approach Frontiers in Human Neuroscience March 22, 2021
- Effective Connectivity of Functionally Anticorrelated Networks Under Lysergic Acid Diethylamide. Biological Psychiatry February 1, 2023
- Integrating neuropsychoanalytic and neuropsychiatric perspectives into psychiatric clinical neuroscience curricula: a conceptual overview Frontiers in Medicine January 5, 2026
- Embodied Neuropsychodynamics of the Relational Self Across Space and Time: An Integrative Narrative Review Brain Sciences June 11, 2026
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Cites 11
- A default mode of brain function Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences January 16, 2001
- Active interoceptive inference and the emotional brain Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences October 11, 2016
- The default-mode, ego-functions and free-energy: a neurobiological account of Freudian ideas Brain February 28, 2010
- Self-Processing and the Default Mode Network: Interactions with the Mirror Neuron System Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2013
- Making Worlds in a Waking Dream: Where Bion Intersects Friston on the Shaping and Breaking of Psychic Reality Frontiers in Psychology September 27, 2018
and 6 more in the library