Understanding Minds and Bodies
- 1:30–2:00 Gemma Smart – Limits to Mechanistic Models of Psychiatric Phenomena: the puzzle of (Internet) Gaming Disorder
- 2:00–2:30 Ian Robertson – "Considerable angst": Recalcitrant emotions, insight, and the apparent puzzle of obsessive compulsions
- 2:30–3:00 Nicola Marks – A tale of two 1978 births: The contingency of success and recognition in IVF
- 3:00–3:30 Rose Gatfield-Jeffries – From Mice to Men: The problem of assuming relevant similarity when using the male human as a model organism
Gemma Lucy Smart
The University of Sydney
Limits to Mechanistic Models of Psychiatric Phenomena: the limiting case of behavioural addictions
Mechanistic models of explanation are frequently employed in the context of psychiatric phenomena. They aim to show how such phenomena arise as the result of breakdown or malfunction in an interaction between the components of functionally relevant brain systems. Explaining mental disorders mechanistically requires identifying multi-level stable mechanisms responsible for both the formation and maintenance of relevant symptoms. Presented is a Picoeconomic and Neuroeconomic (PE/NE) model of addiction centred on Disordered and Addictive Gambling. I then begin application of the model to recent evidence presented for the emerging psychiatric categories of behavioural addictions including (Internet) Gaming Disorder, Internet Addiction, and Sex Addiction.
While mechanistic explanations are useful for understanding how information processing systems in the brain are involved in psychiatric phenomena, they are in many instances, fundamentally incomplete. As a test case, behavioural addictions highlight some of the fundamental limitations of mechanistic models as explanatory tools for psychiatric phenomena. I provide an alternative view of addictions as a heterogeneous category with no singular adequate mechanistic explanatory model. Ultimately, I argue that it is only with an interdisciplinary approach to research that we can hope to overcome the potential negative effects of the limitations of mechanistic models of psychiatric phenomena.
Gemma Lucy Smart is a PhD candidate in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Science. Their current research is in the history, philosophy and sociology of psychiatry and neuroscience. They are currently the Vice President of AAHPSSS.
Ian Robertson
University of Wollongong
“Considerable angst”: Recalcitrant emotions, insight, and the apparent puzzle of obsessive compulsions
Understanding the intricate interplay between the intrusive thoughts and the ritualistic sensorimotor behaviors that are characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is complicated by the fact that the outcomes of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) can be described either as belief changes–or as habit modifications. Influential researchers have recently claimed obsessive compulsions to generate an epistemic puzzle in this context, since they seem to be motivated by beliefs that are acknowledged to be false or misguided. This paper aims at dissolving said puzzle and exposing its apparent theoretical vexingness to be a product of a highly cognitivist strand to contemporary philosophy of mind. Subject to this trend, researchers tend to – sometimes explicitly – demand of any answer that it construe the anxiety accompanying compulsions as a form of epistemic anxiety: an irrational (or arational) uncertainty (in the form of a belief or “quasi-belief”, insensitive to counterevidence). Drawing on the enactivist account of so-called fictional emotions advanced by José Medina, I contend the phenomenology of obsessive compulsions to often be better explained not in terms of an epistemic failure to preclude unlikely outcomes but instead in terms of the emotionally enslaving exercise of the dramatic imagination. To motivate such an account, I describe in its terms the successes of hyperawareness exposure treatments in alleviating anxiety. I also suggest that it allows for a more nuanced understanding of empirical evidence correlating OCD with low time preferences.
Ian Robertson is a PhD Candidate at the University of Wollongong. He has an MLitt in Philosophy from St Andrews, a BA in Philosophy from Reading and held Visiting positions at Jean Nicod, Oxford, and Memphis.
Nicola Marks
University of Wollongong
A tale of two 1978 births – The contingency of success and recognition in IVF
In 1978, two baby girls were born as the result of in vitro fertilisation techniques (IVF). One was Louise Brown, born in the UK on 25 July. She went on to become one of the world’s most famous babies; the scientific and medical professionals involved received multiple international accolades. The other baby was Kanupriya Agarwal, born in India on 3 October, a mere ten weeks later. She is rarely if ever recognised as the world’s second IVF baby, and first following embryo freezing; the scientific and medical professionals involved did not go on to have stellar international careers. This paper explores socio-technical factors that led to these two births and draws out some of the reasons why one was hailed as a success while the other was disbelieved and almost forgotten.
Nicola J. Marks is Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong. She teaches and researches is sociology of health and illness and in science and technology studies (STS). With Senior Professor Vera Mackie and Professor Sarah Ferber she is finishing an ARC Discovery Project on the global history of IVF. Their books IVF and Assisted Reproduction: A Global History and The Reproductive Industry: Intimate Experiences and Global Processes were recently published with Palgrave and Lexington respectively. When Covid-19 lockdowns and family obligations permit it, Nicola continues her research on the social aspects of medicine and on public engagement in technoscience.
Rose Gatfield-Jeffries
University of Sydney
From Mice to Men: The problem of assuming relevant similarity when using the male human as a model organism
This paper seeks to explore the applicability of a model organism approach to the use of male humans in clinical drug trials. The justifications for non-human model organism selection – simplicity, practicality, and ethical concern – can also be applied to explain why the male body has been preferred in clinical research. Firstly, the male hormonal profile is seen as less complex and volatile than its female counterpart. Secondly, researchers have historically used formalized male populations in the military and medicine as practical study samples. Thirdly, the ethical concerns of testing on unborn foetuses are sidestepped when using male bodies. These three justifications are underpinned by a core assumption of relevant similarity: the model must adequately represent the target population with respect to certain properties. Without this relevant similarity, the model ceases to be useful and must be discarded.
Using this approach may help explain why female medical outcomes are still worse despite legislative advances that counter direct discrimination and exclusion. In 1993, the US NIH Revitalization Act required the inclusion of females in clinical trials. However, after almost 30 years females are still systemically underrepresented in trials, and experience twice as many adverse drug reactions (ADRs) as males. Looking at this problem through a model organism framework targets the institutional issue, rather than singling out individuals or groups to blame. The overuse of male bodies in clinical research has proven unswayed by legislative change, therefore a philosophy of modelling approach can assist in understanding why and help construct alternative paths of action.
Rose Gatfield-Jeffries is a student at the University of Sydney.