The Interface between Neuroscience and Neuro-Psychoanalysis: Focus on Brain Connectivity

Over the past 20 years, the advent of advanced techniques has significantly enhanced our knowledge on the brain. Yet, our understanding of the physiological and pathological functioning of the mind is still far from being exhaustive. Both the localizationist and the reductionist neuroscientific approaches to psychiatric disorders have proven to be largely unsatisfactory and are outdated. Accruing evidence suggests that psychoanalysis can engage the neurosciences in a productive and mutually enriching dialogue that may further our understanding of psychiatric disorders. In particular, advances in brain connectivity research have provided evidence supporting the convergence of neuroscientific findings and psychoanalysis and helped characterize the circuitry and mechanisms that underlie higher brain functions. In the present paper we discuss how knowledge on brain connectivity can impact neuropsychoanalysis, with a particular focus on schizophrenia. Brain connectivity studies in schizophrenic patients indicate complex alterations in brain functioning and circuitry, with particular emphasis on the role of cortical midline structures (CMS) and the default mode network (DMN). These networks seem to represent neural correlates of psychodynamic concepts central to the understanding of schizophrenia and of core psychopathological alterations of this disorder (i.e., ego disturbances and impaired primary process thinking).