Information and psychopathology.
Our current understanding of mental processes in health and disease is limited by the absence of a practical model describing the physiology of the mind as an informational system. The mind is described here as a physical system with four functional dimensions that can be interrelated mathematically on the basis of information theory. These variables describe the information processing activities of the mind, and include: a) a state function (g), which is the number of potential states that the system can occupy at a given time and relates to the complexity and activity of the brain; b) a power function (P), the number of state changes per unit time; c) time (t); and d) the relative entropy of the system (R), which describes the ordering of mental states in time. Using these variables, the evolution of states of mind can be described as a trajectory in a multidimensional phase space representing all possible mental states. Ego functions constrain the field of brain states within this space, thereby giving rise to the information content of consciousness and to the individual psyche. Functional mental disorders, as disorders of the psyche, are dysfunctions in the ordering processes that give rise to conscious information.
Germine
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Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06508.
D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003243:Consciousness; D004532:Ego; D006801:Humans; D007257:Information Theory; D008433:Mathematics; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D008606:Mental Processes; D008960:Models, Psychological; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D011603:Psychophysiology