How do medical students understand disease behaviors?Evidence from event-related potentials

Objective: To investigate how medical students process Western medicine(WM) terms vs. traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) terms and how this is impacted by analogical priming from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience.Methods: The experiments were designed as a 2(TCM terms vs. WM terms) × 2(correct terms vs.incorrect terms) × 2(analogical priming task vs. non-priming task) scheme. A total of 26 medical students completed a non-priming judgment task and an analogical priming judgment task on medical terms. During the tasks, the participants were asked to make correct/incorrect judgments on WM terms and TCM terms, and their behavioral data and event-related potentials(ERPs) were recorded.Results: Behaviorally, the response speed and accuracy of WM terms were higher than those of TCM terms(both P <.001), indicating a prominent concreteness effect. Analogical priming shortened the response time to medical terms(P <.001), and the response time to TCM terms was shortened more significantly(P =.001). For ERPs, WM terms induced a larger P200(an early positive ERP component), a smaller N400(a negative ERP component), and a higher late positive ERP component, indicating superiority of attention adjustment, smaller-scale semantic activation, and a higher cost of late semantic analysis and integration. However, the analogical priming eliminated the difference between WM and TCM terms in P200 and N400 while maintaining it in the LPC. This suggests that WM terms are sensitive to analogical attention adjustment, and TCM terms are susceptible to analogical semantic integration.Conclusion: Our findings suggest that WM and TCM disease behavior terms may initially differ in concreteness or the use of a verbal-linguistic system. Analogy is more conducive to understanding TCM terms. This research provides important neuroscientific evidence of the difference in thinking between TCM and WM.

Study of Gong tone matching to five colors based on event-related potential

Objective:To investigate the neural mechanism of Gong tone matching to the five colors.Methods:The experiment was designed using event-related potential technique,following the S1 →S2 paradigm,and dividing into two arms according to the Gong tone being played in harmonics or open strings.For each arm,S1 was the playing of the Gong tone,followed by S2,where subjects,based on their first reaction,were required to make a yes/no judgement to whether the tone matches to a randomly-picked color out of the five colors.During this process,the event-related potentials were recorded.Results:Gong tone played in harmonics,most participants matched it with black and cyan;while in the open strings arm,most matched it with black.The average amplitudes of P300 at PZ,FZ,and CZ points were compared.For the Gong tone played in harmonics,there was a significant difference between those who matched it with black and those who did otherwise (P <.01).There was also a significant difference between those who matched it with cyan and those who did otherwise (P <.01).For the open strings arm,there was a significant difference between those who matched it with black and those who did otherwise (P <.01).Conclusion:Our comparison of the average amplitudes of P300 suggests a commonality in the neural mechanism underlying categorical thinking that is not fundamentally altered by playing style.However,behavioral theory suggests that playing style does have an influence on categorization.The Gong tone can be matched with any of the five colors,which accords with the thought of central Earth in the five-element theory.This provides evidence of the similarity within five elements correspondences existing alongside the indirect matching between five tones and five colors.

Understanding association of spleen system with earth on Traditional Chinese Medicine theory

OBJECTIVE: The association of spleen system including both spleen and stomach with earth, one of the five elements, is a part of the theory of five elements. Practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) used the theory as a reasoning tool to illustrate the Zang-Fu organs' physiological functions and the interaction among them.The exploration of how the theory of that spleen system is associated with earth was created may provide insights into how five-element theory is applied to TCM practice. METHODS: Using analogism as a method to explore the relationship between earth and spleen system inTCM. RESULTS: Chinese ancestors experienced and observed the features of earth from agricultural practice and used the knowledge for the explanation ofspleen system functions including physiological functions, pathological characteristics and for the treatment of related illnesses. CONCLUSION: The theory of the five elements in TCM is a kind of metaphor, which depends on observation and exploration of the natural world and experience of human beings.

Features analysis of five-element theory and its basal effects on construction of visceral manifestation theory

OBJECTIVE:To study the Chinese ancient five-element theory,one of the philosophical foundations of Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM)theory construction,from the perspective of comtemporary cognitive science,and to reveal the important functions of five-element theory in the construction of TCM theory.METHODS:The basic effects of five-element theory in the construction of TCM theory are intensively expounded and proved from the following aspects:embodiment of five-element theory in cognizing the world,quasi axiom of five-element theory in essence,classification thery of family resemblance and deductive inference pattern of five-element theory,and the openness and expansibility of five-element theory.RESULTS:If five-element theory is considered acognitive pattern or cognitive system related to culture,then there should be features of cognitive embodiment in the cognitive system.If five-element theory is regarded as a symbolic system,however,then there should be a quasi-axiom for the system,and inferential deduction.If,however,five-element theory is taken as a theoretical constructive metaphor,then there should be features of opening and expansibility for the metaphor.CONCLUSION:Based on five-element theory,this study provides a cognitive frame for the construction of TCM(a medicine that originated in China,and is characterized by holism and treatment based on pattern identification differentiation)theory with the function of constructing a concept base,thereby implying further research strategies.Useful information may be produced from the creative inferences obtained from the incorporation of five-element theory.