David Martínez-Pernía

Center for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience (CSCN) · School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

In the study of consciousness, neurophenomenology was originally established as a novel research program attempting to reconcile two apparently irreconcilable method-ologies in psychology: qualitative and quantitative methods. Its potential relies on Francisco Varela's idea of reciprocal constraints, in which first-person accounts and neurophysiolo...

The introduction of mindfulness in the West was carried out through theories and research methods based on the effects that mindfulness practices produce in the brain (information processing and neurobiological activity). Nevertheless, these approaches elude any reference to the core feature of mindfulness, that is, its subjective and intersubjecti...

In this commentary, I argue that a research method solely focused on subjective data collection (phenomenological method) generates a vague and generic interpretation within the framework of the 5E theory, being unable to establish a clear and direct correspondence between subjective experience and their embodiment. For a more fruitful enactive ana...

Introduction Traditionally, empathy has been studied from two main perspectives: the theory-theory approach and the simulation theory approach. These theories claim that social emotions are fundamentally constituted by mind states in the brain. In contrast, classical phenomenology and recent research based on the enactive theories consider empathy...

Empathy is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that plays a crucial role in human social interactions. Recent developments in social neuroscience have provided valuable insights into the neural underpinnings and bodily mechanisms underlying empathy. This methodology often prioritizes precision, replicability, internal validity, and confound contr...

Background The Alzheimer’s disease (AD) continuum is composed of the stages of Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD), Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer’s Disease Dementia (ADD). The decrease in gray matter volume (GMV) secondary to cortical atrophy, commonly seen in this continuum, is related to cognitive and activities of daily living (A...

Background The Alzheimer's disease (AD) continuum is composed of the stages of Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD), Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer's Disease Dementia (ADD). The decrease in gray matter volume (GMV) secondary to cortical atrophy, commonly seen in this continuum, is related to cognitive and activities of daily living (A...

Background The Alzheimer's Disease (AD) continuum is composed of Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD), Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer's Disease Dementia (ADD). Changes in grey matter volume (GMV), characteristic of the AD continuum, are related to cognitive and activities of daily living (ADL) impairments. ADLs are divided into three...

Background Cognitive complaints (CC) refer to a reported experience of cognitive decline and are recognized as a potential precursor to future functional decline and progression to dementia. Identifying individuals with CC may be a valuable opportunity for preventive measures, early detection, and intervention strategies to address dementia risk. H...

Background The most common and prevalent dementia worldwide is Alzheimer’s disease (AD). AD is a continuum composed of Subjective Cognitive Impairment (SCD), Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer’s Disease dementia (ADD) stage. One of the main clinical variables in patients with dementia is performance in functional capacity since its alte...

Introduction: Evidence suggests an association between excess weight and low cognitive performance; however, findings are inconsistent due to variations in measurement approaches. Further research is needed to explore this link, considering factors such as physical activity and education level. Objective: this study aimed to: (a) identify possible...

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a prevalent neurodegenerative disorder that not only affects motor function but also impairs empathy, particularly in response to others' pain. While the neurobiological changes underlying these deficits are known, the impact of PD on the lived experience of empathy remains poorly understood. This study explo...

Background: Phenomenological approaches emphasize a detailed exploration of lived experiences from a first-person perspective. Despite the inherent complexities in traditional phenomenological techniques like epoché and reduction, direct descriptive analyses can address the 'how' of experience. Objective: This study aimed to leverage ChatGPT, renow...

Aims: Research has advanced in revealing psychological and brain mechanisms in empathy-compassion experience. Yet, persistent limitations include a lack of real interactive contexts and in-depth subjective analysis. This study aimed to bridge these gaps by examining subjective experiences within an interactive setting. Methods: Twenty-nine particip...

Background Empathy is foundational in our intersubjective interactions, connecting with others across bodily, emotional, and cognitive dimensions. Previous evidence suggests that observing individuals in painful situations elicits whole bodily responses, unveiling the interdependence of the body and empathy. Although the role of the body has been e...

Background Subjective cognitive complaint (SCC) is a risk factor of functional impairment in activities of daily living (ADL). ADL are divided from basic (BADL), instrumental (IADL), and advanced activities of daily living (a‐ADL), according to their cognitive complexity. These three dimensions of ADL have been scarcely explored in SCC The objectiv...

The analysis of empathy in the elderly population has often been approached through third-person methodologies (e.g., neuroimaging), which have yielded inconsistent results. Some research indicates an increase in empathy at this stage of life, while others suggest a decrease. However, there are few studies that explore how the elderly experience em...

Background Motricity has been proposed to shape our perception and the pre‐reflective knowledge of the other as embodied agents. Through our motor system, we have a meaningful pre‐reflective conception of the experience of the other (empathy). We compared the sensorimotor responses and emotional perception in persons with Alzheimer’s disease (AD),...

In consciousness studies there is a growing tendency to consider experience as (i) fundamentally affective and (ii) deeply interlinked with interoceptive and homeostatic bodily processes. However, this view still needs further development to be part of any rigorous theory of consciousness. To advance in this direction, we ask: (1) is there any affe...

Nowadays, there is a broad range of methods for detecting and evaluating executive dysfunction ranging from clinical interview to neuropsychological evaluation. Nevertheless, a critical issue of these assessments is the lack of correspondence of the neuropsychological test's results with real-world functioning. This paper proposes serious games as...

Motricity has been proposed to shape our perception and the pre-reflective knowledge of the other as embodied agents. Through our motor system, we have a meaningful prereflective conception of the experience of the other (empathy). We compared the sensorimotor responses and emotional perception in persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's...

From the conventional medical approach, Parkinson's disease has been defined as a neurodegenerative process in which there is early death of dopaminergic neurons and atrophy in the basal ganglia, manifested by motor and non-motor (cognitive, behavioral, and psychiatric) symptoms. Based on this approach, the study of Parkinson's disease and the vari...

ABSTRACT: The Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) is a screening test that measures executive functions. Although this instrument has been validated in several countries, its diagnostic utility in a Chilean population has not been studied yet. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to (1) adapt FAB in a Chilean population; (2) study the psychometric properties...

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is the third most common form of dementia across all age groups and is a leading cause of early-onset dementia. The Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) includes a spectrum of diseases that are classified according to their clinical presentation and patterns of neurodegeneration. There are two main types of FTD: behavioral FT...

The relevance of inner speech for human psychology, especially for higher-order cognitive functions, is widely recognized. However, the study of the phenomenology of inner speech, that is, what it is like for a subject to experience internally speaking his/her voice, has received much less attention. This study explores the subjective experience of...

Mental imagery is the process through which we retrieve and recombine information from our memory to elicit the subjective impression of "seeing with the mind's eye". In the social domain, we imagine other individuals while recalling our encounters with them or modelling alternative social interactions in future. Many studies using imaging and neur...

RESUMEN El objetivo de esta investigación fue indagar en la recaída del consumo de alcohol en personas que sufrieron experiencias traumáticas y síntomas disociativos. Se realizaron seis entrevistas, basadas en la fenomenología trascendental de Edmund Husserl, en las que se indagó en la experiencia de recaída por consumo de alcohol. El método de aná...

Background Alzheimer's disease dementia (ADD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) have a significant impairment in social emotion recognition. Most of these studies assess emotional perception as the ability to identify others' facial emotions (Ekman faces). Nevertheless, emotional recognition with information that integrates whole‐body and postural contr...

Background With the global population aging and life expectancy increasing, dementia has turned a priority in the health care system. In Chile, dementia is one of the most important causes of disability in the elderly and the most rapidly growing cause of death in the last 20 years. Cognitive complaint is considered a predictor for cognitive and fu...

Traditionally, empathy has been studied from two main perspectives in social cognition: The Theory-Theory approach and the Simulation-Theory approach. However, recent research based on the enactive theory considers empathy as the basic process of contacting other emotional experiences through direct bodily perception and sensation. This perspective...

The enactive approach considers that perception emerges from a sensory-motor coupling between the body and its environment. From an enactive approach, emotions can be understood as a structural coupling intimately related to physiological and experiential attributes, like motor control and lived experience. Recent studies have demonstrated that emo...

Objectives The aim of this research was to assess cognitive-motor interactions though dual tasks of working memory in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and control subjects. Methods: Twenty patients with chronic TBI with good functional level and 19 matched healthy controls performed dual working memory tasks (1-back numeric and 1-back spa...

With the arrival of the cognitive paradigm during the latter half of the last century, the theoretical and scientific bases of neurorehabilitation have been linked to the knowledge developed in cognitive neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience. Although the knowledge generated by these disciplines has made relevant contributions to neurological...

Con la llegada del paradigma cognitivo durante la segunda mitad del siglo pasado, las bases teóricas y científicas de la neurorehabilitación se han vinculado a los conocimientos desarrollados en la neuropsicología cognitiva y la neurociencia cognitiva. Aunque el conocimiento generado en estas disciplinas ha producido contribuciones relevantes en la...

Classic physical interventions for cervical dystonia (CD) have focused on treating motor components or, on motor components and relaxation programs. However, no CD treatment study has focused on a relaxation program alone. We developed a pilot study to assess whether a therapy completely based on a relaxation program could improve the physical and...

Mental imagery is the process through which we retrieve and recombine information from our memory to elicit the subjective impression of “seeing with the mind’s eye”. Many studies using imaging and neurophysiological techniques have shown several similarities in brain activity between visual imagery and visual perception. However, currently the dyn...

Flow can be understood as an experience in which awareness merges with the action itself and there is a balance between activity and challenge that produces an optimal functioning as a result. Research on flow has shown a relationship with different types of music, but it has not been analyzed with metal musicians. The main aim of this research is...

En la meditación zen, un componente importante de la práctica es el fenómeno de la conciencia del momento presente. Presencia puede ser entendida como una experiencia de conciencia encarnada en el aquí y ahora. Sobre este objeto de estudio, la investigación ha hecho un abordaje empírico con énfasis en la tercera persona, en desmedro de su estudio s...

Análisis del paso y deterioro cognitivo en el adulto mayor sano, con queja subjetiva y con enfermedad de Alzheimer .

La enfermedad de Parkinson (EP) produce secuelas motoras severas. Al día de hoy, uno de los tratamientos quirúrgicos que ha demostrado aliviar parte de los síntomas motores es la estimulación cerebral profunda (ECP) de los núcleos de la base. Sin embargo, no se conoce bien sus efectos en la realización de determinadas tareas motoras y cognitivas (d...

The assessment of functional status is a critical component of clinical neuropsychological evaluations used for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes in patients with cognitive brain disorders. There are, however, no widely adopted neuropsychological tests that are both ecologically valid and easily administered in daily clinical practice. This...

La investigación en psicoterapia ha puesto de relieve la dimensión subjetiva, es decir, la experiencia de la primera persona en la descripción del cambio psicoterapéutico. Una de las patologías más frecuentes en las que se aplica esta dimensión de la subjetividad y el cambio en primera persona es el trastorno depresivo. Un enfoque que ha reportado...

The development of rehabilitation has traditionally focused on measurements of motor disorders and measurements of the improvements produced during the therapeutic process; however, physical rehabilitation sciences have not focused on understanding the philosophical and scientific principles in clinical intervention and how they are interrelated. T...

One of the most important sequela in persons who suffer from acquired brain injury is a behavioral disorder. To date, the primary approaches for the rehabilitation of this sequela are Applied Behavior Analysis, Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, and Comprehensive-Holistic Rehabilitation Programs. Despite this theoretical plurality, none of these approache...

The relationship between ongoing brain interoceptive signals and emotional processes has been addressed only indirectly through external stimulus-locked measures. In this study, an internal body trigger (heart evoked potential, HEP) was used to measure ongoing internally triggered signals during emotional states. We employed high-density electroenc...

In the study of consciousness, neurophenomenology was originally established as a novel research program attempting to reconcile two apparently irreconcilable methodologies in psychology: qualitative and quantitative methods. Its potential relies on Francisco Varela’s idea of reciprocal constraints, in which first-person accounts and neurophysiolog...

Neurorehabilitation programs have traditionally followed the mind-body dichotomy proposed by Descartes, which resulted in the creation of divergent theoretical frameworks. The purpose of this pilot study is to present a transdisciplinary proposal that integrates human experience via the embodied cognition concept, that is, to explore how the indivi...

Rotator cuff injuries are presently one of the fields requested most by the physician and specialists for physical therapy treatment. The joint complex injuries of the shoulder presently represent a very significant percentage of the daily dedication of the physical therapist’s activity. It is important to establish a series of clear therapeutic ob...