Abstract
Four subjects (AB, CD, EF, GH; mental health professionals with Jungian training) performed a version of Jung's Word Association Test adapted for fMRI conditions in a 4 Tesla fMRI Unit at the Brain Research Centre Wesley Hospital Brisbane. Two sets of Index events were selected; a Time Delay Set (1 SD above Mean), and a Self Reported Complex Set. The rationale was to begin mapping generic complex activity, but in a way that might distinguish between “conscious” and “unconscious” complexed activity.
GH's data set was discarded for technical reason. Of the 3 remaining data sets, a “Time Delay Set” (TDS) analysis of EF's data produced a detailed map, but his “Self Reported Complex Set” (SRCS) analysis yielded a null result.
However, the AB and CD data yielded detailed maps for both selected conditions of analysis (TDS and SCRS). There was high congruence between the SCRS patterns discerned in the AB and CD scans. Furthermore, EF's TDS pattern resembled AB and CD's SCRS pattern!
Three salient regions of interest emerged: pre-Broca's, post-Wernicke's and bilateral medial prefrontal (dorsal, ventral, and anterior).
Preliminary “model building” would propose that “complexed” activity involves three main functional sites;
the “pre Broca's” (pars triangularis) anterior mirror neuron area; which might correspond to the subject's sense of the “Other”;
the “post Wernicke's” posterior (temporo-parietal) mirror neurone area (which may be associated with “out of body” and other transcendent experiences and hence a mediator of Jungian “Self”);
medial prefrontal areas (which are implicated in emotional self-representation and volition, and hence might correspondent to the composite Ego of self psychology volitional, affective and self–representational Ego of Self Psychology.)
These findings support a tentative psychodynamic hypothesis of “complexed” activity involving a dialectic (tri-lectic?) between sites to do with “Ego”, “Self”, and “Other”.