Examinando por Autor "Rojas-Thomas, Felipe"

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    Cocaine polydrug use and its impact on intentional harm recognition: a highdensity EEG study
    (Springer Nature, 2025-08-14) Morales Sepúlveda, Juan Pablo; Van Dam, Nicholas T.; Huepe-Artigas, Daniela; Rivera-Rei, Álvaro; San-Martin, Consuelo; Rojas-Thomas, Felipe; Valdés, Joaquín; Ibáñez, Agustín; Huepe, David
    Background Cocaine and stimulant consumption constitute a significant global issue and are associated with impaired social skills. However, the relationship between substance abuse and intentional harm recognition remains unclear. Intentional harm recognition is a crucial social cognitive ability that allows individuals to determine whether a harmful action performed by another person is deliberate or accidental. Methods The present study examined self-reported, behavioural, and neural responses associated with intentional harm recognition in n = 19 cocaine polydrug users (COC) and n = 19 healthy controls (HC). High-density electroencephalography (hdEEG) was used to measure brain activity during an Intentional Inference Task (IIT), which assesses fast intention recognition in scenarios involving deliberate or unintentional harm to people and objects. This study took place between 2014 and 2015 in Santiago, Chile. Results Behaviorally, COC exhibited slower reaction times (RT) than HC. Event-related potential (ERP) analysis revealed late frontal differences in HC when attributing intentional harm, while these differences were absent in COC. Conclusions These findings suggest a potential shift in COC towards emotional over-involvement and away from rational cognitive assessment of social information. The present results provide new insights into the recognition of intentional harm processing in cocaine polydrug users and highlight the potential clinical benefits of interventions focused on socio-emotional regulation training.
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    Ítem
    Contextual & physiological markers for individual distress (CP-MIND). Brain health as a comprehensive framework for Mental-health equity
    (Elsevier, 2026) Morales Sepúlveda, Juan Pablo; Macchiavello, Fiorella; Rojas-Thomas, Felipe
    Socioeconomic disadvantage shapes brain–mind health by intensifying exposures, resource scarcity, nutritional insecurity, violence, and weak social support, which dysregulate stress and immune systems. These conditions promote allostatic overload, whereby adaptive stress responses become maladaptive, degrading neural circuits for cognitive control and emotion regulation. In parallel, the microbiota–gut–brain axis links contextual adversity and diet quality to inflammation, barrier dysfunction, and neuroendocrine perturbations that further compromise resilience. Converging evidence connects these biological disruptions to structural and functional brain differences and higher risks of depression, anxiety, stress-related syndromes, and later neurodegeneration. While some sociocultural adaptations may bolster cooperation and communal coping, chronic physiological strain undermines durable resilience. This integrative review advances a combined framework, contextual & physiological markers for Individual distress, nested within a brain–mind health perspective, to organise how socioeconomic disadvantage-related exposures are embedded biologically via allostatic and microbiota–gut–brain axis pathways and manifest as social-cognitive difficulties and affective symptoms. We synthesise evidence across behaviour, neural systems, and systemic physiology to identify leverage points for intervention. Priorities include early multi-domain strategies that reduce chronic stressors; strengthen sleep, nutrition, and social cohesion; and test mechanistic interventions (e.g., allostatic regulation, psychobiotic or dietary modulation) within equity-focused, life-course designs. Understanding how contextual and physiological markers interact is essential for designing effective, scalable policies and clinical approaches that mitigate adversity’s neurobiological impact and reduce long-term disparities in brain–mind health.