Functional Neurological Disorder, Predictive Processing and Active Inference

Functional Neurological Disorder was previously called Conversion Disorder or psychogenic neurological symptoms and is a condition in which a patient develops any number of neurological symptoms (such as loss of ability to move or seizure like episodes or inability to feel parts of their body or phantom pain) that cannot be explained by a clear lesion in the nervous system.  It was called conversion disorder because it was previously thought that repressed emotions or desires had been converted into neurological symptoms as a defense against those emotions or desires.  Therefore, the symptoms were "psychogenic" instead of neurological or biological.  Even though emotional states contribute to neurological function, we now know that this model is incorrect.  The most compelling new models of functional neurological symptoms come from the theories of the Bayesian brain, predictive processing, and active inference.

Please leave feedback at https://www.psydactic.com or send any comments to feedback@psydactic.com.

References and readings (when available) are posted at the end of each episode transcript, located at psydactic.buzzsprout.com. All opinions expressed in this podcast are exclusively those of the person speaking and should not be confused with the opinions of anyone else. We reserve the right to be wrong. Nothing in this podcast should be treated as individual medical advice.

Transcript

Functional Neurological Disorders, Predictive Processing, Active Inference

20 March 2025

Sources:
Aybek, Selma, and David L. Perez. 2022. “Diagnosis and Management of Functional Neurological Disorder.” BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.) 376 (January): o64.

Cretton, Alexandre, Richard J. Brown, W. Curt LaFrance Jr, and Selma Aybek. 2020. “What Does Neuroscience Tell Us about the Conversion Model of Functional Neurological Disorders?” The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 32 (1): 24–32.

Edwards, Mark J., Mahinda Yogarajah, and Jon Stone. 2023. “Why Functional Neurological Disorder Is Not Feigning or Malingering.” Nature Reviews. Neurology 19 (4): 246–56.

Espay, Alberto J., Selma Aybek, Alan Carson, Mark J. Edwards, Laura H. Goldstein, Mark Hallett, Kathrin LaFaver, et al. 2018. “Current Concepts in Diagnosis and Treatment of Functional Neurological Disorders.” JAMA Neurology 75 (9): 1132–41.

Finkelstein, Sara A., Miguel A. Cortel-LeBlanc, Achelle Cortel-LeBlanc, and Jon Stone. 2021. “Functional Neurological Disorder in the Emergency Department.” Academic Emergency Medicine: Official Journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine 28 (6): 685–96.

Gilmour, Gabriela S., Glenn Nielsen, Tiago Teodoro, Mahinda Yogarajah, Jan Adriaan Coebergh, Michael D. Dilley, Davide Martino, and Mark J. Edwards. 2020. “Management of Functional Neurological Disorder.” Journal of Neurology 267 (7): 2164–72.

Hallett, Mark, Selma Aybek, Barbara A. Dworetzky, Laura McWhirter, Jeffrey P. Staab, and Jon Stone. 2022. “Functional Neurological Disorder: New Subtypes and Shared Mechanisms.” Lancet Neurology 21 (6): 537–50.

Jungilligens, Johannes, Sara Paredes-Echeverri, Stoyan Popkirov, Lisa Feldman Barrett, and David L. Perez. 2022. “A New Science of Emotion: Implications for Functional Neurological Disorder.” Brain: A Journal of Neurology 145 (8): 2648–63.

Mavroudis, Ioannis, Dimitrios Kazis, Fatima Zahra Kamal, Irina-Luciana Gurzu, Alin Ciobica, Manuela Pădurariu, Bogdan Novac, and Alin Iordache. 2024. “Understanding Functional Neurological Disorder: Recent Insights and Diagnostic Challenges.” International Journal of Molecular Sciences 25 (8). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25084470.

Nicholson, Timothy R., Alan Carson, Mark J. Edwards, Laura H. Goldstein, Mark Hallett, Bridget Mildon, Glenn Nielsen, et al. 2020. “Outcome Measures for Functional Neurological Disorder: A Review of the Theoretical Complexities.” The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 32 (1): 33–42.

O’Neal, Mary A., and Gaston Baslet. 2018. “Treatment for Patients with a Functional Neurological Disorder (Conversion Disorder): An Integrated Approach.” The American Journal of Psychiatry 175 (4): 307–14.

Perez, David L., Selma Aybek, Timothy R. Nicholson, Kasia Kozlowska, David B. Arciniegas, and W. Curt LaFrance Jr. 2020. “Functional Neurological (Conversion) Disorder: A Core Neuropsychiatric Disorder.” The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 32 (1): 1–3.

Perez, David L., Selma Aybek, Stoyan Popkirov, Kasia Kozlowska, Christopher D. Stephen, Jordan Anderson, Robert Shura, et al. 2021. “A Review and Expert Opinion on the Neuropsychiatric Assessment of Motor Functional Neurological Disorders.” The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 33 (1): 14–26.

Raynor, Geoffrey, and Gaston Baslet. 2021. “A Historical Review of Functional Neurological Disorder and Comparison to Contemporary Models.” Epilepsy & Behavior Reports 16 (100489): 100489.

Vassilopoulos, Areti, Shekeeb Mohammad, Leon Dure, Kasia Kozlowska, and Aaron D. Fobian. 2022. “Treatment Approaches for Functional Neurological Disorders in Children.” Current Treatment Options in Neurology 24 (2): 77–97.

Friston, Karl. 2023. “Computational Psychiatry: From Synapses to Sentience.” Molecular Psychiatry 28 (1): 256–68.

Peters, Achim, Bruce S. McEwen, and Karl Friston. 2017. “Uncertainty and Stress: Why It Causes Diseases and How It Is Mastered by the Brain.” Progress in Neurobiology 156 (September): 164–88.

Seth, Anil K., and Karl J. Friston. 2016. “Active Interoceptive Inference and the Emotional Brain.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 371 (1708). https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2016.0007.

Welcome to PsyDactic.  Today is Thursday, March 20, 2025. and  I am Dr. O’Leary a Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellow in the National Capital region.  This is a podcast about psychiatry and neuroscience and I do it as a way to help myself and others learn. This is my 73rd episode.  I also have a sister podcast dedicated to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry if you want to also search for that.  I have no editorial or sound design staff, nor do I have anyone helping me research and write the content. I also try to avoid doing what I see many high production podcasts do and that is to just get on with a few ideas and start riffing, either alone or with a guest.

However, I now have something you might call a sound design and editorial staff in the form of artificial intelligence.  When I am reviewing new topics, I can now search for the most current and state of the art peer reviewed articles and reviews on any topic and feed them into a language model that can then be guided by some well formulated prompts, to extract certain kinds of information.  I can even create a simulated discussion of the material that I can then review and edit and share with you.  It no longer takes me days to weeks of research and writing in order to produce a single episode of high quality content that is rooted in peer reviewed literature.  I can research a topic, then pull in a large selection of the most up-to-date content in the scientific literature and ask my A.I to organize the discussion about it.

One of the things you may notice going forward is that I am going to frequently be incorporating a perspective called the Bayesian brain, or predictive processing, and active inference into the discussions.  I am doing this in order to help me and others to focus on what are the most advanced and powerful new perspectives in neuroscience.  Please see the show transcript at psydactic.buzzsprout.com for the references I used to create this content.

Without further adieu, I hand the mic over to my AI partners Al and Ally… or maybe I’ll call them Aiden and Aisha, or maybe Anaxamander and Hypatia?  You can call them whatever you want…

You know, when we think of neurological conditions, we often picture like really concrete physical damage, right? Like something's gone wrong in the brain or the nervous system. But today, we're looking at something that's a little different.
Yeah, it's kind of a puzzle in a way. It's called functional neurological disorder or FND and it's more common than you might think. Actually, it's the second most common reason people end up seeing a neurologist after headaches.
Wow, that's surprising. I wouldn't have guessed that,
right? It affects something like 50 out of every 100,000 people. So, it's definitely out there.
But the thing is, even though it's relatively common, the way the brain is actually involved still isn't totally clear. At least not in the traditional sense of like finding a lesion or damage. That's where this deep dive comes in. Yeah, we're going to explore some really cool new ideas from neuroscience that focus on how the brain predicts and interprets information and how this can help us make sense of FND.
We're talking about predictive processing and active inference.
Okay, so it's like the brain is a prediction machine always trying to figure out what's going to happen next and how does that relate to FND?
Well, that's exactly what we're going to unpack. We want to see how this idea of the brain as a predictor can help us understand the big questions around FND. Like how does it even start? That's the eeology, you know,
right? And how does it actually develop into the condition? We see the pathophysiology of what's going on in the brain, the neurobiology, and maybe most importantly, how can all this point us towards better ways to treat it.
To get there, we've been digging into a ton of research. Everything from how the brain senses its own internal state to how it deals with uncertainty and stress and of course studies specifically on FND itself.
So, kind of connecting all these different pieces of the puzzle and hopefully having some aha moments along the way.
That's the And I just want to assure our listeners that we're going to do our best to keep things clear and avoid getting too technical.
Yeah. No jargon overload.
So, let's start with the basics. Have you ever had that moment where like your body just does something totally out of the blue?
Like a tremor in your hand that you just can't control or maybe your leg just gives way. Yeah.
And then you go to the doctor, you have all the tests, the scans, the whole nine yards, and they're like, "Nope, everything looks normal."
Right.
It's incredibly frustrating.
It is.
And that, my friend, is often the beginning of the journey. to understanding a condition known as functional neurological disorder or FND. You might also hear it called conversion disorder.
And the interesting thing about FND is that the symptoms are very real neurological symptoms. They're not imagined. These are things like, you know, someone's arm might become paralyzed or they might start uncontrollably shaking or have trouble walking, have trouble with their balance.
They can even have what appear to be seizures. that look very much like epileptic seizures but are not epileptic seizures,
right?
And then you can also have sensory problems with FND. But the key difference is that when doctors look for a cause,
they don't find any of the usual suspects. There's no stroke, there's no evidence of multiple sclerosis, there's no infection, no inflammation in the brain or the nervous system that would typically cause those symptoms.
But how does this relate to predictive processing in the basian brain an act of inference.
It sounds pretty futuristic to me.
It does have a bit of a sci-fi ring to it, but it's actually a really fundamental way of thinking about how our brains work all the time. Like right now, your brain is making predictions about what I'm going to say next.
It's probably getting it wrong, too.
Huh. Well, maybe. But that's part of the process. The key idea is that your brain is constantly generating expectations about what's going to happen in the world around you and also within your own body. And then it compares these predictions to the ual sensory information that it receives.
Okay, so kind of like a reality check.
And the brain's main goal is to minimize the mismatch between its predictions and what it actually senses. These mismatches are called prediction errors. And it does this by continuously refining its internal models of how the world in your body work.
So the brain is always trying to improve its model of reality.
That's a great way to put it. It's like a scientist constantly testing hypotheses and updating them based on new data.
So how does this whole prediction thing help us understand something like F? and D.
Well, there are two main ways the brain works to reduce these prediction errors. One is through what's called perceptual inference. That's where the brain adjusts its internal models based on the sensory information it's getting. It's like saying, "Okay, my initial guess was off. I need to update my understanding."
So, it's learning from its mistakes,
right? The other way is through active inference. This is where we actually act on the world to make our sensory input match our predictions.
Oh, I see. So, it's not just about passively taking in information. but actually shaping our experience to fit what we expect.
Precisely. A classic example is reaching for a glass of water. Your brain predicts what it will feel like to hold the glass and then your motor commands make your hand move in a way that fulfills that prediction.
So, we're not just puppets of our senses. We're actively creating our reality in a way.
In a sense, yes. And this applies to our internal bodily sensations, too, not just the external world.
You mean like our heartbeat or breathing or digestion?
All that stuff. It's called introsception. the brain's awareness of what's happening inside us and it's really important for regulating all sorts of bodily functions.
Okay, so the brain is predicting and controlling both what we sense outside and inside our bodies.
But how does that go wrong in FND?
That is the million-dollar question. There's a really key idea laid out in a paper from 2012 in the journal brain. They proposed that the symptoms of FND can be understood as false inference about the causes of abnormal sensations, movements, or their absence. Okay. So, break that down for me. What does that actually mean?
Basically, the brain is jumping to the wrong conclusions about what's causing what inside the body. So, instead of there being an actual structural problem like a pinched nerve or a tumor,
the problem is with how the brain is interpreting the signals,
it's making incorrect interpretations of normal bodily signals leading to the experience of symptoms that don't have a clear organic cause in the traditional sense.
So, it's not that the signals themselves are faulty, it's that the brain is misreading them,
right? And this could explain a lot of the really puzzling symptoms we see in FND things like weakness or tremors or sensory disturbances that don't follow typical nerve pathways.
So instead of saying it's all in your head, which can sound dismissive, this suggests that there's a real process in the brain that's malfunctioning.
It's a shift in perspective and it really emphasizes the importance of understanding how the brain constructs our experience of our own bodies.
Okay. So faulty inference could be a key part of what's happening in FND.
Yeah.
But you also mentioned that uncertainty and stress play a role. How does that fit in?
That's a crucial piece of the puzzle, too. There's a really interesting paper from 2017 by Peters and colleagues that actually defines stress in a very specific way. They say that stress is basically uncertainty or to use more technical term, entropy.
Entropy. So, like things being unpredictable or chaotic.
Exactly. Think of entropy as a measure of how many different possible outcomes the brain is considering. High entropy means lots of possibilities, lots of unknowns, which leads to more uncertainty. When we expect that things might turn out differently than we'd like and we feel like we can't control that outcome. That's when we experience uncertainty and stress.
Okay, so stress is basically the brain feeling like it's in a situation it can't predict or control.
That's a great summary. Yeah.
And the brain doesn't like uncertainty. It wants to know what's going to happen next. So, how does it deal with this feeling of being out of control?
I'm guessing it tries to get back in control somehow.
Absolutely. But here's the thing. Trying to figure things out requires energy. And the brain is a bit of an energy hog. It actually prioritizes its own energy needs over the needs of the rest of the body.
Wait, really? So, the brain is like, "Hey, body, I need more power to solve this problem."
That's exactly what Peters and his team called the selfish brain concept. When faced with uncertainty, the brain demands more energy from the body to try and resolve that uncertainty and make better predictions.
But what happens if the brain can't figure things out even with all that extra energy?
Well, if the uncertainty persists despite this increased energy demand, it can lead to a chronic state of energy imbalance, which puts a lot of wear and tear on both the brain and the body. This is what's known as alistatic load, the cumulative cost of constantly trying to adapt to stress.
So chronic stress isn't just a feeling. It actually has real physical consequences.
Over time, allic load can contribute to all sorts of problems like impaired memory, difficulty concentrating, and even things like cardiovascular disease like a vicious cycle. Uncertainty leads to stress and physiological strain, which then further impairs the brain's abilityto cope with uncertainty.
Okay, so chronic stress and uncertainty could create this kind of vulnerability in the brain, but how does that translate into specific symptoms?
Well, the Peter's paper also points to some specific brain regions that are involved in this stress response. They propose a network that involves different parts of the preffrontal cortex.
That's the front part of the brain, right? The part involved in planning and decision-m.
So, they suggest that different areas of the prefrontal cortex represent our beliefs about our current situation. What we think we can achieve and our ultimate goals.
So like different levels of planning almost,
right? Then there's another area called the anterior singulate cortex or ACC which acts like a sort of conflict monitor comparing what we want to achieve with what's realistically possible.
So it's weighing our options.
Yes. And based on this comparison, the ACC helps us choose the best course of action to take. If we see a clear path forward, then the PSMA, another part of the brain, helps initiate a behavioral response. But if we're uncertain about what to do, and the situation feels threatening, that's when the amydala kicks in. It's like an alarm system that gets triggered when the brain senses danger or uncertainty. And when the amydala fires up, it sets off a whole cascade of stress responses in the body.
So, we've got this complex interplay of different brain regions trying to make sense of uncertainty and threat. Now, how does this all relate back to those faulty inferences we were talking about?
Well, there's another key concept in predictive processing called precision waiting that might be really relevant here. Imagine you're trying to figure out about if a sound you hear is your phone ringing or just a similar notification from an app.
Okay, I've definitely been there.
Your brain assigns a level of precision or reliability to each piece of sensory information. If you see a visual notification on your phone screen at the same time, you'll probably give that visual information more weight than the sound because it's more clear and unambiguous.
So precision is like how much confidence the brain has in a particular piece of information.
Exactly. And this applies to our internal bodily sensations. Two, the level of precision assigned to prediction errors is crucial for guiding both our perceptions and our actions.
So, if the brain is giving too much weight to certain internal signals, even if they're not really that important, that could lead to problems, right?
That's the idea. And it ties in nicely with attention, too. The brain tends to focus its attention on the things it deems most reliable and in need of explanation.
So, it's like the brain is saying, "Okay, this signal is loud and clear. I need to pay attention to this."
Right? And this attentional focus can actually amplify those signals making them seem even more important.
So we've got this kind of feedback loop where attention and precision are feeding off each other. Now how is all this actually controlled in the brain?
Well, there are certain brain chemicals or neurotransmitters that play a big role here. One is norepinephrine which is released by a brain region called the locus coeruleus. Norepinephrine can actually increase the precision of prediction errors, essentially turning up the volume on those signals that the brain thinks are really important.
It's like turning up the gain on a microphone.
It creates these hot spots of neural activity, focusing the brain's resources on trying to resolve those high precision prediction errors. But it's not just norepinephrine. Stress hormones like cortisol also have an impact on the brain's ability to learn and adapt.
So stress hormones can affect how the brain updates its predictions.
It seems like there's a sweet spot for learning. Low levels of stress hormones create the optimal conditions for the brain to consolidate new information and refine its models. But when stress hormones are chronically elevated, that can actually hinder this process.
That makes sense. It's like when you're super stressed, you can't focus or remember things as well.
Right? It's like the brain is saying, "I'm too overwhelmed to learn right now."
So, we've got this complex interplay of brain regions, neurochemicals, and stress hormones all trying to make sense of uncertainty and threat. Now, how does this new perspective on FND relate to the more traditional psychological models like the conversion model?
Yeah, that's a good question. The conversion model, which goes back to Freud and Bruer, basically says that FND symptoms arise from the unconscious repression of emotional reactions to stressful events.
So it's like the emotional energy gets bottled up and then converted into physical symptoms.
Exactly. And this was often seen as serving a psychological purpose like reducing anxiety or avoiding a stressful situation. So it was a way for the psyche to cope with overwhelming emotions.
Right? But how does this fit in with the whole predictive processing framework?
What's really cool is that neuroscience is starting to provide a biological basis for some of these psychological observations. For example, a study from 2019 by Cretin and colleagues found increased activity in the supplementary motor area or SMA and the temporal parietal junction or TPJ in FND patients when they were recalling past events where they felt a strong urge to escape.
Okay. And what do those brain regions do?
Well, the SMA is involved in planning and executing movements. And the TPJ is involved in our sense of self and our agency, our feeling of being in control of our actions.
So, this stud suggests that memories of wanting to escape could somehow be influencing the motor system.
That's one way to interpret it. And the TPJ is also involved in generating predictions about our own movements. So, this finding really hints at how past stressors, even if they seem distant or unrelated, could have lasting effects on brain function.
So, it's like the brain is still stuck in that escape mode even though the threat is long gone.
It's possible. The study also found altered activity in the perryqueductal gray or PEG, which is involved in the body's freeze response to threat.
So, that fight, flight, or freeze response.
Exactly. And they found this altered PEG activity in FND patients when they were processing negative emotional information. So it suggests that this defensive mechanism might be overactive or disregulated in some people with FND.
So we're seeing this pattern of altered brain activity in regions involved in movement, emotion, and threat response. Now, how does all this inform the way we treat FND?
This is where it gets really practical. If FND is at least partly caused by maladaptive prediction, and faulty inferences, then logically our treatments should aim to help the brain recalibrate those predictions and learn new, more accurate ones.
So kind of like retraining the brain.
Exactly. One example is physical therapy where patients are often encouraged to practice movements while their attention is diverted away from the affected body part.
So instead of focusing on the weakness or the pain, they're focusing on just doing the movement.
Right? And this can be really effective because it helps to break that cycle of attention and amplification that we were talking about earlier. It allows the brain to update its predictions about what the body can actually do.
Now, you also mentioned something called Hoover sign earlier. Can you explain what that is?
Yeah, Hoover sign is a really interesting clinical finding that's often seen in people with functional leg weakness. Basically, when you ask someone to lift their strong leg, they'll often unconsciously push down with their weak leg.
Oh, so it's like their body knows how to do the movement even though they're not consciously controlling it.
Exactly. And this suggests that the underlying neural pathways for the movement are still intact. It's just that the brain is somehow inhibiting or blocking the signal from reaching the muscles.
And how does this fit in with a predictive processing model?
Well, it supports the idea that FND is not about faking symptoms. It's about a real disruption in the way the brain is processing and controlling movement. And this disruption seems to be heavily influenced by attention and context. When the person's attention is diverted away from their leg, they're able to perform the movement. But when they focus on their weakness, the brain seems to block the signal.
So, it's almost like a software glitch in the brain.
That's a good analogy and it highlights the importance of understanding how attention and context can shape our experience of our own bodies.
And what about therapies like CBT?
Cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT can also be very helpful in addressing the negative or unhelpful thoughts and beliefs that often contribute to FND symptoms.
So, helping people change their thinking patterns.
Exactly. By challenging those maladaptive thought patterns, CBT can help to shift those underlying predictive models in the brain.
And what about hypnosis and suggestion? I know those have been used to treat conditions like FND for a long time.
Yeah, they have a long history. And a recent review from 2024 suggests that they can be quite effective in some cases. It seems like hypnosis and suggestion might actually work by directly tapping into the brain's predictive mechanisms.
So, it's like hacking the brain's software
in a way. Yes. And there are different approaches. Some therapists use suggestion to try to directly alleviate specific symptoms while others use it to help uncover cover and address underlying psychological factor that might be contributing to the problem.
So, kind of getting at the root of the problem,
right? The review found that a significant percentage of patients across different studies showed improvement with these types of interventions, but it's not a magic bullet.
Does that mean it doesn't work for everyone?
Yeah, it seems like individual responses can vary, and we still need more research to understand exactly how it works and who's most likely to benefit. Interestingly, the review found that hypnotizability, how easy Y someone can be hypnotized doesn't always predict how well they'll respond to treatment.
That's surprising.
Yeah.
I would have thought that being easily hypnotizable would be a good thing.
You think so? But it's more complicated than that.
Factors like the patients expectations about the treatment and how long they've been experiencing symptoms might play a bigger role. And we also have to consider the placebo effect, which is a powerful demonstration of just how influential our beliefs and expectations can be.
So even if it's just a placebo effect, It's still a real effect on the brain.
Absolutely. Our beliefs and expectations can actually change the way our brains process information and predict outcomes and this can have a real impact on our symptoms.
It really highlights the power of the mind body connection. Okay, so we've covered a lot of ground here. What are the key takeaways for our listeners?
I think the most important message is that FND is a real neurological condition with a real biological basis. It's not just all in your head in the dismissive sense. It's a about a disruption in the way the brain processes information and predicts outcomes. And this disruption can lead to a wide range of symptoms that are just as real and debilitating as any other neurological condition.
And what I found really fascinating is how this new perspective on FND connects the dots between psychology and biology. It shows how our thoughts, emotions, and experiences can actually shape the way our brains function and how this can sometimes lead to physical symptoms.
Exactly. It's a much more holistic and integrated view of health and illness.
And for me, the biggest aha moment was seeing how stress and uncertainty can actually create a vulnerability in the brain, making it more susceptible to these kinds of disruptions.
That's a really important point and it highlights the need to address stress and promote resilience as part of a comprehensive approach to treating FND.
Absolutely. So, we've learned that the brain is a prediction machine, always trying to make sense of the world in our bodies. And sometimes those predictions can go ary leading to conditions like FND.
And what's really exciting is that this new understanding of the brain is opening up all sorts of new possibilities for treatment. We're starting to develop therapies that specifically target the brain's predictive mechanisms, helping it to learn new, more adaptive ways of functioning. And that's a really profound shift. I think it has the potential to revolutionize the way we think about and treat all sorts of neurological and psychiatric conditions.
It's definitely an area to watch.
Yeah.
And for our listeners who are interested in learning more, I encourage you to check out the resources we'll be linking to in the show notes.
Absolutely. There's a whole world of fascinating research out there on predictive processing, active inference, and the future of brainbased therapies.
And as we wrap up, I want to leave you with one final thought.
Mhm.
If our brains are constantly predicting and shaping our reality, how much conscious control do we actually have over this process? Can we learn to hack our own predictive minds to promote health and well-being?
That's a really profound question, and I think it's one that we're only just beginning to explore the implications are huge not just for healthcare but for our understanding of consciousness, free will and the nature of reality itself.
So much to ponder. Thanks for joining us on this deep dive into the fascinating world of FND and the predictive brain.
It's been my pleasure.
Until next time, keep those brains predicting
and those prediction errors minimized.
I am Dr. Olirri and this has been an episode of Sideactic.