Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 6, 2025

Highlighting and Reducing the Impact of Negative Aging Stereotypes During Older Adults' Cognitive Testing
Published on: January 24, 2020
Beliefs: A challenge in neuropsychological disorders
1Department of Neurology, Centre of Neurology and Neuropsychiatry, LVR-Klinikum Düsseldorf, Medical Faculty, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Germany.
Introduction:
Beliefs have recently been defined as the neural product of perception of objects and events in the external world and of an affirmative internal affective state reflecting personal meaning. It is, however, undetermined in which way diseases of the brain affect these integrative processes.
Methods:
Here, the formation and updating of abnormal beliefs in cerebral disorders are described.
Results:
It will be shown that well-defined neuropsychological syndromes resulting from brain lesions also interfere with the neural processes that enable the formation, up-dating and communication of beliefs. Similarly, in neuropsychiatric disorders abnormal and delusional beliefs appear to be caused by altered perception and/or misattribution of aversive meaning.
Conclusion:
Given the importance of beliefs for ordinary social behaviour, abnormal beliefs are a challenge in neuropsychological disorders.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Positive Symptoms Schizophrenia: Hallucinations and Delusions
Hallucinations
Hallucinations in...
Positive Symptoms of Schizophrenia: Hallucinations and Delusions
Thought Disorders
Disorganized and unusual thought processes mark thought disorders in schizophrenia. One key feature is disorganized speech, where an individual's conversation includes...
Beck's Cognitive Therapy
Arbitrary Inference
Arbitrary inference involves making conclusions without sufficient...
Cognitivism
Previously dominated by behaviorism, which prioritized observable behaviors and largely ignored mental processes, psychology transformed in the 1950s. Cognitive psychologists argue that understanding how we think and process...
Disorders of the Nervous Tissue
Homeostatic Imbalances:
Alzheimer's disease manifests as a gradual decline in memory and cognitive abilities, attributed to the buildup of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain.
Parkinson's disease arises from the...
Language and Cognition

