Integration Between Cerebral Hemispheres Contributes to Defense Mechanisms.

ABSTRACT: Defense mechanisms are mental functions which facilitate coping when real or imagined events challenge personal wishes, needs, and feelings. Whether defense mechanisms have a specific neural basis is unknown. The present research tested the hypothesis that interhemispheric integration plays a critical role in defense mechanism development, by studying a unique sample of patients born without the corpus callosum (agenesis of the corpus callosum; AgCC). Adults with AgCC (N = 27) and matched healthy volunteers (N = 30) were compared on defense mechanism use across increasing levels of developmental maturity (denial, least; projection, intermediate; identification, most). Narratives generated in response to Thematic Apperception Test images were scored according to the Defense Me

SUBMITTER: Paradiso S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7359856 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature