Department of Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University Fukuoka, Japan ; Innovation Center for Medical Redox Navigation, Kyushu University Fukuoka, Japan.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2013 Feb 4;7:13. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00013. eCollection 2013.
The unconscious mind-brain relationship remains unresolved. From the perspective of neuroscience, neuronal networks including synapses have been dominantly believed to play crucial roles in human mental activities, while glial contribution to mental activities has long been ignored. Recently, it has been suggested that microglia, glial cells with immunological/inflammatory functions, play important roles in psychiatric disorders. Newly revealed microglial roles, such as constant direct contact with synapses even in the normal brain, have defied the common traditional belief that microglia do not contribute to neuronal networks. Recent human neuroeconomic investigations with healthy volunteers using minocycline, an antibiotic with inhibitory effects on microglial activation, suggest that microglia may unconsciously modulate human social behaviors as "noise." We herein propose a novel unconscious mind structural system in the brain centering on microglia from a neuropsychoanalytic approach. At least to some extent, microglial activation in the brain may activate unconscious drives as "psychological immune memory/reaction" in the mind, and result in various emotions, traumatic reactions, psychiatric symptoms including suicidal behaviors, and (psychoanalytic) transference during interpersonal relationships. Microglia have the potential to bridge the huge gap between neuroscience, biological psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis as a key player to connect the conscious and the unconscious world.
无意识的脑-心智关系仍然没有得到解决。从神经科学的角度来看，人们一直认为包括突触在内的神经元网络在人类心理活动中起着至关重要的作用，而胶质细胞对心理活动的贡献长期以来一直被忽视。最近，有人提出，具有免疫/炎症功能的胶质细胞——小胶质细胞，在精神疾病中发挥着重要作用。新发现的小胶质细胞的作用，如在正常大脑中与突触保持直接接触，这与小胶质细胞不参与神经网络的普遍传统观念相悖。最近，健康志愿者的人类神经经济学研究使用了米诺环素，一种具有抑制小胶质细胞激活作用的抗生素，这表明小胶质细胞可能无意识地作为“噪音”调节人类的社会行为。我们从神经精神分析的角度提出了一个新的以小胶质细胞为中心的大脑无意识心智结构系统。至少在某种程度上，大脑中小胶质细胞的激活可能会作为“心理免疫记忆/反应”激活无意识驱动力，从而导致各种情绪、创伤反应、包括自杀行为在内的精神症状，以及人际关系中的（精神分析）转移。小胶质细胞有可能弥合神经科学、生物精神病学、心理学和精神分析学之间的巨大差距，成为连接意识和无意识世界的关键因素。
