Deep Brain Stimulation

The phenomenology of patients with Deep Brain Stimulation

A grant awarded by the Research Council of the Academic Medical Center (AMC) allowed me to initiate a unique collaboration with Damiaan Denys on the phenomenology of patients with Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). Using my central notion of embodied affordance-responsiveness, this research project translates results of my work on unreflective action to the medical practice, aiming ultimately to improve the treatment of patients.

The PhD-students working full-time on this project are Sanneke de Haan and Maarten van Westen, who are embedded at the AMC. Together we are developing a novel affordance-based framework to understand the changes in phenomenology that the patients experience as a result of the DBS-treatment. You can find more information on our project via this link and the selected publications below.

Selected publications (see my pages on philosophy and architecture for more articles):

Van Westen, M., Rietveld, E., Van Hout, A., Denys, D. (2021). Deep brain stimulation is no ON/OFF-switch’: an ethnography of clinical expertise in psychiatric practice. Phenomology and the Cognitive Sciences. doi: 10.1007/s11097-021-09732-3

Van Westen, M., Rietveld, E., Bergfeld, I.O., de Koning, P., Vullink, N., Ooms, P., Graat, I., Liebrand, L., van den Munckhof, P., Schuurman, R. and Denys, D. (2020), Optimizing Deep Brain Stimulation Parameters in Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder. Neuromodulation: Technology at the Neural Interface.

Rietveld, E., & Martens, J. (2020). Anticipatie, affordances en het brein bij vaardig handelen. In Denys, D. & Meynen G. (eds). Het tweede handboek psychiatrie en filosofie. Amsterdam: Boom uitgevers, pp. 123-138.

Van Westen, M., Rietveld, E., and Denys, D. (2019), Effective Deep Brain Stimulation for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Requires Clinical Expertise. Front. Psychol. 10:2294.

Kiverstein, J., Rietveld, E., Slagter, H. A., & Denys, D. (2019). Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Pathology of Self-Confidence? Trends in Cognitive Sciences. doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2019.02.005

De Haan, S., Rietveld, E., Stokhof, M. & Denys, D. (2017) Becoming more oneself? Changes in personality following DBS treatment for psychiatric disorders: Experiences of OCD patients and general considerations PLoS ONE 12(4). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0175748

Kiverstein, J., Rietveld, E. & Denys, D. (2017) Could closed-loop Deep Brain Stimulation enhance a person’s feeling of being free? AJoB, American Journal of Bioethics 8(2), pp. 86–87.

De Haan, S., Rietveld, E., Stokhof, M. & Denys, D. (2015) Effects of Deep Brain Stimulation on the lived experience of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder patients: In-depth interviews with 18 patients. PLoS ONE 10(8), pp. 1-29. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0135524.

Van Westen, M., Rietveld, E., Figee, M. & Denys, D. (2015) Clinical outcome and mechanisms of deep brain stimulation for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports (2), pp. 41-48.

Bruineberg, J. & Rietveld, E. (2014) Self-organization, free energy minimization, and optimal grip on a field of affordances. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8 (599), pp. 1-14.

De Haan, S., Rietveld, E. & Denys, D. (2014) Stimulating good practice: What an EEC approach could actually mean for DBS practice. American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 5 (4), pp. 46-48.

De Haan, S., Rietveld, E., Stokhof, M., & Denys, D. (2013). The phenomenology of deep brain stimulation-induced changes in OCD: An enactive affordance-based model. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7 (653), pp. 1-14.

Rietveld, E., De Haan, S. & Denys, D (2013), Social affordances in context: What is it that we are bodily responsive to? Invited commentary article on Leo Schilbach et al. BBS, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

De Haan, S., Rietveld, E. & Denys, D. (2013), On the nature of obsessions and compulsions, in Baldwin, D.S. & Leonard, B.E. (eds.) Trends in Pharmacopsychiatry: Anxiety Disorders. To be published by Karger.

De Haan, S, Rietveld, E. & Denys, D. (forthcoming), Being free by losing control: What Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder can tell us about free will. In Glannon, W. (ed.) Neuroscientific and Philosophical Perspectives on Free Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rietveld, E. (2011), Bekwaam handelen zonder reflectie, in Denys, D. & Meynen G. (eds), Handboek Psychiatrie en Filosofie. Utrecht: De Tijdstroom, pp. 161-173