October 3, 2026Juliana Estévez, David Lameiras, Giancarlo Allocca et al.
preprint
This paper addresses a methodological disparity between meditation research and research involving psychoactive substances. Studies of meditation routinely apply established criteria to distinguish expert practitioners from novices, while research with psychoactive substances screens for safety rather than classifying expertise. We analyze current benchmarking practice in meditation research,...
Aesthetic chills, psychogenic shivers elicited by emotionally charged stimuli such as music, offer a neurophysiological marker bridging subjective experience and measurable physiology. Although neuroimaging has localized chills to reward and interoceptive circuits and behavioral work has linked them to prosocial outcomes, their electrophysiological signature and its relationship to...
Following publication of this article, the title has been updated to clarify that the study was observational rather than interventional, with text added in the Results and Methods to specify which analyses were pre-registered. The competing interests statement has also been updated to clarify the competing interests of Joe Dispenza and state those of Hemal H. Patel. The changes are made in the...
Non-pharmacologically induced altered states of consciousness that promote mental health and wellbeing are a growing focus of clinical and basic research. Previous work has revealed the mood-augmenting, belief-altering, and self-transcendent effects of aesthetic-chills-inducing audiovisual stimulation. The current study investigated how a guided loving kindness meditation (LKM) combined with...
Abstract Mind-body interventions offer promising avenues for improving physical and mental health, yet the comprehensive biological effects of increasingly popular mind-body retreat interventions remain poorly understood. The neural and molecular effects of a 7-day retreat intervention combining meditation, reconceptualization, and open-label placebo healing rituals are investigated in an...
Meditation has long been known to promote health. We utilized a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the impact of mind-body interventions on the body in a twin cohort during a week-long meditation retreat. This study was designed to address individual changes controlling for intersubject trait variation and explore the role of genetic background on multi-omic factors during meditation....
Abstract Why does the same experience elicit strong emotional responses in some individuals while leaving others largely indifferent? Is the variance influenced by who people are (personality traits), how they feel (emotional state), where they come from (demographics), or a unique combination of these? In this 2,900+ participants study, we disentangle the factors that underlie individual...
Self-transcendence (ST) is a state of consciousness associated with feelings of ego-dissolution, connectedness, and moral elevation, which mediates well-being, meaning-making, and prosociality. Conventional paths to ST, like religious practice, meditation, and psychedelics, pose nontrivial barriers to entry, limiting ST's study and application. Aesthetic chills (henceforth "chills") are a...
Our culture and its scientific endeavor direly need a holistic characterization of mind and body. Many phenomena attest to the profound effects of beliefs on bodily function (e.g., open-label placebo's effects on chronic pain) and interoceptive systems' role in mental processes (e.g., the emerging role of gut microbiomes in the mood). We need a mechanistic, integrative framework to account for...
Background: Family dementia caregivers experience high rates of depression and anxiety that often go untreated due to time demands. We aimed to determine the feasibility of a brief, 4-week Mentalizing Imagery Therapy intervention, which couples mindfulness with guided imagery practices aimed at bolstering mentalizing capacity, to reduce caregiver psychological symptoms and to explore potential...
Understanding and facilitating access to non-ordinary experiences that can promote mental health and wellbeing is a growing focus of clinical and basic research. . Previous work has revealed the mood-augmenting, belief-altering, and self-transcendent effects of aesthetic-chills-inducing audiovisual stimulation, as a putative “technodelic.” The current study investigated how a guided loving...