This paper reviews scientific literature on four subjective states: the dream state, the dreamy state of temporal lobe epilepsy and temporal lobe stimulation, the acute psychotic state, and the psychedelic state. Evidence is cited showing that underlying the emergence of dreamlike phenomena in all four states is the occurrence of high-voltage bursts of theta and slow-wave activity (2–8 Hz) in...
Abstract Quantifying the complexity of neural activity has provided fundamental insights into cognition, consciousness, and clinical conditions. However, the most widely used approach to estimate the complexity of neural dynamics, Lempel-Ziv complexity (LZ), has fundamental limitations that substantially restrict its domain of applicability. In this article we leverage the information-theoretic...
This paper introduces the notion of adaptive narrative control, a conception of how subpersonal computational processes shape the contents of conscious experience to realize adaptive behavior. We unpack the implications of the theory for understanding the computational mechanisms underwriting psychopathology and improvements in subjective well-being associated with psychedelic therapy and...
Conventional antidepressants show moderate efficacy in treating major depressive disorder. Psychedelic-assisted therapy holds promise, yet individual responses vary, underscoring the need for predictive tools to guide treatment selection. Here, we present graphTRIP (graph-based Treatment Response Interpretability and Prediction) – a geometric deep learning architecture that enables three...
Current spinal cord injury treatments primarily manage symptoms rather than promote neurological recovery. Psilocybin enhances neuroplasticity through 5-HT2A agonism and brain-derived neurotrophic factor upregulation, suggesting therapeutic potential for spinal cord injury rehabilitation. We conducted semi-structured interviews with three individuals who had incomplete spinal cord injuries...
Introduction. Being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness (LTI) is often accompanied by feelings of fear, uncertainty, and loneliness that can severely impact mental health. Relatively few interventions are available to address the existential concerns of individuals facing LTI, while treatment of the underlying physical ailment typically remains the priority of the healthcare system....
UNSTRUCTURED This study demonstrates that changes in mindfulness predict subsequent changes in well-being in a data set including individuals who recently engaged in psychedelic use.
This article spotlights problematic assumptions and practices in clinical psychedelic research that together hamper the field’s ability to demonstrate causal identification, contributing to confusion and misunderstanding: (1) the main problematic assumption is that pretreatment expectancy causes therapeutic response; while expectancy predicts response to most treatments, it is becoming...
How do psychedelic drugs alter human brain function? Answering this question relies on our ability to understand how information is stored, transferred, and transformed across the cortex. Here, we leverage a precise mathematical framework for multivariate information decomposition to construct the first comprehensive picture of these processes across five compounds: LSD, psilocybin, ketamine,...
Psychedelics are increasingly explored as tools to investigate consciousness and cognition, and as potential treatments for mood disorders. While neuroimaging has been central to characterizing their mechanisms of action, the interpretation of these studies may be confounded by the neurovascular effects elicited by these drugs. Here, we investigated the modulation of resting state neurovascular...
Abstract Large-scale functional connectivity (FC) networks are typically treated as discrete neuroanatomical entities, yet their organisation in regions where multiple systems converge remains poorly understood. Here we investigate the posterior precuneus (PCu)—a key hub of the default mode network (DMN) situated at the interface with the frontoparietal control network (FPCN)—using a...
It is a paradox that psychotomimetic drugs can relieve symptoms that increase risk of and cooccur with psychosis, such as attention and motivational deficits (e.g., amphetamines), pain (e.g., cannabis) and symptoms of depression (e.g., psychedelics, dissociatives). We introduce the ideas of psychotomimetic compensation and psychotomimetic sensitization to explain this paradox. Psychotomimetic...