Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a classic serotonergic psychedelic that induces a profoundly altered conscious state. In conjunction with psychological support, it is currently being explored as a treatment for generalized anxiety disorder and depression. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is a brain region that is known to be involved in mood regulation and disorders; hypofunction...
Resting state connectivity studies link ketamine's antidepressant effects with normalisation of the brain connectivity changes that are observed in depression. These changes, however, usually co-occur with improvement in depressive symptoms, making it difficult to attribute these changes to ketamine's effects per se. Our aim is to examine the effects of ketamine in brain connectivity, 2 h after...
Dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) in resting-state fMRI holds promise to deliver candidate biomarkers for clinical applications. However, the reliability and interpretability of dFC metrics remain contested. Despite a myriad of methodologies and resulting measures, few studies have combined metrics derived from different conceptualizations of brain functioning within the same analysis -...
Abstract Rationale LSD is the prototypical psychedelic. Despite a clear central role of the 5HT 2a receptor in its mechanism of action, the contributions of additional receptors for which it shows affinity and agonist activity remain unclear. Objectives We employed receptor-enriched analysis of functional connectivity by targets (REACT) to explore differences in functional connectivity (FC)...
The topic of multiple personality, redefined as Dissociative Identity Disorders (DIDs) in the DSM-5, is an intriguing and still debated disorder with a long history and deep cultural and epistemological implications, extending up to the idea of possession. Hypnosis is an appealing and valuable model to manipulate subjective experience and get an insight on both the physiology and the...
One of the main limitations of pharmacological fMRI is its inability to provide a molecular insight into the main effect of compounds, leaving an open question about the relationship between drug effects and haemodynamic response. The aim of this study is to investigate the acute effects of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) on functional connectivity (FC) using a novel multimodal method...
A topic of common interest to psychologists and philosophers is the spontaneous flow of thoughts when the individual is awake but not involved in cognitive demands. This argument, classically referred to as the "stream of consciousness" of James, is now known in the psychological literature as "Mind-Wandering." Although of great interest, this construct has been scarcely investigated so far....