1038/s41582-026-01186-y; 2026)2 rely on conceptual misunderstandings, mischaracterizations of our work or unsupported assertions. We welcome the opportunity to clarify these points. First, the suggestion that the term ‘recalled experiences of death’ (REDs) is more accurate than ‘near-death experiences’ (NDEs) is incompatible with established international agreement on the medical definition of...
The degree of interaction between language and consciousness is a theoretically significant yet poorly understood question. In this review, we examine neuroimaging, cognitive, and neuropsychological studies that address this issue by distinguishing between different aspects or dimensions of language and consciousness. The reviewed studies indicate that high-level semantic and sentence...
Significant advances in the scientific investigation of the neurobiology of consciousness have been slow to be translated into clinical settings, limited by factors of conceptual (e.g., what is consciousness?), methodological (e.g., how to identify reliable indicators of consciousness?), and technical (e.g., how to improve sensitivity and specificity of the technological identification of...
Abstract Disorders of consciousness (DoC), including unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS) and minimally conscious state (MCS), have limited treatment options and are characterized by low complexity of brain activity. Recent research suggests that psychedelic drugs, which enhance the complexity of brain activity, could offer promising therapies. Here, individualized whole‐brain computational...
This case, set within its medical and pharmacological context, provides a unique opportunity to study NDEs and their precipitating context. The reported transformations underscore the importance of recognizing NDEs for their possible long-term effects on patients and relevance to medical practice.
Non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOC) provide an opportunity to experience highly intense, unique, and perceptually rich subjective states. The neural mechanisms supporting these experiences remain poorly understood. This study examined brain activity associated with a self-induced, substance-free NOC known as Auto-Induced Cognitive Trance (AICT). Twenty-seven trained participants...
Near-death experiences (NDEs), a syndrome of experiences with mystical-type content classically arising in the context of life-threatening situations, are under-researched in terms of their relevance for acute medical care. We here discuss several reasons to raise the importance of conducting more comprehensive NDE research in emergency and critical care contexts, including but not limited to...
Objective.Disorders of consciousness (DoC) remain a significant challenge in neurology, with traditional brain stimulation therapies showing limited and inconsistent efficacy across patients. This study presents a novel computational approach grounded in neural field theory for constructing personalized stimulus signals designed to induce healthy-like neural activity patterns in individuals...
Near-death experiences (NDEs) are episodes of disconnected consciousness that typically occur in situations that involve an actual or potential physical threat or are perceived as such, and the experiences are characterized by a rich content with prototypical mystical features. Several explanatory theories for NDEs have been proposed, ranging from psychological or neurophysiological to...
Disorders of consciousness (DoC) are characterized by impaired arousal and/or awareness, ranging from coma to unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, minimally conscious state, and cognitive motor dissociation. Pharmacological treatment options remain limited, complicated by the heterogeneity of etiologies, such as traumatic brain injury, stroke, and infections. The lack of rigorous clinical trials...
With very few treatments available, post-comatose disorders of consciousness (DoC) pose one of the hardest challenges in modern neurology. Following promising clinical trial results in psychiatry, and a deepening understanding of their brain mechanisms, psychedelics have been suggested as a novel therapeutic drug for DoC patients, given that they increase the entropy or complexity of...
Auto-induced cognitive trance (AICT) is a method for voluntarily entering modified state of consciousness. The therapeutic implications of AICT are still unknown. Since complementary approaches based on modified states of consciousness are recognized to be beneficial for patients suffering from chronic pain (e.g., hypnosis, meditation), we here present the first case report of a 68-year-old man...
Post-comatose disorders of consciousness (DoC) represent persistent neurological conditions with limited therapeutic options and a poor prognosis. Recent works advocate for exploring the effects of psychedelics to enhance brain complexity in DoC and ameliorate their consciousness. We investigated sub-anesthetic concentration of the atypical psychedelic ketamine for treating post-comatose...
Non-ordinary states of consciousness offer a unique opportunity to explore the interplay between phenomenological experiences and physiological processes. This study investigated individual differences in phenomenological and autonomic nervous system changes between a resting state condition and a non-ordinary state of consciousness (auto-induced cognitive trance, AICT). Specifically, it...
Mystical-type experiences can be induced through techniques like hypnosis and meditation. These experiences are common in near-death experiences (NDEs) and have been linked to paranormal beliefs. This study explored auto-induced cognitive trance (AICT) as a method to induce mystical-type experiences and NDE outside of life threatening situations (NDE-like), as well as examining the influence of...
AbstractKetamine is a versatile N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)-antagonist used in various clinical settings. Ketamine dose-dependently induces psychoactive effects: at low, anti-hyperalgesic doses, these are minor or not detectable, but at subanesthetic doses, they may include dissociative, psychotomimetic, and psychedelic events. At an anesthetic dose, ketamine leads to a state of “(full)...
Understanding the neural correlates of consciousness remains a central challenge in neuroscience. In this study, we explore the potential of neural field theory (NFT) as a computational framework for representing consciousness states. While prior research has validated NFT's capacity to differentiate between normal and pathological states of consciousness, the relationship of its parameters to...
Shamanism is a spiritual tradition in which trance practitioners deliberately modify their state of consciousness to seemingly interact with an invisible world to resolve their community members' problems. This review aims to provide a multidisciplinary overview of scientific research on shamanic trance. The search was performed using PubMed and Google Scholar databases. Twenty-seven articles...
Understanding the neural correlates of consciousness remains a central challenge in neuroscience. In this study, we explore the potential of neural field theory (NFT) as a computational framework for representing consciousness states. While prior research has validated NFT’s capacity to differentiate between normal and pathological states of consciousness, the relationship of its parameters to...
Disorders of consciousness (DoC) represent a challenging and complex group of neurological conditions characterised by profound disturbances in consciousness. The current range of treatments for DoC is limited. This has sparked growing interest in developing new treatments, including the use of psychedelic drugs. Nevertheless, clinical investigations and the mechanisms behind them are...
During fainting, disconnected consciousness may emerge in the form of dream-like experiences. Characterized by extra-ordinary and mystical features, these subjective experiences have been associated to near-death-like experiences (NDEs-like). We here aim to assess brain activity during syncope-induced disconnected consciousness by means of high-density EEG monitoring. Transient loss of...
Consciousness has been proposed to be supported by electrophysiological patterns poised at criticality, a dynamical regime which exhibits adaptive computational properties, maximally complex patterns and divergent sensitivity to perturbation. Here, we investigate dynamical properties of the resting-state electroencephalogram (EEG) of healthy subjects undergoing general anesthesia with propofol,...
Modern medicine has been shaken by the surge of psychedelic science that proposes a new approach to mitigate mental disorders, such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Clinical trials to investigate whether psychedelic substances can treat psychiatric conditions are now underway, yet less discussion gravitates around their use in neurological disorders due to brain injury. One...
High-order interactions are required across brain regions to accomplish specific cognitive functions. These functional interdependencies are reflected by synergistic information that can be obtained by combining the information from all the sources considered and redundant information (i.e., common information provided by all the sources). However, electroencephalogram (EEG) functional...
This review provides an exploration of trance states, covering their phenomenology, neural mechanisms, and clinical uses. Trance states, present in diverse cultural contexts from shamanic practices to modern adaptations, have recently captured the interest of researchers and clinicians. Here, we delve into the phenomenological aspects of trance experiences, highlighting the most common...