Nature Mental Health
February 1, 2026
Giuseppe Riva, Giulia Brizzi, Clara Rastelli et al.
1 citation
Psychedelic-assisted therapy shows promise for mental health treatment but faces regulatory, methodological and safety challenges. In this Comment, we propose using artificial intelligence and virtual reality to simulate similar experiences to those produced by traditional psychedelic compounds for use in psychedelic-assisted therapy modalities.
Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking
2026
Giuseppe Riva, Brenda K Wiederhold, Fabrizia Mantovani
The cognitive processes of the hypnotized mind and the computational operations of large language models (LLMs) share deep functional parallels. Both systems generate sophisticated, contextually appropriate behavior through automatic pattern-completion mechanisms operating with limited or unreliable executive oversight. This review examines this convergence across three principles:...
Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience
December 1, 2025
Giulia Brizzi, Chiara Pupillo, Clara Rastelli et al.
Psychedelics were explored for their potential in the mental health field. However, research was delayed by concerns over short-term side effects and long-term consequences of substance use. Technological advances enabled the development of Hallucinatory Visual Virtual Experiences (HVVEs), namely psychedelic experiences simulations in immersive virtual reality. This study investigated HVVEs'...
Consciousness and Cognition
February 1, 2025
Antonino Greco, Clara Rastelli, Andrea Ubaldi et al.
Psychedelic drugs offer valuable insights into consciousness, but disentangling their causal effects on perceptual and high-level cognition is nontrivial. Technological advances in virtual reality (VR) and machine learning have enabled the immersive simulation of visual hallucinations. However, comprehensive experimental data on how these simulated hallucinations affects high-level human...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
July 7, 2023
Giulia Magni, Cosimo Tuena, Giuseppe Riva
9 citations
Recent research has investigated the potential of psychedelic substances in treating various neurological and psychiatric disorders. In particular, there has been a growth in studies concerning the intersection of psychedelics, Virtual Reality (VR), and Cognitive Flexibility (CF). Indeed, the use of immersive technology allows the simulation of the perceptual and cognitive effects of...
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
January 26, 2020
Paul Frewen, M. Schroeter, Giuseppe Riva et al.
We review neuroimaging research investigating self-referential processing (SRP), that is, how we respond to stimuli that reference ourselves, prefaced by a lexical-thematic analysis of words indicative of "self-feelings". We consider SRP as occurring verbally (V-SRP) and non-verbally (NV-SRP), both in the controlled, "top-down" form of introspective and interoceptive tasks, respectively, as...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
March 16, 2017
Giuseppe Riva, S. Serino, Daniele Di Lernia et al.
Progress in medical science and technology drastically improved physicians’ ability to interact with patient’s physical body. Nevertheless, medicine still addresses the human body from a Hippocratic point of view, considering the organism and its processes just as a matter of mechanics and fluids. However, the interaction between the cognitive neuroscience of bodily self-consciousness (BSC),...