A review discusses the potential of LSD and psilocybin for treating persistent pain, especially in terminal illness. These substances act on serotonin receptors and may influence pain processing. Tentative evidence from a systematic review suggests LSD (7 studies, 323 participants) and psilocybin (3 studies, 92 participants) may help with depression and anxiety linked to distress in life-threatening diseases. LSD and psilocybin appear generally safe when administered by a healthcare professional, but more research is needed to assess their utility for persistent pain.
Conscious experience is intricately linked to neurophysiological mechanisms of memory. A study involving 100 participants revealed that implicit memory, regulated by lemnothalamic pathways during REM sleep, underpins unconscious awareness, while explicit memory, driven by collothalamic structures during NREM sleep, shapes focused consciousness. This dual system highlights how ongoing cognitive processes are influenced by a hierarchy of neural connections across various brain regions. Understanding these mechanisms may shed light on the enigmatic qualities of subjective experiences, often referred to as "the hard problem of consciousness."
Mindfulness can be a core element of salutogenic approaches to promote health and well-being for people living with chronic pain by rebuilding a fractured sense of coherence. Mindfulness techniques mediate neural processing and neuroplastic changes that alleviate pain, promote self-regulatory activity, regulate emotion, and catalyze health behavior changes. Integrating mindfulness into daily activities and community-based activities may help people live well with or without pain. Future research should examine mindfulness effects in real-life settings, considering social, environmental, and economic factors.
Meaning is not primarily linguistic but arises from sensory, motor, and affective processes rooted in the body and brain. This article surveys embodied structures of meaning-making—such as body-part projections, perceptual concepts, image schemas, emotions, body-based grammatical constructions, and conceptual metaphors—as understood through simulation semantics, embodied construction grammar, and neural theory of language. It argues that the four Es of cognition (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended) should be supplemented with three more: emotional, evolutionary, and exaptative.