Nature Neuroscience
January 28, 2025
Casey Paquola, Margaret Garber, Stefan Frässle et al.
58 citations
The default mode network (DMN) is a set of brain regions important for complex thought and behavior. By combining postmortem tissue analysis and brain scans, researchers found that the DMN contains different types of cells, some specialized for processing single senses, others for combining information, and still others for memory. The DMN includes regions that receive input from sensory areas and a core that is relatively cut off from direct sensory information. Analysis of how signals flow through the DMN showed it uniquely balances output across different levels of sensory processing. These findings provide a structural basis for understanding the DMN's broad role in brain function and cognition.
Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging
April 1, 2025
Saampras Ganesan, Fernando A Barrios, Ishaan Batta et al.
6 citations
Meditation practices, which have shown therapeutic benefits for conditions like depression, pain, addiction, and anxiety, have been studied with neuroimaging over the past decade. However, existing neuroscientific models are based on small, heterogeneous datasets, limiting generalizability and replicability. The ENIGMA-Meditation consortium is the first worldwide collaborative effort to conduct systematic meta- and mega-analyses of globally distributed neuroimaging data using standardized methods. This framework aims to improve statistical power and address multidomain heterogeneity in meditation practice types, experience, and experimental design. The consortium will generate rigorous neuroscientific insights into the mechanisms underlying meditation's therapeutic effects on psychological and cognitive attributes.
April 8, 2024
Saampras Ganesan, Aki Tsuchiyagaito, Greg J Siegle et al.
2 citations
preprint
Meditation practices, which have been adapted into manualized interventions for conditions like depression, pain, addiction, and anxiety, show therapeutic promise, but their neuroscientific basis remains unclear. Current neuroimaging studies rely on small, heterogeneous datasets that vary in practice types, participant experience, clinical targets, and imaging methods, limiting generalizability and replicability. To address this, the ENIGMA-Meditation consortium was formed as a global collaboration to conduct systematic meta- and mega-analyses of distributed neuroimaging data using standardized methods. This framework aims to improve statistical power and rigorously characterize the neural mechanisms underlying meditation's effects on psychological and cognitive attributes, advancing the field of contemplative neuroscience.
medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences
October 21, 2024
Pascal Grumbach, Jan Kasper, Joerg F. Hipp et al.
1 citation
preprint
Autism spectrum disorder involves altered resting-state brain function, and an imbalance between excitation and inhibition is a proposed mechanism. In two large independent cohorts, individuals with autism consistently showed reduced local brain activity in default mode network nodes and increased activity in temporal regions, cerebellum, and brainstem. These activity changes spatially overlapped with multiple neurotransmitter systems, including dopamine, glutamate, GABA, and acetylcholine. The NMDA-antagonist ketamine, but not the GABA-potentiator midazolam, induced activity changes resembling those seen in autism, suggesting that pharmacologically shifting the excitation-inhibition balance can mimic autism-related brain alterations.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
April 7, 2026
Benjamin Hänisch, Tobias Kaufmann, Sofie L. Valk
Combining pharmacodynamic profiles of four classic hallucinogens and ketamine with receptor density distributions from PET and autoradiography studies produces anatomical distribution profiles of drug action strength. Classic hallucinogens show high action strengths in association cortices and, based on autoradiography, in supragranular layers and multimodal temporal areas. Ketamine's affinity for high-affinity subtypes of 5-HT2a and D2 receptors generates classic hallucinogen-like neuroanatomical trends. High rapid-acting antidepressant action strengths in emotion-processing regions contribute to understanding the mechanism of rapid antidepressant action.
Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science
March 1, 2025
Lara M.c. Puhlmann, Pascal Vrtička, Roman Linz et al.
A randomized clinical trial with 332 healthy adults tested whether mindfulness- and meditation-based mental training can increase brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein that supports hippocampal neuroplasticity, and whether cortisol reduction mediates this effect. Participants were assigned to one of three training cohorts (attention-based mindfulness, socio-affective skills, or socio-cognitive skills) or a passive control group. Training cohorts completed up to three 3-month modules. Combined training groups showed significant cumulative increases in serum BDNF after 3, 6, and 9 months relative to baseline (estimated increases: 1353, 1557, and 2276 pg/mL, respectively).
Brain and Behavior
April 1, 2018
Anna-Lena Lumma, Sofie L. Valk, Anne Böckler et al.
Training that improves perspective-taking can change how people describe themselves emotionally, and those changes are linked to structural brain changes. In a large longitudinal study, participants who increased their use of emotional words in self-descriptions after socio-cognitive training showed thickening in the right medial prefrontal cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, regions involved in self-referential thinking and cognitive control. Increased use of negative emotional words was associated with thickening in the left pars orbitalis and bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These results suggest that restructuring the emotional self-concept, including reappraisal of negative aspects, relates to cortical plasticity, which could inform psychological interventions targeting the self-concept.