Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews
October 27, 2026
Morten L. Kringelbach, Fernando E. Rosas, Ruben Laukkonen et al.
Why does consciousness feel like something, and why is experience unified rather than fragmented? We propose that these properties arise from an entangled trefoil of emotion, interference-based inference and hierarchical orchestration, shaped by the thermodynamic constraint that living systems must remain far from equilibrium using limited energy. Emotion compresses actions into valenced...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
September 28, 2026
Gabriela Sawicka, Marian Martínez-Marín, Christopher Timmermann et al.
preprint
Psychedelic compounds such as N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) induce rapid and profound changes in conscious experience, requiring neuroimaging measures that capture how brain dynamics evolve across space and time. Emerging evidence suggests that rotational (vortex-like) dynamics may contribute to the coordination of large-scale neural activity. Here, we introduce two vorticity-based metrics;...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
August 4, 2026
Teresa Campillo-Ferrer, Tomas Berjaga-Buisan, Antonella Iadarola et al.
preprint
Abstract Experiences in which the sense of the body becomes distorted offer a unique window into how the brain constructs the bodily self. Despite their clinical relevance in conditions such as depersonalization and body-image disorders, large-scale brain dynamics underlying unusual bodily experiences (UBEs) remain poorly understood, and no prior study has examined them systematically across...
medRxiv
July 8, 2026
Paulina Clara Dagnino, Anne Maj van der Velden, Yonatan Sanz Perl et al.
preprint
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a heterogeneous mental disorder characterised by rumination. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is an evidence-based treatment developed to target rumination and recurrence risk. Ongoing studies have begun to identify neural changes associated with treatment effects. However, the low-dimensional organisation underlying whole-brain dynamics remains...
PsyArXiv
July 3, 2026
Morten L. Kringelbach, Fernando E. Rosas, Ruben Eero Laukkonen et al.
preprint
We propose three entangled characteristics that explain the functional properties of consciousness: Emotion, quantum-like interference and hierarchy. The argument proceeds from thermodynamic first principles. Biological systems must stay far from equilibrium at minimal energy cost, and emotion is one of evolution’s heuristic solutions to this constraint. Valenced summary statistics compress the...
Human Brain Mapping
July 1, 2026
Lorenzo Pasquini, Jakub Vohryzek, Anira Escrichs et al.
Psilocybin has been shown to induce fast and sustained symptoms improvements across various psychiatric conditions, yet its long-term mechanisms of action are not fully understood. Initial evidence suggests that longitudinal functional and structural brain changes implicate fronto-striatal-thalamic (FST) circuitry, a broad system involved in goal-directed behavior and motivational states. Here,...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
June 26, 2026
Paulina Clara Dagnino, Irene Acero-Pousa, Robin Carhart-Harris et al.
preprint
Abstract A central challenge in neuroscience is understanding how the human brain is organised to support optimal functioning and adaptability. One approach to characterise complex brain dynamics is by artificially perturbing whole-brain models. Here, we asked whether whole-brain organisation under perturbation in major depressive disorder (MDD) changes after intervention with psilocybin and...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
June 16, 2026
Paulina Clara Dagnino, Irene Acero-Pousa, Gorka Zamora-López et al.
1 citation
preprint
Abstract In recent decades, the psychedelic psilocybin has been studied as a potential treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD), offering an alternative to traditional antidepressants. However, the brain changes underlying the clinical effects of different interventions remain unclear. Here, we investigated the effects of psilocybin and a conventional antidepressant, escitalopram, from the...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 7, 2026
Andrea I. Luppi, Dragana Manasova, Justine Y. Hansen et al.
preprint
Consciousness and cognition arise from the ongoing interactions between brain regions. Synchronous fluctuations of fMRI signals may indicate that two brain regions perform similar cognitive functions, but neural interactions are also constrained by anatomical connectivity and regions’ molecular, cytoarchitectonic, and metabolic profiles. Here we disentangle the respective contributions of...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
January 13, 2026
Iván Mindlin, Carlos Coronel-Oliveros, Jacobo Sitt et al.
preprint
A main characteristic of biological systems is their capacity to dynamically adapt to environmental changes. In the brain, synaptic plasticity enables the strengthening or weakening of connections between neurons, allowing neural circuits to adapt based on experience, learning, and environmental changes. Yet, it is homeostatically regulated such that it avoids excessive proliferation of...
SSRN Electronic Journal
2026
Jakub Vohryzek, Elvira Garcia Guzman, Morten L. Kringelbach et al.
1 citation
preprint
Despite divergent behavioral and phenomenological profiles, both psychedelic states and reduced states of consciousness have been associated with a flattening of the brain's functional hierarchy. To address this apparent paradox, we developed a more specific definition of hierarchy based on the proximity of the brain to thermodynamic equilibrium and then applied it to investigate the changes to...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
December 9, 2025
Tomas Berjaga-Buisan, Juan Manuel Monti, Martina Cortada et al.
preprint
The quest for reliable and objective measures of consciousness is critical in basic and clinical neuroscience. Across species, the Perturbational Complexity Index (PCI) has emerged as a robust empirical marker by directly perturbing the brain, yet its underlying principles of physics are not fully understood. Here, we bridge this gap by introducing a non-invasive framework based on generative...
Advanced Science
November 20, 2025
Paolo Cardone, Charlotte Martial, Yonatan Sanz Perl et al.
3 citations
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...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
October 3, 2025
Marian Martínez-Marín, Jakub Vohryzek, Anira Escrichs et al.
1 citation
preprint
Abstract Evaluating consciousness levels after coma remains clinically challenging, and probing the brain’s functional hierarchy offers model-based biomarkers of brain states. We characterize the hierarchy loss in disorders of consciousness (DoC) via departures from non-equilibrium dynamics. Irreversible, directed interactions are indexed by deviation from the fluctuation– dissipation theorem...
bioRxiv
September 25, 2025
Jakub Vohryzek, Edmundo Lopez-Sola, Winson F.z. Yang et al.
preprint
Advanced meditation offers a powerful lens for investigating consciousness and for understanding how sustained training may contribute to human flourishing. In the spirit of neurophenomenology, we combine first-person reports with model-free empirical analyses and formal whole-brain modeling to investigate the mechanisms underlying advanced meditative states and minimal phenomenal experience...
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
July 21, 2025
Marcel Socoró-garrigosa, Yonatan Sanz Perl, Morten L. Kringelbach et al.
3 citations
Abstract Determining the scale of neural representations is a central challenge in neuroscience. While localized representations have traditionally dominated, evidence suggests information is also encoded in distributed, hierarchical networks. Recent research indicates that the hierarchy of causal influences shaping functional patterns serves as a signature of distinct brain states, with...
PLoS Computational Biology
June 6, 2025
Wiep Stikvoort, Eider Pérez-Ordoyo, Iván Mindlin et al.
3 citations
Assessing someone's level of consciousness is a complex matter, and attempts have been made to aid clinicians in these assessments through metrics based on neuroimaging data. Many studies have empirically investigated measures related to the complexity elicited after the brain is stimulated to quantify the level of consciousness across different states. Here we hypothesized that the level of...
Communications Biology
March 11, 2025
Juan Ignacio Piccinini, Yonatan Sanz Perl, Carla Pallavicini et al.
6 citations
The transition towards the brain state induced by psychedelic drugs is frequently neglected in favor of a static description of their acute effects. We use a time-dependent whole-brain model to reproduce large-scale brain dynamics measured with fMRI from 15 volunteers under 20 mg intravenous N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a short-acting psychedelic. To capture its transient effects, we...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
November 7, 2024
Lorenzo Pasquini, Jakub Vohryzek, Anira Escrichs et al.
4 citations
preprint
Abstract Psilocybin has been shown to induce fast and sustained improvements in mental well-being across various populations, yet its long-term mechanisms of action are not fully understood. Initial evidence suggests that longitudinal functional and structural brain changes implicate fronto-striatal-thalamic (FST) circuitry, a broad system involved in goal-directed behavior and motivational...
Communications Biology
September 30, 2024
Pablo Castro, Andrea I. Luppi, Enzo Tagliazucchi et al.
21 citations
Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging evolves through a repertoire of functional connectivity patterns which might reflect ongoing cognition, as well as the contents of conscious awareness. We investigated whether the dynamic exploration of these states can provide robust and generalizable markers for the state of consciousness in human participants, across loss of consciousness...
Communications Biology
September 19, 2024
Iván Mindlin, Rubén Herzog, Laouen Belloli et al.
18 citations
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...
Nature Mental Health
August 5, 2024
Gustavo Deco, Yonatan Sanz Perl, Samuel G B Johnson et al.
39 citations
Abstract Effective interventions for neuropsychiatric disorders may work by rebalancing the brain’s functional hierarchical organization. Here we directly investigated the effects of two different serotonergic pharmacological interventions on functional brain hierarchy in major depressive disorder in a two-arm double-blind phase II randomized controlled trial comparing psilocybin therapy (22...
bioRxiv
January 29, 2024
Juan Ignacio Piccinini, Yonatan Sanz Perl, Carla Pallavicini et al.
preprint
Abstract The transition towards the brain state induced by psychedelic drugs is frequently neglected in favor of a static description of their acute effects. We used a time-dependent whole-brain model to reproduce large-scale brain dynamics measured with fMRI from 15 volunteers under 20 mg intravenous N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a short-acting psychedelic. To capture its transient effects, we...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
December 29, 2023
Iván Mindlin, Rubén Herzog, Laouen Belloli et al.
7 citations
preprint
Disorders of consciousness (DoC) are a challenging and complex group of neurological conditions characterised by absent or impaired awareness. The current range of therapeutic options for DoC patients is limited, offering few non-invasive pharmacological alternatives. This situation has sprung a growing interest in the development of novel treatments, such as the proposal to study the efficacy...
Scientific Reports
April 17, 2023
Rubén Herzog, Pedro A. M. Mediano, Fernando E. Rosas et al.
51 citations
Psychedelic drugs, including lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and other agonists of the serotonin 2A receptor (5HT2A-R), induce drastic changes in subjective experience, and provide a unique opportunity to study the neurobiological basis of consciousness. One of the most notable neurophysiological signatures of psychedelics, increased entropy in spontaneous neural activity, is thought to be of...