bioRxiv Preprint Server
September 19, 2022
Stanislav Rozov, Roosa Saarreharju, Stanislav Khirug et al.
preprint
Nitrous oxide (N2O; laughing gas) has recently been reported as a putative rapid-acting antidepressant, but little is known about the underlying mechanisms. We performed transcriptomics, in situ hybridization, and electrophysiological studies to examine the potential shared signatures induced by 1 h inhalation of 50% N2O and a single subanesthetic dose of ketamine in the medial prefrontal...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
September 6, 2022
Tommaso Di Ianni, Matine M. Azadian, Sedona N. Ewbank et al.
2 citations
preprint
Subanesthetic ketamine rapidly and robustly reduces depressive symptoms in patients with treatment-resistant depression. While it is commonly classified as an N-methyl D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist, our picture of ketamine’s mechanistic underpinnings is incomplete. Recent clinical evidence has indicated, controversially, that a component of the efficacy of ketamine in depression may...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
August 12, 2022
Daniel C Javitt, Jonathan C. Javitt
preprint
OBJECTIVE N-methyl D-aspartate Receptor (NMDAR) antagonist antidepressants have known potential for abuse liability. The aim of this study was to evaluate the abuse liability of D-cycloserine (DCS), using a self-administration paradigm in which DCS was tested in its efficacy in substituting for ketamine in ketamine-dependent rats.
bioRxiv Preprint Server
July 7, 2022
Neil W. Bailey, Harry Geddes, Isabella Zannettino et al.
5 citations
preprint
Objectives Mindfulness meditation is associated with better attention function. Performance monitoring and error-processing are important aspects of attention. We investigated whether experienced meditators showed different neural activity related to performance monitoring and error-processing. Previous research has produced inconsistent results. This study used more rigorous analyses and a...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 17, 2022
Christian Kerskens, David López Pérez
3 citations
preprint
Recent proposals in quantum gravity have suggested that unknown systems can mediate entanglement between two known quantum systems, if and only if the mediator itself is non-classical. This approach may be applicable to the brain, where speculations about quantum operations in consciousness and cognition have a long history.
bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 12, 2022
Luciana López-Jury, Francisco García-Rosales, Eugenia González-Palomares et al.
preprint
Although new advances in neuroscience allow the study of vocal communication in awake animals, substantial progress in the processing of vocalizations has been made from brains of anaesthetized preparations. Thus, understanding how anaesthetics affect neuronal responses is of paramount importance. Here, we used electrophysiological recordings and computational modelling to study how the...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
May 2, 2022
Fangyun Tian, Laura D. Lewis, David W. Zhou et al.
preprint
Subanesthetic doses of ketamine produce rapid and sustained anti-depressant effects in patients with treatment-resistant depression. Unfortunately, the usefulness of ketamine as a treatment is limited by its potential for abuse because of psychotropic side effects such as dissociation. Understanding the brain dynamics and the neural circuits involved in ketamine’s effects could lend insight...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
April 3, 2022
Andrew Adamatzky, Jordi Vallverdu, Antoni Gandia et al.
4 citations
preprint
Fungal organisms can perceive the outer world in a way similar to what animals sense. Does that mean that they have full awareness of their environment and themselves? Is a fungus a conscious entity? In laboratory experiments we found that fungi produce patterns of electrical activity, similar to neurons. There are low and high frequency oscillations and convoys of spike trains. The neural-like...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
March 21, 2022
Danilo Menicucci, Valentina Cesari, Enrico Cipriani et al.
preprint
The fragmented sleep, fragmented mind hypothesis has associated sleep disturbances and dissociative states in subjects with dissociative traits, as supported by neurophysiological theories of consciousness stating that altered states might result from an altered functional interaction among brain modules due to inefficient sleep processes.
bioRxiv Preprint Server
March 9, 2022
Vaibhav Tripathi, Lakshmi Bhasker, Chhaya Kharya et al.
5 citations
preprint
Meditation has been practised for millennia but the neuroscientific understanding of the dynamics is still lacking. Sudarshan Kriya Yoga (SKY) is an evidence based breathing based meditation technique that utilizes rhythmic breathing to induce a deep state of relaxation and calm. Multiple studies have found benefits of the SKY technique from genetic, physiological, psychological to behaviour...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
March 4, 2022
Barbara Jachs, Manuel Camino Garcia, Andrés Canales-Johnson et al.
21 citations
preprint
Subjective experiences are hard to capture quantitatively without losing depth and nuance, and subjective report analyses are time-consuming, their interpretation contested. We describe Temporal Experience Tracing, a method that captures relevant aspects of the unified conscious experience over a continuous period of time. The continuous multidimensional description of an experience allows us...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
February 21, 2022
Yi Qin, Ali Mahdavi, Marine Bertschy et al.
preprint
In prodromal and early schizophrenia, disorders of attention and perception are associated with structural and chemical brain abnormalities, and with dysfunctional corticothalamic networks exhibiting disturbed brain rhythms. The underlying mechanisms are elusive. The non-competitive NMDA receptor antagonist ketamine simulates the symptoms of prodromal and early schizophrenia, including...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
February 14, 2022
Tudor M. Ionescu, Mario Amend, Tadashi Watabe et al.
1 citation
preprint
Psychedelic compounds have attracted increasing interest in recent years due to their therapeutic potential for psychiatric disorders. Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is currently being investigated in clinical trials to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. To understand the acute effects of psychedelic drugs in vivo, functional MR imaging (fMRI) has been widely used in recent years....
bioRxiv Preprint Server
January 25, 2022
Erika Vazquez Juarez, Ipsit Srivastava, Maria Lindskog
1 citation
preprint
Mistuning of synaptic transmission has been proposed to underlie many psychiatric disorders, with decreased reuptake of the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate as one contributing factor. Synaptic tuning occurs through several diverging and converging forms of plasticity. By recording evoked field postsynaptic potentials in the CA1 area in hippocampal slices, we found that inhibiting...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
December 9, 2021
Gavin P. Schmitz, Manish K. Jain, Samuel T. Slocum et al.
preprint
Serotonin (5-Hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT) 2A receptor (5-HT2AR) signaling is essential for the actions of classical psychedelic drugs. In this study, we examined whether random sequence variations in the gene (single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs) encoding the 5-HT2AR affect the signaling of four commonly used psychedelic drugs. We examined the in vitro pharmacology of seven non-synonymous SNPs,...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
December 2, 2021
Sean James Fallon
2 citations
preprint
The effect of low doses (<=20 μg) of LSD on working memory, in the absence of altered states of consciousness, remain largely unexplored. Given its possible effects on serotonin 5-HT2A receptors and dopaminergic signalling, it could be hypothesised that LSD microdoses modulate working memory recall. Moreover, in line with computational models, LSD microdoses could exert antagonistic effects on...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
November 8, 2021
Maria Volodina, Nikolai Smetanin, Mikhail Lebedev et al.
preprint
Meditation is a consciousness state associated with specific physiological and neural correlates. Numerous investigations of these correlates reported controversial results which prevented a consistent depiction of the underlying neurophysiological processes. Here we investigated the dynamics of multiple neurophysiological indicators during a staged meditation session. We measured the...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
September 24, 2021
Sophia Khom, Jacques D. Nguyen, Sophia A. Vandewater et al.
preprint
Male rats escalate intravenous self-administration of entactogen psychostimulants, 3,4-methylenedioxymethcathinone (methylone) and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) under extended access conditions, as with typical psychostimulants. Here, we investigated whether female rats escalate self-administration of methylone, 3,4-methylenedioxypentedrone (pentylone), and MDMA and then studied...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
September 20, 2021
Laura M Hack, Katherine G. Warthen, Xue Zhang et al.
2 citations
preprint
Ketamine is a non-competitive antagonist of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptor that is both a drug of abuse and an FDA-approved anesthetic used off-label for treatment-resistant depression. Despite its growing clinical use for depression and pain, the relationships between the acute dissociative and affective effects of ketamine that contribute to its abuse liability and...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
September 2, 2021
Laura De la Fuente, Federico Zamberlán, Hernan Bocaccio et al.
preprint
Even though the fundamental laws of physics are the same when the direction of time is inverted, dissipative systems evolve in the preferred temporal direction indicated by the thermodynamic arrow of time. The fundamental nature of this temporal asymmetry led us to hypothesize its presence in the neural activity evoked by conscious perception of the physical world, and thus its covariance with...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
August 17, 2021
Nicolas Fuentes, Alexis García, Ramón Guevara et al.
preprint
The use of anaesthesia is a fundamental tool in the investigation of consciousness. Anesthesia procedures allow to investigate different states of consciousness from sedation to deep anesthesia within controlled scenarios. In this study we use information quantifiers to measure the complexity of electrocorticogram recordings in monkeys. We apply these metrics to compare different stages of...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
July 27, 2021
Michelle J. Redinbaugh, Mohsen Afrasiabi, Jessica M. Phillips et al.
preprint
Anesthetic manipulations provide much-needed causal evidence for neural correlates of consciousness, but non-specific drug effects complicate their interpretation. Evidence suggests that thalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) can either increase or decrease consciousness, depending on the stimulation target and parameters. The putative role of the central lateral thalamus (CL) in consciousness...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
July 12, 2021
Jun Kitazono, Yuma Aoki, Masafumi Oizumi
preprint
Where in the brain consciousness resides remains unclear. It has been suggested that the subnetworks supporting consciousness should be bidirectionally (recurrently) connected because both feed-forward and feedback processing are necessary for conscious experience. Accordingly, evaluating which subnetworks are bidirectionally connected and the strength of these connections would likely aid the...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
July 6, 2021
Julio Rodriguez-Larios, Eduardo A. Bracho Montes de Oca, Kaat Alaerts
preprint
Previous literature suggests that meditation training is associated with changes in participants’ experience during meditation practice. In this study, we assess whether putative differences in the experience of meditation between meditators and non-meditators are reflected in EEG spectral modulations. For this purpose, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG) during rest and two breath focus...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 29, 2021
Colin J. Johnston, Paul J. Fitzgerald, Jena S. Gewarges et al.
5 citations
preprint
Ketamine is an antidepressant drug that interacts with the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, but whether this interaction is important for its behavioral effect is unknown. The goal of this experiment was to determine whether the behavioral response to ketamine depends on intact HPA axis function. Male and female C57BL/6J mice underwent chronic unpredictable stress prior to ketamine...