bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 10, 2021
Itay Yaron, Lucia Melloni, Michael Pitts et al.
21 citations
preprint
Understanding how consciousness arises from neural activity remains one of the biggest challenges for neuroscience. Numerous theories have been proposed in recent years, each gaining independent empirical support. Currently, there is no comprehensive, quantitative and theory-neutral overview of the field that enables an evaluation of how theoretical frameworks interact with empirical research....
bioRxiv Preprint Server
May 30, 2021
Calvin K. Young, Kachina G. Kinley, Neil McNaughton
preprint
Depression is highly prevalent, increases suicide risk, and is now the leading cause of disability worldwide. Our ability to treat depression is hampered by the lack of understanding of its biological underpinnings and of the mode of action of effective treatments. We hypothesised that the scaffolding proteins in the medial frontal cortex play a major role in effective antidepressant action. We...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
May 26, 2021
Grace N Jang, M Bruce MacIver
1 citation
preprint
Background Ketamine is a clinical anaesthetic and a fast-acting, long-lasting antidepressant. Ketamine is known for its antagonistic actions on N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, but mechanisms leading to antidepression are not clear. The present study examined synaptic, neuronal and circuit-level loci, the duration of ketamine’s actions, and the involvement of NMDA receptors in these actions.
bioRxiv Preprint Server
April 15, 2021
Moritz Haaf, Stjepan Curic, Saskia Steinmann et al.
preprint
Although a substantial number of studies suggests some clinical benefit concerning negative symptoms in schizophrenia through the modulation of NMDA-receptor function, none of these approaches achieved clinical approval. Given the large body of evidence concerning glutamatergic dysfunction in a subgroup of patients, biomarkers to identify those with a relevant clinical benefit through...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
April 12, 2021
Peter Coppola, Lennart R.b. Spindler, Andrea I. Luppi et al.
preprint
Small world topologies are thought to provide a valuable insight into human brain organisation and consciousness. However, functional magnetic resonance imaging studies in consciousness have not yielded consistent results. Given the importance of dynamics for both consciousness and cognition, here we investigate how the diversity of brain dynamics pertaining to small world topology (quantified...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
March 11, 2021
Enzo Tagliazucchi, Federico Zamberlán, Federico Cavanna et al.
3 citations
preprint
N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a classic psychedelic capable of inducing short-lasting but profound changes in consciousness. As with other psychedelics, the experience induced by DMT strongly depends upon contextual factors, yet the neurobiological determinants of this variability remain unknown. We combined wireless electroencephalography and source imaging to map changes in neural...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
March 7, 2021
Urszula Kozłowska, Aleksandra Klimczak, Kalina Wiatr et al.
27 citations
preprint
Psychedelics are new, promising candidate molecules for clinical use in psychiatric disorders such as Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). They were recently also proposed as molecules supporting neural tissue repair by anti-inflammatory properties. Here we reported that two classic psychedelics, DMT and psilocin, can influence microglial functions by...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
March 5, 2021
Alessandro Monti, Giuseppina Porciello, Maria Serena Panasiti et al.
6 citations
preprint
Bodily self-consciousness, the state of mind that allows humans to be aware of their own body, forms the backdrop for almost every human experience, yet its underpinnings remain elusive. Here we combine an ingestible, minimally invasive capsule with surface electrogastrography to probe if gut physiology correlates with bodily self-consciousness during a virtual bodily illusion. We discover that...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
February 16, 2021
Christopher W. Thomas, Cristina Blanco-Duque, Benjamin J. B. Bréant et al.
4 citations
preprint
Serotonergic psychedelic drugs, such as psilocin (4-hydroxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine), profoundly alter the quality of consciousness through mechanisms which are incompletely understood. Growing evidence suggests that a single psychedelic experience can positively impact long-term psychological well-being, with relevance for the treatment of psychiatric disorders, including depression. A...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
February 16, 2021
Janahan Selvanayagam, Kevin Johnston, Raymond K. Wong et al.
preprint
Faces are stimuli of critical importance for primates. The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a promising model for investigations of face processing, as this species possesses oculomotor and face processing networks resembling those of macaques and humans. Face processing is often disrupted in neuropsychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia (SZ) and thus it is important to recapitulate...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
February 4, 2021
Ramona M. Rodriguiz, Vineet Nadkarni, Christopher R. Means et al.
7 citations
preprint
Recent evidence suggests that psychedelic drugs can exert beneficial effects on anxiety, depression, and ethanol and nicotine abuse in humans. However, the hallucinogenic side-effects of psychedelics often preclude their clinical use. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a prototypical hallucinogen and its psychedelic actions are exerted through the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor (5-HT2AR). 5-HT2AR...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
January 15, 2021
Anna Eiserbeck, Alexander Enge, Milena Rabovsky et al.
4 citations
preprint
One of the ongoing debates about visual consciousness is whether it can be considered as an all-or-none or a graded phenomenon. This may depend on the experimental paradigm and the task used to investigate this question. The present event-related potential study (N = 32) focuses on the attentional blink paradigm for which so far only little and mixed evidence is available. Detection of T2 face...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
January 4, 2021
Rebecca G. Rogerson, Rebecca Barnstaple, Joseph F.x. Desouza
preprint
Trance processes are a form of altered states of consciousness (ASC) widely reported across cultures. Entering these states is often linked to auditory stimuli such as singing, chanting, or rhythmic drumming. While scientific research into this phenomenon is relatively nascent, there is emerging interest in investigating the neural correlates of altered states of consciousness such as trance....
bioRxiv Preprint Server
November 20, 2020
Mor Regev, Andrea R. Halpern, Adrian M. Owen et al.
preprint
Humans can internally represent auditory information without an external stimulus. When imagining music, how similar are unfolding neural representations to those during the original perceived experience? Can rhythmic motion influence the neural representation of music during imagery as during perception? Participants first memorized six one-minute-long instrumental musical pieces with high...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
November 13, 2020
Lara M.c. Puhlmann, Pascal Vrtička, Roman Linz et al.
preprint
Objective This study had the objective to investigate the effect of regular contemplative mental training on endocrine indices of long-term stress.
bioRxiv Preprint Server
November 10, 2020
Aurelie Fontan, Lenita Lindgren, Tiziana Pedale et al.
preprint
Being conscious is a profound aspect of human existence, and understanding its function and its inception is considered one of the truly grand scientific challenges. However, the nature of consciousness remains enigmatic, to a large part because “being conscious” can refer to both the content (phenomenology) and the level (arousal) of consciousness, and how these different aspects are related...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
September 9, 2020
Xiyuan Jiang, Emily Lopez, James Stieger et al.
2 citations
preprint
Sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) provide an alternative pathway for users to perform motor control using motor imagery (MI). Despite the non-invasiveness, ease of use and low cost, this kind of BCI has limitation due to long training times and BCI inefficiency— where a subpopulation cannot generate decodable EEG signals to perform the control task. Meditation is...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
August 3, 2020
David J. Schwartzman, Aleš Oblak, Nicolas Rothen et al.
4 citations
preprint
Grapheme-colour synaesthesia (GCS) is defined by additional perceptual experiences, which are automatically and consistently triggered by specific inducing stimuli. The associative nature of GCS has motivated attempts to induce synaesthesia by means of associative learning. Two recent studies have shown that extensive associative training can generate not only behavioural (consistency and...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
July 6, 2020
Gwynne L. Davis, Adelaide R. Minerva, Argentina Lario et al.
preprint
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), characterized by intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (compulsions), is associated with dysfunction in fronto-striatal circuits. There are currently no fastacting pharmacological treatments for OCD. However, recent clinical studies demonstrated that an intravenous infusion of ketamine rapidly reduces OCD symptoms. To probe mechanisms...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
July 2, 2020
Yonatan Sanz Perl, Carla Pallavicini, Ignacio Perez-Ipina et al.
preprint
Consciousness transiently fades away during deep sleep, more stably under anesthesia, and sometimes permanently due to brain injury. The development of an index to quantify the level of consciousness across these different states is regarded as a key problem both in basic and clinical neuroscience. We argue that this problem is ill-defined since such an index would not exhaust all the relevant...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 4, 2020
Camilo Miguel Signorelli, Lynn Uhrig, Morten L. Kringelbach et al.
preprint
Anesthesia induces a reconfiguration of the repertoire of functional brain states leading to a high function-structure similarity. However, it is unclear how these functional changes lead to loss of consciousness. Here we suggest that the mechanism of conscious access is related to a general dynamical rearrangement of the intrinsic hierarchical organization of the cortex. To measure cortical...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
May 26, 2020
Roberto De Filippo, Benjamin R. Rost, Alexander Stumpf et al.
1 citation
preprint
Serotonin (5-HT) is one of the major neuromodulators present in the mammalian brain and has been shown to play a role in multiple physiological processes. The mechanisms by which 5-HT modulates cortical network activity, however, are not yet fully understood. We investigated the effects of 5-HT on slow oscillations (SOs), a synchronized cortical network activity universally present across...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
May 5, 2020
Alexander D Shaw, Suresh Muthukumaraswamy, Neeraj K. Saxena et al.
2 citations
preprint
Cortical recordings of task-induced oscillations following subanaesthetic ketamine administration demonstrate alterations in amplitude, including increases at high-frequencies (gamma) and reductions at low frequencies (theta, alpha). To investigate the population-level interactions underlying these changes, we implemented a thalamo-cortical model (TCM) capable of recapitulating broadband...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
April 7, 2020
Mohsen Afrasiabi, Michelle J. Redinbaugh, Jessica M. Phillips et al.
preprint
Major theories of consciousness disagree on the key neural substrates. In Global Neuronal Workspace Theory and Higher-order Theories, consciousness depends on frontal cortex, whereas Integrated Information Theory and Recurrent Processing Theory highlight posterior contributions. Most theories omit subcortical influences. To test these theories, we performed simultaneous frontal, parietal,...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
April 4, 2020
Thomas F. Varley, Vanessa Denny, Olaf Sporns et al.
6 citations
preprint
Research has found that the vividness of conscious experience is related to brain dynamics. Despite both being anesthetics, propofol and ketamine produce different subjective states: we explore the different effects of these two anaesthetics on the structure of dynamic attractors reconstructed from electrophysiological activity recorded from cerebral cortex of two macaques. We used two methods:...