bioRxiv Preprint Server
April 16, 2018
Eric Edsinger, Gül Dölen
1 citation
preprint
Human and octopus lineages are separated by over 500 million years of evolution, and show divergent anatomical patterns of brain organization. Moreover, while humans exhibit highly complex social behaviors, octopuses are thought to be largely asocial and solitary. Despite these differences, growing evidence suggests that ancient neurotransmitter systems are shared across vertebrate and...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
April 4, 2018
Tomáš Pluskal, Michael P. Torrens-Spence, Timothy R. Fallon et al.
3 citations
preprint
For millennia, humans have used plants for medicinal purposes. However, our limited understanding of plant biochemistry hinders the translation of such ancient wisdom into modern pharmaceuticals1. Kava (Piper methysticum) is a medicinal plant native to the Polynesian islands with anxiolytic and analgesic properties supported by over 3,000 years of traditional use as well as numerous recent...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
November 3, 2017
Keisuke Suzuki, Warrick Roseboom, David J. Schwartzman et al.
2 citations
preprint
Altered states of consciousness, such as psychotic or pharmacologically-induced hallucinations, provide a unique opportunity to examine the mechanisms underlying conscious perception. However, the phenomenological properties of these states are difficult to isolate experimentally from other, more general physiological and cognitive effects of psychoactive substances or psychopathological...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
August 9, 2017
Somogy Varga, Detlef H. Heck
6 citations
preprint
In spite of its importance as a life-defining rhythmic movement and its constant rhythmic contraction and relaxation of the body, respiration has not received attention in Embodied Cognition (EC) literature. Our paper aims to show that (1) respiration exerts significant and unexpected bottom-up influence on cognitive processes, and (2) it does so by modulating neural synchronization that...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
July 21, 2017
Mehrak Javadi-Paydar, Jacques D. Nguyen, Sophia A. Vandewater et al.
7 citations
preprint
The broad diversity of synthetic cathinone psychostimulant drugs that are available to users complicates research efforts to provide understanding of health risks. Second generation cathinones pentedrone and pentylone are distinguished from each other by the 3,4-methylenedioxy structural motif (which distinguishes methamphetamine from 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) and each incorporates the...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
April 10, 2017
Karl Frost
5 citations
preprint
It has been proposed that cultivating calm will increase altruism and decrease parochialism, where altruism is defined as self-sacrifice in support of others, regardless of group affiliation or identity, and parochialism is defined as prosocial self-sacrifice restricted to fellow members of a group. Such could be the case with a calming meditation practice. An alternate hypothesis, coming from...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
December 14, 2016
Darinka Trübutschek, Sebastien Marti, Andrés Ojeda et al.
47 citations
preprint
Working memory and conscious perception are thought to share similar brain mechanisms, yet recent reports of non-conscious working memory challenge this view. Combining visual masking with magnetoencephalography, we demonstrate the reality of non-conscious working memory and dissect its neural mechanisms. In a spatial delayed-response task, participants reported the location of a subjectively...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
November 15, 2016
Arturo Tozzi, Colin James, James F Peters
1 citation
preprint
Experimental procedures in neuroscience rely on the standpoints that the mind is a functional state of the brain and a clear subdivision among different mental faculties does exist in the cortex. According to cognitive neuroscientists, the term "mind" encompasses just the "cognitive" faculties, such as consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, memory, leaving apart the "emotional" states....
bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 24, 2016
Karl Frost
3 citations
preprint
While altruistic behavior and bonding in altruistic pairs or groups of cooperators is observed throughout the animal kingdom, the genetic evolution of such is on an ongoing source of debate, curiosity, and conflict in the behavioral sciences. Many such bonded groups and pairs are observed to take part in costly ritualized movement behavior that is hypothesized to trigger or maintain altruistic...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
August 13, 2015
Jordi Manuello, Ugo Vercelli, Andrea Nani et al.
1 citation
preprint
Mindfulness meditation has been practiced in the East for more than two millennia, but in last years also Western neurscientists drown their attention to it. Mindfulness basically refers to moment to moment awareness. In this review we summarize different hypotheses concerning effects of mindfulness meditation practice and cerebral correlates accounting for these; furthermore we expose some of...