PLoS One
2025
Timothy Sweeney, Elena Nixon, Richard Morriss et al.
Depression is a common and growing mental health problem, with around 5% of the world's population experiencing an episode of depression during their lifetime. Relapse rates are high, with around half experiencing more than one depressive episode and a further 10-20% experiencing a chronic and persistent depression. Mindfulness has been incorporated into treatments for depression and several...
PLoS One
2025
Kengo Takahashi, Samuel Pontes Quero, Julien Fiorilli et al.
A major debate in the field of consciousness pertains to whether neuronal activity or rather the causal structure of neural circuits underlie the generation of conscious experience. The former position is held by theoretical accounts of consciousness based on the predictive processing framework (such as neurorepresentationalism and active inference), while the latter is posited by the...
PLoS One
2025
Fern Eleanor Beauchamp, Emily Bispo, Iolanda Costa Galinha et al.
Breathwork has great potential for supporting connections to self, others, and nature, laying the foundations for individual, collective, and planetary wellbeing. While reviews have summarised the impacts of a wide range of breathwork techniques on outcomes relating to individual wellbeing, past work has neglected broader contexts. Here we present a protocol for a scoping review to identify and...
PLoS One
2025
Philippine Chachignon, Emmanuelle Le Barbenchon, Cécile Dantzer et al.
Mindfulness meditation (MM), originating from spiritual traditions but widely promoted as a secular and beneficial practice, is increasingly debated due to potential adverse effects, ethical concerns, and its ties with neoliberal imperatives, challenging its image as a universal remedy. Beliefs about MM strongly influence its reception, usage, and effects but remain understudied, especially in...
PLoS One
2025
Ryoko Uno, Shu Imaizumi
The role of language in the narrative self is well-known, but does it also affect the minimal self? We investigated whether variations in sentence structure affect the speaker's sense of the minimal self. Previous research has examined how third-person subject expressions influence interpretations of agency, particularly in causal contexts. We examined whether expressing the first-person...
PLoS One
2025
Hannah J Gibbs, Andrea Schiavio
Ideas of temporal distortion prevail in the discourse of flow research, where references are often made to "time flying". Nonetheless, little research has investigated how flow affects time perception in terms of both directionality and surrounding context, particularly within shared flow. Simultaneously, temporal distortion during music listening has been explored, but little is known about...
PLoS One
December 26, 2024
correction
Correction: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Treatment-Resistant Depression: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.
PLoS One
December 5, 2024
Timothy Palmer, Kenza Kadri, Eric Fakra et al.
5 citations
Much work has investigated beneficial effects of mindfulness-based meditation methods, but less work has investigated potential risks and differences across meditation methods. We addressed this in a large pre-registered online survey including 613 mediators where we correlated participants' experience with fifty meditation techniques to psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and mystical...
PLoS One
November 13, 2024
Kenneth Drinkwater, Andrew Denovan, Neil Dagnall
1 citation
Recent research indicates that paranormal belief, in the absence of allied cognitive-perceptual and psychopathology-related factors, is not associated with negative wellbeing outcomes. However, investigators have historically reported relationships between specific facets of belief (e.g., superstition) and stress vulnerability. These typically derive from the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale...
PLoS One
October 24, 2024
Kyurim Kim, Abban Yusuf, Abhimanyu Sud et al.
1 citation
Psychedelics, including ketamine, 3,4-Methyl enedioxy methamphetamine (MDMA), and psilocybin, have gained attention for their potential therapeutic role in mental health treatment. While recreational use is prohibited in Canada, medicinal exemptions can be granted. There are several psychedelic clinics in Ontario, Canada, promoting the use of psychedelics for a variety of medical indications....
PLoS One
July 29, 2024
Sarah Ann Smith, Shaina Smith, Liz Dennett et al.
3 citations
BACKGROUND: Impairments in social cognition are known to be a key factor in several psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. Interest in psychedelic drugs has increased in recent years, with significant research identifying psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs as modulators of social cognition. However, more research is necessary before psychedelics are implemented in clinical settings as...
PLoS One
July 17, 2024
Julieta Galante, Jesus Montero-Marin, Maris Vainre et al.
8 citations
Altered states of consciousness caused by a mindfulness-based programme up to a year later: Results from a randomised controlled trial.
PLoS One
May 13, 2024
Otto Simonsson, Stephen D. Fisher
2 citations
OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study were to examine the prevalence and associations of mindfulness meditation use and also its perceived mental health effects during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Using repeated cross-sectional data from broad online samples weighted to be representative of the adult population in Britain, we estimated the prevalence of mindfulness meditation use and...
PLoS One
March 28, 2024
Oscar Perez-Diaz, Daylín Góngora, José Luis González–Mora et al.
11 citations
OBJECTIVE: To study the white matter connections between anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula and amygdala as key regions of the frontal-limbic network that have been related to meditation. DESIGN: Twenty experienced practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation and twenty nonmeditators matched on age, gender and education level, were scanned using Diffusion Weighted Imaging, using a 3T...
PLoS One
March 14, 2024
Adam W. Levin, Rafaelle Lancelotta, Nathan D. Sepeda et al.
65 citations
We examined if the therapeutic alliance between study participants and intervention facilitators in a psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) trial changed over time and whether there were relationships between alliance, acute psilocybin experiences, and depression outcomes. In a randomized, waiting list-controlled clinical trial for major depressive disorder in adults ( N = 24), participants were...
PLoS One
March 7, 2024
Sean M. Viña
14 citations
Although the use of psychedelics to impact health has seen growth, little research has tested the effects of culture conditions on the relationship. More specifically, how does marital status and family size affect the relationship between psychedelics and health? This study tests the relationship between Lifetime Classic Psychedelic Use (LCPU), marital status, and household size (number of...
PLoS One
January 10, 2024
Rachel Yehuda, Leah Bedrosian, Charlotte Harrison et al.
52 citations
Introduction There is a resurgence of interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelic substances such as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). Primary findings from our randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-site Phase 3 clinical trial of participants with severe PTSD (NCT03537014) showed that MDMA-assisted therapy induced significant attenuation in the...
PLoS One
January 2, 2024
Caroline Peacock, Erin Brauer, Ali John Zarrabi et al.
27 citations
Background Psychedelic-assisted therapies hold early promise for treating multiple psychiatric conditions. However, absent standards for the care, teams providing psychedelic-assisted therapy pose a major roadblock to safe administration. Psychedelics often produce spiritually and existentially meaningful experiences, and spiritual health practitioners have been involved in administering...
PLoS One
2024
Xiaohui Wang, Zhicheng Dai, Xinying Zhu et al.
36 citations
Breast cancer is the most common malignancy that occurs in women. Due to the pain caused by the disease itself and the adverse reactions in the treatment process, breast cancer patients are prone to anxiety, depression, fear of recurrence, and other negative emotions, which seriously affect the quality of life. As a systematic stress reduction therapy, mindfulness-based stress reduction is...
PLoS One
2024
Mikael Rubin, Caitlin M Fischer, Michael J Telch
21 citations
Loneliness, perceived stress, depression, and anxiety have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of existing mindfulness and compassion-based intervention are effective, but are time-intensive, decreasing overall accessibility and scalability. Single-session interventions (SSIs) serve as a promising alternative. The current pre-registered randomized clinical trial evaluated a newly...
PLoS One
2024
Omar Almahayni, Lucy Hammond
16 citations
Wim Hof, also known as the iceman, developed a method called Wim Hof Method (WHM) which he claims to have several benefits on physical and mental health. The aim of this systematic review is to identify and synthesise the results of the studies conducted on WHM on physiological and psychological health-related outcomes. This systematic review followed the PRISMA guidelines for systematic...
PLoS One
2024
Khamisi Musanje, Rosco Kasujja, Carol S Camlin et al.
11 citations
Adolescents with HIV (AWH) face the double burden of dealing with challenges presented by their developmental phase while coping with stigma related to HIV, affecting their mental health. Poor mental health complicates adherence to daily treatment regimens, requiring innovative psychosocial support strategies for use with adolescents. We assessed the effectiveness of a mindfulness and...
PLoS One
2024
Matthew Shardlow, Piotr Przybyła
8 citations
This work is intended as a voice in the discussion over previous claims that a pretrained large language model (LLM) based on the Transformer model architecture can be sentient. Such claims have been made concerning the LaMDA model and also concerning the current wave of LLM-powered chatbots, such as ChatGPT. This claim, if confirmed, would have serious ramifications in the Natural Language...
PLoS One
2024
Kristian Elersič, Anamarija Banjac, Marko Živin et al.
6 citations
Ketamine has gained significant attention as a fast-acting antidepressant. However, ketamine is also associated with undesirable side effects. In our preclinical study, we explored the behavioral effects of ketamine enantiomers at subanesthetic doses. During repeated intermittent treatment, we examined locomotor stimulation and sensitization, ataxia, and expression of natural behaviors...
PLoS One
2024
David L Lentz, Trinity L Hamilton, Stephanie A Meyers et al.
6 citations
For millennia, healing and psychoactive plants have been part of the medicinal and ceremonial fabric of elaborate rituals and everyday religious practices throughout Mesoamerica. Despite the essential nature of these ritual practices to the societal framework of past cultures, a clear understanding of the ceremonial life of the ancient Maya remains stubbornly elusive. Here we record the...