PLoS One
September 30, 2015
Eduardo Ekman Schenberg, João Felipe Morel Alexandre, Renato Filev et al.
115 citations
Ritual use of ayahuasca, an amazonian Amerindian medicine turned sacrament in syncretic religions in Brazil, is rapidly growing around the world. Because of this internationalization, a comprehensive understanding of the pharmacological mechanisms of action of the brew and the neural correlates of the modified states of consciousness it induces is important. Employing a combination of...
PLoS One
June 30, 2015
Mahiko Konishi, Donald George McLaren, Haakon Engen et al.
210 citations
Although many different accounts of the functions of the default mode network (DMN) have been proposed, few can adequately account for the spectrum of different cognitive functions that utilize this network. The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the hypothesis that the role of the DMN in higher order cognition is to allow cognition to be shaped by...
PLoS One
May 13, 2015
Melanie Boly, Shuntaro Sasai, Olivia Gosseries et al.
69 citations
A meaningful set of stimuli, such as a sequence of frames from a movie, triggers a set of different experiences. By contrast, a meaningless set of stimuli, such as a sequence of 'TV noise' frames, triggers always the same experience--of seeing 'TV noise'--even though the stimuli themselves are as different from each other as the movie frames. We reasoned that the differentiation of cortical...
PLoS One
May 6, 2015
Elena Antonova, Paul Chadwick, Veena Kumari
41 citations
BACKGROUND: Mindfulness as a mode of sustained and receptive attention promotes openness to each incoming stimulus, even if repetitive and/or aversive. Mindful attention has been shown to attenuate sensory habituation in expert meditators; however, others were not able to replicate this effect. The present study used acoustic startle reflex to investigate the effect of mindfulness practice...
PLoS One
April 16, 2015
Rinske A. Gotink, Paula Chu, Jan J. V. Busschbach et al.
546 citations
Retracted
BACKGROUND: Mindfulness-based therapies are being used in a wide range of common chronic conditions in both treatment and prevention despite lack of consensus about their effectiveness in different patient categories. OBJECTIVE: To systematically review the evidence of effectiveness MBSR and MBCT in different patient categories. METHODS: A systematic review and meta-analysis of systematic...
PLoS One
February 18, 2015
Fernanda Palhano-Fontes, Kátia C. Andrade, Luís Fernando Tófoli et al.
461 citations
The experiences induced by psychedelics share a wide variety of subjective features, related to the complex changes in perception and cognition induced by this class of drugs. A remarkable increase in introspection is at the core of these altered states of consciousness. Self-oriented mental activity has been consistently linked to the Default Mode Network (DMN), a set of brain regions more...
PLoS One
February 17, 2015
Daniel Lim, Paul Condon, David Desteno
297 citations
Emerging evidence suggests that meditation engenders prosocial behaviors meant to benefit others. However, the robustness, underlying mechanisms, and potential scalability of such effects remain open to question. The current experiment employed an ecologically valid situation that exposed participants to a person in visible pain. Following three-week, mobile-app based training courses in...
PLoS One
2015
Robin Bekrater-Bodmann, Michael Schredl, Martin Diers et al.
The experience of post-amputation pain such as phantom limb pain (PLP) and residual limb pain (RLP), is a common consequence of limb amputation, and its presence has negative effects on a person's well-being. The continuity hypothesis of dreams suggests that the presence of such aversive experiences in the waking state should be reflected in dream content, with the recalled body representation...
PLoS One
December 31, 2014
I-Hsun Li, Kuo-Hsing Ma, Shao-Ju Weng et al.
40 citations
Autophagy activation is involved in 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine ('ecstasy')--induced neurotoxicity in cultured cortical neurons.
PLoS One
September 2, 2014
Marwan N. Baliki, Ali Mansour, Alex T. Baria et al.
539 citations
Chronic pain is associated with neuronal plasticity. Here we use resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate functional changes in patients suffering from chronic back pain (CBP), complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and knee osteoarthritis (OA). We isolated five meaningful resting-state networks across the groups, of which only the default mode network (DMN) exhibited...
PLoS One
July 7, 2014
Bruno Gingras, Gerald Pohler, W. Tecumseh Fitch
33 citations
Exploring shamanic journeying: repetitive drumming with shamanic instructions induces specific subjective experiences but no larger cortisol decrease than instrumental meditation music.
PLoS One
June 30, 2014
Enrico Amico, Francisco Gómez, Carol di Perri et al.
115 citations
BACKGROUND: Recent studies have been shown that functional connectivity of cerebral areas is not a static phenomenon, but exhibits spontaneous fluctuations over time. There is evidence that fluctuating connectivity is an intrinsic phenomenon of brain dynamics that persists during anesthesia. Lately, point process analysis applied on functional data has revealed that much of the information...
PLoS One
June 27, 2014
Kim P. C. Kuypers, Rafael de la Torre, Magı́ Farré et al.
88 citations
The present study aimed at investigating the effect of MDMA on measures of empathy and social interaction, and the roles of oxytocin and the 5-HT1A receptor in these effects. The design was placebo-controlled within-subject with 4 treatment conditions: MDMA (75 mg), with or without pindolol (20 mg), oxytocin nasal spray (40 IU+16 IU) or placebo. Participants were 20 healthy poly-drug MDMA...
PLoS One
June 23, 2014
Christopher Allen, Benjamin T. Dunkley, Suresh Muthukumaraswamy et al.
45 citations
This series of experiments investigated the neural basis of conscious vision in humans using a form of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) known as continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS). Previous studies have shown that occipital TMS, when time-locked to the onset of visual stimuli, can induce a phenomenon analogous to blindsight in which conscious detection is impaired while the...
PLoS One
June 2, 2014
Hironao Takebayashi, N. Yamamoto, A. Umino et al.
Schizophrenia and similar psychoses induced by NMDA-type glutamate receptor antagonists, such as phencyclidine (PCP) and ketamine, usually develop after adolescence. Moreover, adult-type behavioral disturbance following NMDA receptor antagonist application in rodents is observed after a critical period at around 3 postnatal weeks. These observations suggest that the schizophrenic symptoms...
PLoS One
May 13, 2014
Krzysztof J. Gorgolewski, Daniel J. Lurie, Sebastian Urchs et al.
180 citations
Although neural activity often reflects the processing of external inputs, intrinsic fluctuations in activity have been observed throughout the brain. These may relate to patterns of self-generated thought that can occur while not performing goal-driven tasks. To understand the relationship between self-generated mental activity and intrinsic neural fluctuations, we developed the New York...
PLoS One
2014
Attila Szabo, Attila Kovács, Ede Frecska et al.
191 citations
The orphan receptor sigma-1 (sigmar-1) is a transmembrane chaperone protein expressed in both the central nervous system and in immune cells. It has been shown to regulate neuronal differentiation and cell survival, and mediates anti-inflammatory responses and immunosuppression in murine in vivo models. Since the details of these findings have not been elucidated so far, we studied the effects...
PLoS One
2014
Donal G. Maccoon, Katherine A Maclean, Richard J. Davidson et al.
97 citations
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a secular form of meditation training. The vast majority of the extant literature investigating the health effects of mindfulness interventions relies on wait-list control comparisons. Previous studies have found that meditation training over several months is associated with improvements in cognitive control and attention. We used a visual...
PLoS One
2014
Nicholas L Balderston, Douglas H Schultz, Sylvain Baillet et al.
The role of consciousness in learning has been debated for nearly 50 years. Recent studies suggest that conscious awareness is needed to bridge the gap when learning about two events that are separated in time, as is true for trace fear conditioning. This has been repeatedly shown and seems to apply to other forms of classical conditioning as well. In contrast to these findings, we show that...
PLoS One
2014
Ido Amihai, Maria Kozhevnikov
Based on evidence of parasympathetic activation, early studies defined meditation as a relaxation response. Later research attempted to categorize meditation as either involving focused or distributed attentional systems. Neither of these hypotheses received strong empirical support, and most of the studies investigated Theravada style meditative practices. In this study, we compared...
PLoS One
November 4, 2013
Alvaro Llorente‐berzal, Emma Puighermanal, Aurelijus Burokas et al.
43 citations
Ecstasy is a drug that is usually consumed by young people at the weekends and frequently, in combination with cannabis. In the present study we have investigated the long-term effects of administering increasing doses of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol [THC; 2.5, 5, 10 mg/kg; i.p.] from postnatal day (pnd) 28 to 45, alone and/or in conjunction with 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine [MDMA; two...
PLoS One
September 10, 2013
Niklaus Denier, Hana Gerber, Marc Vogel et al.
32 citations
Heroin dependence is a chronic relapsing brain disorder, characterized by the compulsion to seek and use heroin. Heroin itself has a strong potential to produce subjective experiences characterized by intense euphoria, relaxation and release from craving. The neurofunctional foundations of these perceived effects are not well known. In this study, we have used pharmacological magnetic resonance...
PLoS One
August 28, 2013
Fabio Ferrarelli, Richard Smith, Daniela Dentico et al.
125 citations
Over the past several years meditation practice has gained increasing attention as a non-pharmacological intervention to provide health related benefits, from promoting general wellness to alleviating the symptoms of a variety of medical conditions. However, the effects of meditation training on brain activity still need to be fully characterized. Sleep provides a unique approach to explore the...
PLoS One
August 23, 2013
T. Batink, Frenk Peeters, Nicole Geschwind et al.
Mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is a non-pharmacological intervention to reduce current symptoms and to prevent recurrence of major depressive disorder. At present, it is not well understood which underlying mechanisms during MBCT are associated with its efficacy. The current study (n = 130) was designed to examine the roles of mindfulness skills, rumination, worry and affect, and...
PLoS One
August 19, 2013
Teri Suzanne Krebs, Pål-ørjan Johansen
338 citations
BACKGROUND: The classical serotonergic psychedelics LSD, psilocybin, mescaline are not known to cause brain damage and are regarded as non-addictive. Clinical studies do not suggest that psychedelics cause long-term mental health problems. Psychedelics have been used in the Americas for thousands of years. Over 30 million people currently living in the US have used LSD, psilocybin, or...