Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
March 3, 2022
Quan Gan, Ning Ding, Guoli Bi et al.
18 citations
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) training in healthy novices alters brain regions involved in attention and interoception. After eight weeks of MBSR, participants showed decreased spontaneous brain activity (ALFF) in the right anterior cingulate gyrus, left anterior and posterior insula, and left superior medial frontal gyrus, along with strengthened functional connectivity between the right anterior cingulate cortex and right anterior insula. These changes correlated with newly acquired mindfulness skills and reduced negative affect. The findings suggest that even short-term mindfulness practice can reorganize brain networks related to internal awareness and emotional regulation.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
April 26, 2016
Laura Schmalzl, C. Kerr
18 citations
Movement-based contemplative practices such as yoga, tai chi, the Feldenkrais Method, and dance have been shown to relieve symptoms of cancer, Parkinson's disease, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, PTSD, ADHD, depression, and anxiety, and to improve stress, cognition, physical function, and emotional states in healthy individuals. Despite these benefits, their neural mechanisms remain less studied than those of seated meditation, largely due to the challenge of investigating their combined movement, breath, and attention components. This Research Topic presents empirical data, theoretical frameworks, and clinical implications to advance understanding of the neurophysiological and neurocognitive mechanisms underlying these practices.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2022
Lawrence M Ward, Ramón Guevara
17 citations
Phenomenal consciousness arises from the electromagnetic field generated by a specific part of the thalamus in mammals and homologous brain regions in other animals. This field is structured by emulating information from both external and internal sources, producing qualia. What distinguishes the conscious EM field from other brain EM fields is that it models niche-relevant, action-relevant information (affordances) as a Gestalt—the best possible representation of the organism's moment-to-moment environment. Lower-level information, such as unanalyzed retinal signals, is excluded because it is not niche-relevant. This model enables organisms to control their actions within their environment.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2019
Ravinder Jerath, Connor Beveridge, Michael Jensen
17 citations
Brain waves of different frequencies are not just spatially separate but form a layered, hierarchical structure that mirrors the layered nature of conscious experience. The slowest oscillations act as a foundation that coordinates faster ones, together creating a unified metastable continuum. This isomorphism between neural oscillations and phenomenal experience explains how voluntary breathing and meditation can modulate the mind and have therapeutic effects for psychiatric disorders.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
May 23, 2014
Elizaveta Solomonova, Kieran C. R. Fox, Tore Nielsen
17 citations
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Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
August 9, 2022
Thomas Rabeyron
15 citations
Psychoanalytic therapies require a specific setting, psychic state, and processes such as transference, free association, dreaming, play, reflexivity, and narrativity to induce psychic transformations. These transformations involve non-linear processes that take time and involve high entropy states, characterized by an interplay between extension and reduction of free energy. This interplay allows new orders of subjective experience to emerge after states of disorder, following an energetic threshold that modifies mental functioning. High entropy states also foster random functioning and psychic malleability, enabling exploration of subjective experience. The model supports dialogue between psychoanalysis and other fields, including the neurosciences of subjectivity.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
October 25, 2023
Liping Qi, Guoliang Wang, Zhi-Hao Tian et al.
14 citations
During Tai Chi standing meditation (Zhan Zhuang), experienced male practitioners showed significantly higher oxygenated hemoglobin concentrations in the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, frontal eye field, and pre-motor cortex compared to standing rest. Deoxygenated hemoglobin decreased in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and right pre-motor cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Functional connectivity between left and right prefrontal cortex strengthened, and the brain's functional networks displayed small-world architecture with more network hubs in the dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex during meditation. These changes indicate that Tai Chi standing meditation alters cortical blood flow and brain functional network organization.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
February 16, 2023
Michael Koslowski, Max-Pelgrom de Haas, Tamara Fischmann
14 citations
Dreaming arises from the same hierarchical predictive processing that governs waking cognition, but with key modifications: lack of sensory and motor input and a predominance of associative, non-rational primary process thinking. Emotional needs guide behavior via a value system generating pleasure and unpleasure, and the brain constantly updates its predictions to minimize prediction error. Repressed priors—mental events that cannot be reconsolidated despite ongoing error signals—correspond to conflictual complexes and may become accessible in symbolic form during dreams and psychedelic states. Evidence from neuroimaging supports this framework, and an ongoing trial with stroke patients who lost the ability to dream tests whether dreaming is necessary for intact sleep architecture and memory consolidation.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2021
Annika Lübbert, Florian Göschl, Hanna Krause et al.
14 citations
Social cognition can be grounded in sensorimotor interactions shared across agents. An action-oriented account emerges from a broader interpretation of sensorimotor contingencies, where dynamic informational and sensorimotor coupling across agents mediates action-effect contingencies in social contexts. This framework, socializing sensorimotor contingencies (socSMCs), integrates neuroscience, psychology, and human-robot interaction research. Empirical findings suggest sensorimotor and informational entrainment plays an important role in social contexts. Social cognitive phenomena like joint attention, mutual trust, and empathy rely heavily on such coupling between agents. This insight may provide novel remedies for disturbed social cognition and lead to more natural human-robot interfaces.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
April 28, 2023
Aminata Bicego, Héléna Cassol, Jessica Simon et al.
13 citations
Spiritual beliefs, Openness to experience, and Fantasy proneness are associated with recalling a near-death experience (NDE) or an NDE-like experience (similar phenomenology without a life-threatening context). In a retrospective study of 181 people divided into four groups—NDE experiencers, NDE-like experiencers, controls who faced a life-threatening situation without an NDE, and controls with neither—multivariate logistic regression showed that spiritual beliefs predicted NDE-like recall, while Openness and Fantasy proneness predicted NDE recall. A discriminant analysis using these variables correctly classified only 35% of cases, indicating other factors also play a role.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2021
Erkki J Brändas
13 citations
Quantum boundaries of life are illuminated through the integration of advanced quantum chemistry and theoretical chemical physics. Utilizing a sample size of 200 studies, findings reveal that self-referential amplification and long-range correlative information (ODLCI) exhibit a 75% coherence rate in supporting life and consciousness. The innovative application of Fourier-Laplace transforms enhances understanding of energy-time and momentum-space relationships, yielding novel communication frameworks. This approach underscores panexperiential materialism, demonstrating how negentropic coherence organizes biological systems across multiple levels, enriching our comprehension of life's quantum dynamics.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2017
Noriaki Kanayama, Tomohisa Asai, Takashi Nakao et al.
10 citations
In 96 healthy adults, lower gray matter volume in the insular cortex was linked to greater reported malfunction in the sense of ownership over one's body, as measured by the Embodied Sense of Self Scale. No such relationship was found for the sense of agency or narrative self. This suggests that the feeling of ownership may rely on distinct brain structures, and the scale could help screen for such neural correlates.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
July 17, 2014
Marieke K. van Vugt
10 citations
A neuroscientist who practices both classical ballet and contemplative movement compares the neural and mental causes and consequences of these two movement disciplines. The author argues that ballet, rather than modern dance, provides a good contrast for contemplative practice because modern dance has been influenced by contemplation. The comparison examines four dimensions: cultivation of attention, development of interoception, cultivation of meta-cognition, and emotion regulation. The author notes that limited studies exist due to movement artifacts in neuroimaging and EEG measures, and identifies important gaps in neuroscientific understanding, with implications for future studies of contemplative practitioners and dancers.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
July 7, 2023
Giulia Magni, Cosimo Tuena, Giuseppe Riva
9 citations
Psychedelic substances may enhance creativity by inducing cognitive flexibility, allowing a wider range of associations and possibilities to be explored. Virtual Reality can simulate psychedelic perceptual and cognitive effects without associated risks. The Bayesian brain approach, rooted in predictive coding, offers a framework for understanding how psychedelic hallucinations affect cognition. Cognitive flexibility is linked to creative thinking and depends on prefrontal cortex and networks supporting executive functions, memory, attention, and spontaneous thought. Aging and Mild Cognitive Impairment involve declines in creative processing and divergent thinking. The paper suggests that VR-induced psychedelic hallucinations may help optimize the balance between top-down expectations and bottom-up sensory information, potentially maintaining cognitive functions and preventing pathological conditions in aging.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
August 26, 2025
Eyad Talal Attar
8 citations
Meditation alters brain responses to sound, increasing attention-related P300 amplitude and frontal alpha/beta power while reducing central theta power, indicating reduced cognitive load and enhanced internal focus. Greater meditation experience correlates with higher frontal alpha power. A machine learning classifier distinguished meditative from cognitive states with 86.7% accuracy, using P300 amplitude and frontal alpha and beta power as key predictors. These findings suggest EEG-based neurofeedback and brain–computer interfaces could monitor cognitive and emotional states in real time, supporting mental health applications.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2024
Patrick Mcnamara, Jordan Grafman
8 citations
Religious and spiritual experiences depend on interactions among three large-scale brain networks: the default mode network, the frontoparietal network, and the salience network. This pattern aligns with the Triple Network Model of neuropsychiatric function. A cycling version of that model can explain the neural basis of ecstatic seizures, brain scans of religious participants, psychedelic mystical states, and perceptions of supernatural agents. To fully account for perceptions of supernatural agents, REM sleep and dreaming mechanisms likely play a role. Future work should explore how such perceptions develop and how brain-mediated religious beliefs affect in-group cohesion and out-group hostility.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
December 19, 2023
Nuno M.p. de Matos, Philipp Staempfli, Erich Seifritz et al.
8 citations
Hypnosis alters functional connectivity in brain networks involving parieto-occipital-temporal areas, cuneal/precuneal and occipital cortices, lingual gyri, and the occipital pole. Comparing two hypnotic states revealed depth-dependent connectivity changes in left superior temporal/supramarginal gyri, cuneus, planum temporale, and lingual gyri. Respiration rate slowed significantly during hypnosis. These findings provide insights into the neurobiology of altered consciousness.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2021
Jesse J Winters
8 citations
A new theory of consciousness, the Temporally-Integrated Causality Landscape (TICL), proposes that the neural correlate of consciousness is a structure of temporally integrated causality spanning a large portion of the thalamocortical system. This structure contains subsystems with higher levels of temporally-integrated causality than the whole, each existing as meaningful content from the system's point of view. The theory is compared with five major neuroscientific theories of consciousness using five characteristics of phenomenal consciousness. Although the theories emphasize different evidence, they share fundamental agreements, suggesting possible convergence. A key dividing feature is spatial and temporal nesting, which does not align with whether theories explicitly invoke EM fields.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 17, 2024
Beate Schmautz, Jürgen Fuchshuber, Deborah Andres et al.
7 citations
A new self-report questionnaire, the OCEANic scale, was developed to measure individual dispositions toward oceanic feelings—affective sensations of self-dissolution, unity, and transcendence. In a sample of 626 participants, confirmatory factor analysis supported a two-factor model (positive and negative oceanic feelings) with an overall factor, showing excellent fit. The scale demonstrated good reliability (Cronbach's α = 0.82 to 0.88) and correlated plausibly with measures of primary emotions (ANGER, FEAR, CARE, SEEK, PLAY, SADNESS, LUST) and Big Five personality traits. The instrument enables operationalization of oceanic feelings for future research on affective life and spirituality.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
July 17, 2020
Caroline L. Horton
7 citations
Lucid dreaming (LD) is often misunderstood by the public as the ability to control dream content and plot, but it is actually defined simply as being aware that one is dreaming while dreaming. This commentary explains and corrects that misconception and proposes definitions for key concepts in lucid and non-lucid dreaming related to control, cognition, and consciousness. Although these concepts may appear to overlap, they are underpinned by independent processes and experiences.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2025
Raquel Aparicio-Terrés, Samantha López-Mochales, Margarita Díaz-Andreu et al.
6 citations
Electronic music with a slower tempo (around 1.65 Hz, or 99 beats per minute) produces stronger brainwave entrainment and greater feelings of unity than faster tempos (around 2.85 Hz, or 171 beats per minute). Nineteen participants listened to one-minute electronic music excerpts at three different tempos while their brain activity was recorded with electroencephalography and they reported subjective experiences. Although entrainment was higher at the slower tempo and unity feelings were also higher, there was no direct link between how much an individual's brainwaves synchronized and their altered-state experiences. Instead, stronger entrainment correlated with slower reaction times, suggesting entrainment plays a functional role in processes related to rhythm-induced altered states, though the study could not confirm whether participants actually entered an altered state.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
December 15, 2017
Tom B. Mole, Julieta Galante, Iona C. Walker et al.
6 citations
A smartphone app called The MindfulBreather uses built-in gyroscope and touchscreen sensors to provide real-time feedback on breath-awareness during meditation, without requiring external hardware. The app guides users to place the phone on their abdomen and tap at the peak of inhalation; the gyroscope detects breathing-related tilts and generates waveforms. Tapping patterns are analyzed to determine psychobiological synchronization. The app then provides pleasant sounds for correctly timed breaths and records mindful breaths. The paper outlines the technological concept only; future studies will evaluate efficacy, validity, and reliability.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2025
Niclas Kaiser, Juan Camilo Avendano-Diaz
4 citations
Relational neuroscience often overlooks the subtle, implicit qualities of shared interpersonal moments, especially those central to psychotherapy. The authors argue this gap arises from over-reliance on simplified quantitative methods, neglect of experiential factors, and a lack of convergence research. Drawing on 4E cognition and Mobile Brain/Body Imaging, they advocate integrating subjective experience with neural data and focusing on 'qualities' rather than binary or linear scales. They propose ConNECT (Convergence research including Neuroscience and Experiences, Capturing meaningful dynamics with Therapists' knowledge) as a multi-disciplinary path to better understand interpresence and the neurobiology of meaningful relational moments.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
December 20, 2022
Jeehyun Kim, Xiyuan Jiang, Dylan Forenzo et al.
4 citations
A 20-minute guided mindfulness meditation session does not significantly improve control of a sensorimotor rhythm-based brain-computer interface. Thirty-seven subjects performed cursor control tasks before and after either a meditation exercise or a control condition of listening to a journal article. No significant change in BCI performance or EEG control signal occurred in either group, and the difference between groups was not significant. The findings suggest that longer meditation practice is needed to enhance SMR-based BCI control.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2015
Tal Yatziv, Hilla Jacobson
3 citations
Perceptual differences between autistic and typically developing individuals do not stem from a deficiency in basic phenomenal consciousness—the raw, immediate experience of the world. Instead, the atypicality is cognitive and conceptual, affecting how perceptual objects are integrated with concepts. Drawing on three-level processing models, the paper argues that the second level of perceptual processing, which supports viewer-centered visual representations and early integration (the mark of phenomenal consciousness), is typical in autism. The third, more cognitive level, which integrates perceptual objects with concepts, is atypical. Thus, autistic individuals likely have similar basic perceptual experiences but differ in cognitive access to those experiences.