Brain SciencesOctober 14, 2026Claudio Lucchiari, Maria Elide Vanutelli
A quarter-century of neuroaesthetics and cultural epidemiology has established that engagement with art is broadly and durably health-bearing, yet the finding sits awkwardly within the paradigm through which it is usually read: a tacit exposure model, in which art is beneficial input, the person is its recipient, and benefit is modelled on the dose received. Translated into practice as social...
Brain SciencesOctober 9, 2026Maria Svet, Arosh S. Perera Molligoda Arachchige
Adversarial testing has strengthened the empirical standards of consciousness science, but recent results also expose a measurement problem: competing theories frequently make predictions about the same neural quantities and can therefore be challenged without being decisively discriminated. This evaluative review incorporates a purposive structured audit of contemporary theories and...
Background/Objectives: Schizophrenia is a complex psychiatric disorder characterized by positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms, as well as disturbances of the self and metacognitive dysfunction. Increasing evidence suggests that these dimensions contribute substantially to psychosocial functioning and recovery, yet they are often investigated separately. This narrative review aims to...
Brain SciencesAugust 31, 2026Caitlin Donnelly, Veronica B Perez
Background: Childhood trauma and dissociation have each been associated with psychosis-spectrum symptoms, yet their combined relationships with social cognition and psychosocial functioning remain poorly understood. Guided by a theoretical framework of cognitive integration, the present study examined whether trauma and dissociation are associated with psychosis-like symptom severity, social...
Ketamine produces clinical states ranging from subanesthetic analgesia and dissociation to anesthetic-dose behavioral unresponsiveness. Its electroencephalographic (EEG) effects differ from the slow-delta and frontal-alpha patterns commonly observed with GABAergic-dominant anesthetics and vary with exposure, administration kinetics, and co-administered agents. After anesthetic bolus dosing,...
Brain SciencesJuly 15, 2026Anastasia V. Kotelnikova, Vera M. Ruzinova, Maria G. Kiseleva et al.
Background: Anxiety disorders are prevalent and debilitating. Given challenges in maintaining mindfulness at one-month remission, integrative approaches targeting anxiety and psychological resources (especially mindfulness) have gained interest. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of adding biofeedback to the treatment of anxiety disorders. Methods: Inpatients with anxiety disorder...
Brain SciencesJuly 14, 2026Arosh S. Perera Molligoda Arachchige, Afanasy Svet, Maria Svet
Understanding consciousness remains one of the most significant challenges in neuroscience, philosophy, and cognitive science. Despite substantial advances in neuroimaging, electrophysiology, and computational modeling, a comprehensive account of the neural basis of conscious experience has yet to emerge. This review examines several leading contemporary theories of consciousness, including the...
Protective Effects of Gallic Acid on Oxidative and Inflammatory Markers in the Hippocampus and Prefrontal Cortex of a Ketamine-Induced Schizophrenia-like Model.
Extensive explorations in neuroscience, psychology, and psychotherapy increasingly recognized the embodied and relational foundations of selfhood, underscoring the need for an integrated framework spanning development, psychopathology, and therapeutic change. This narrative review synthesizes empirical and theoretical literature across neuroscience, embodiment research, predictive processing,...
The question "what is an emotion" is as old as the study of the mind and brain. Scientists from Western, English-speaking, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) nations tend to adopt certain definitions, but these definitions do not map onto the lived experiences of all people around the world. My approach to the question "what is an emotion?" is thus to accept that emotions are folk...
This review explores the hypothesis that schizophrenic symptoms may be understood not as isolated deficits, but as interconnected manifestations of a structural reorganization of consciousness. The premises of this work are grounded in a comparative matrix that suggests an underlying "consanguinity" between the philosopher's voluntary epoché-the suspension of the natural attitude performed to...
Brain SciencesApril 30, 2026Nathan R Luzum, Marcia H. Mccall, Charlotte Talley Boyd et al.
Background/Objectives: A sub-anesthetic dose of ketamine has shown promise in reducing craving, withdrawal symptoms, and use of drugs such as alcohol, cocaine, and opioids among individuals with substance use disorders. Ketamine’s therapeutic potential for tobacco use is unknown. Here, we investigated a single sub-anesthetic dose among adults with tobacco use disorder who were not interested in...
Background/Objectives: Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been linked to psychological and cognitive benefits, yet evidence for their impact on brain structure remains sparse. Neuroimaging suggests MBIs may alter gray matter volume (GMV), density (GMD), and cortical thickness (CT). The purpose of this scoping review was to investigate structural neuroplasticity following MBIs. Methods:...
Brain SciencesApril 30, 2026Tomi-Ann Roberts, James W Pennebaker, Benita Jackson
Much of the interoception literature assumes that people can accurately detect their heart rate, stomach contractility, muscle tension, and other biological cues. This is not true. Instead, interoception is an active integrative psychological process where the feeling of one's internal state emerges from physiological signals, contextual cues, and the social and cultural experiences of living...
Background/Objectives: Mindfulness-based interventions are widely used to reduce psychological distress. Their long-term neurophysiological correlates remain insufficiently characterized. Using a portable Muse InteraXon® EEG device, this study aimed to evaluate (i) the extent to which a 12-month combined mindfulness and gratitude-based intervention reduces anxiety, depression, and perceived...
Consciousness presents a structural puzzle: a unified, context-sensitive, globally integrated mode of experience emerging from distributed neural dynamics. While classical neuroscience has mapped synaptic, oscillatory, and network-level mechanisms with increasing precision, debate persists as to whether classical formalisms fully capture the integrative and contextual features of conscious...
Brain SciencesMarch 26, 2026Piotr Skalski, Katarzyna Pękacka-falkowska, Agnieszka Pluto-Prądzyńska et al.
Background/Objectives: Psilocybin has re-emerged as a promising intervention for neuropsychiatric disorders including major depressive disorder, treatment-resistant depression, anxiety associated with life-threatening illness, obsessive compulsive disorder, and substance use disorders. However, conventional randomized controlled trials (RCTs)-the current gold standard in evidence-based...
This review examines what constitutes heart rate variability (HRV), the relationship between HRV and the autonomic nervous system, and the physiology driving HRV. HRV is correlated with vagal nerve activity and parasympathetic nervous activation. Higher HRV is correlated with youth, active lifestyle, adaptive capacity, and good health. Next, the review examines the medical significance of HRV,...
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Lucid dreaming-dreaming with the awareness that one is dreaming-has been explored from many perspectives, including those of cognitive neuroscience and various ancient cultural traditions. Lucid dreaming appears within the Tibetan-Buddhist literature together with dream yoga, a set of contemplative practices aimed at cultivating lucidity during dreams along with other...
Brain SciencesMarch 14, 2026Cristian Manea, Corina Costache Colareza, Dana Rad et al.
Background: Self-transcendence has been described in psychological literature as an orientation toward meaning beyond the individual self. However, because the present study does not directly measure transcendence as a psychological construct, we approach it cautiously as a candidate form of internally oriented attention, operationalized through EEG spectral dynamics. Although this construct...
Brain SciencesMarch 14, 2026Shannon M O'Donnell, W Jack Rejeski, Mohammadreza Khodaei et al.
Previous research has found that mindfulness-based techniques are beneficial for reducing stress in heavy-drinking individuals. However, the underlying neurobiology of these stress-reducing effects are unclear. Moreover, much of the research examining neurobiological correlates of mindfulness has used static functional connectivity, suggesting that brain activity goes unchanged for the entire...
Background/Objectives: Esketamine-related dissociation is a transient, pharmacologically induced altered state that differs from the trait-like pathological dissociation typically observed in trauma-related conditions. While most studies have quantified these effects using the Clinician-Administered Dissociative States Scale (CADSS), patients' subjective phenomenology and meaning-making remain...
Background: Ketamine and magnesium sulfate are commonly used perioperatively to prevent shivering, a frequent and clinically relevant complication of spinal and general anesthesia. Although their hypothermic effects are well documented, the neurotransmitter mechanisms underlying these effects remain insufficiently understood. This study examines whether serotonergic, adrenergic (α2), and...
Background/Objectives: Sensory deprivation, defined as a reduction or absence of external sensory input across one or more modalities, has long been investigated in extreme and experimental settings. More recently, its relevance has expanded to clinical contexts and environmental conditions. The present narrative review aims to synthesize current evidence on the neurobiological mechanisms,...
Background: By exploring the principles of Gestalt psychology, the neural mechanisms of perception, and computational models, scientists aim to unravel the complex processes that enable us to perceive a coherent and organized world. This multidisciplinary approach continues to advance our understanding of how the brain constructs a perceptual world from sensory inputs. Objectives and Methods:...