Brain Sciences
May 24, 2024
A.C. van der Heijden, Jade Thevis, Jill Verhaegen et al.
8 citations
Dreaming, a widely researched aspect of sleep, often mirrors waking-life experiences. Despite the prevalence of sensory perception during wakefulness, sensory experiences in dreams remain relatively unexplored. Free recall dream reports, where individuals describe their dreams freely, may not fully capture sensory dream experiences. In this study, we developed a dream diary with direct...
Brain Sciences
May 22, 2024
Don Kuiken
1 citation
Taxonomic studies of dreams that continue to influence the dreamer's thoughts and feelings after awakening have distinguished three types of impactful dreams: nightmares, existential dreams, and transcendent dreams. Of these, existential dreams and transcendent dreams are characterized by recurrent metacognitive appraisal of the epistemic tension between complementary (a) metaphoric (A "is" B)...
Brain Sciences
May 11, 2024
Simon Kempe, Werner Köpp, Lutz Wittmann
3 citations
Background: Clinical case illustrations of patients with an impairment of personality functioning (IPF) have repeatedly reported that progress during psychotherapy is reflected by alterations in dream content. However, quantitative studies based on samples of psychotherapy patients are scarce. As a core component of both personality functioning and contemporary psychodynamic dream theory, the...
Brain Sciences
April 25, 2024
Abel A Oldoni, André D Bacchi, Fúlvio R Mendes et al.
4 citations
Lucid dreaming (LD) is a physiological state of consciousness that occurs when dreamers become aware that they are dreaming, and may also control the oneiric content. In the general population, LD is spontaneously rare; thus, there is great interest in its induction. Here, we aim to review the literature on neuropsychopharmacological induction of LD. First, we describe the circadian and...
Brain Sciences
March 31, 2024
Gabriella Smedfors, Felicia Jennysdotter Olofsgård, Anna Steinberg et al.
4 citations
Background: Cluster headache (CH) is a debilitating condition, but current therapies leave CH patients in pain. The extent of this problem in Sweden is unknown. Methods: An anonymized questionnaire was sent to 479 Swedish CH patients to investigate patterns and perceived effects of treatments. Results: Three hundred fourteen answers were analyzed. The population was representative regarding age...
Brain Sciences
March 27, 2024
James Chmiel, Agnieszka Malinowska, Filip Rybakowski et al.
4 citations
Methamphetamine is a highly stimulating psychoactive drug that causes life-threatening addictions and affects millions of people around the world. Its effects on the brain are complex and include disturbances in the neurotransmitter systems and neurotoxicity. There are several known treatment methods, but their effectiveness is moderate. It must be emphasised that no drugs have been approved...
Brain Sciences
March 20, 2024
Muhammet Celik, Mark S. Gold, Brian S Fuehrlein
22 citations
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a significant contributor to morbidity and mortality in the United States. It contributes to over 140,000 annual deaths, to over 200 related diseases and health conditions globally, and accounts for 5.1% of the global disease burden. Despite its substantial impact, AUD remains undertreated, marked by a scarcity of approved medications. This paper explores the...
Brain Sciences
March 3, 2024
Mario Renato Velit-Salazar, Eloise Cherian, Paulo R Shiroma
13 citations
Objective: This study aims to provide an overview of pharmacological trials that examine the neurocognitive effects of psychedelics among healthy individuals and patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depressive disorder (MDD). Methods: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) was used as a guide to structure and report the findings for this review. A...
Brain Sciences
December 22, 2023
Nicolas A. Nunez, Boney Joseph, Rakesh Kumar et al.
20 citations
Ketamine has shown rapid antidepressant and anti-suicidal effects in treatment-resistant depression (TRD) with single and serial intravenous (IV) infusions, but the effectiveness for depressive episodes of bipolar disorder is less clear. We conducted an updated systematic review and meta-analysis to appraise the current evidence on the efficacy and tolerability of ketamine/esketamine in bipolar...
Brain Sciences
December 22, 2023
Tanya G. K. Bentley, Gina D’Andrea-Penna, Marina Rakic et al.
Anxiety and stress plague populations worldwide. Voluntary regulated breathing practices offer a tool to address this epidemic. We examined peer-reviewed published literature to understand effective approaches to and implementation of these practices. PubMed and ScienceDirect were searched to identify clinical trials evaluating isolated breathing-based interventions with psychometric...
Brain Sciences
December 6, 2023
Florian Kurth, Sarah Strohmaier, Eileen Luders
7 citations
The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is a functionally heterogeneous brain region contributing to mental processes relating to meditation practices. The OFC has been reported to decline in volume with increasing age and differs in volume between meditation practitioners and non-practitioners. We hypothesized that the age-related decline of the OFC is diminished in meditation practitioners. We tested...
Brain Sciences
November 29, 2023
Yakun Zhang, Shichun Chen, Zongpai Zhang et al.
1 citation
Focused attention meditation (FAM) training has been shown to improve attention, but the neural basis of FAM on attention has not been thoroughly understood. Here, we aim to investigate the neural effect of a 2-month FAM training on novice meditators in a visual oddball task (a frequently adopted task to evaluate attention), evaluated with both ASL and BOLD fMRI. Using ASL, activation was...
Brain Sciences
June 24, 2023
Mariana Campello De Oliveira, Mariana Capelo Vides, Dângela Layne Silva Lassi et al.
(1) Background: Synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) are emerging drugs of abuse sold as 'K2', 'K9' or 'Spice'. Evidence shows that using SCs products leads to greater health risks than cannabis. They have been associated with greater toxicity and higher addiction potential unrelated to the primary psychoactive component of marijuana, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC). Moreover, early cases of...
Brain Sciences
June 4, 2023
Muhammad Youshay Jawad, Saleha Qasim, Menglu Ni et al.
46 citations
Bipolar depression remains a clinical challenge with a quarter of patients failing to respond to initial conventional treatments. Although ketamine has been extensively studied in unipolar depression, its role in bipolar disorder remains inconclusive. The aim of our scoping review was to comprehensively synthesize the current clinical literature around ketamine use in bipolar depression. A...
Brain Sciences
May 28, 2023
Peter Grindrod, Martin Brennan
We argue that cognition (information processing) and internal phenomenological sensations, including emotions, are intimately related and are not separable. We aver that phenomenological sensations are dynamical "modes" of firing behaviour that (i) exist over time and over large parts of the cortex's neuron-to-neuron network and (ii) are consequences of the network-of-networks architecture,...
Brain Sciences
February 18, 2023
Jitka Bušková, Eva Miletínová, Radana Králová et al.
Pregnancy is often associated with reduced sleep quality and an increase in sleep disorders, such as restless leg syndrome, obstructive sleep apnea, and insomnia. There are few studies investigating the prevalence of parasomnias in pregnancy, although they may be expected to be a significant problem, as disturbed sleep in this time period in addition to these sleep disorders may trigger...
Brain Sciences
February 2, 2023
Blerida Banushi, Madeline Brendle, Anya Ragnhildstveit et al.
Anxiety disorders are the most common group of mental disorders, but they are often underrecognized and undertreated in primary care. Dysfunctional breathing is a hallmark of anxiety disorders; however, mainstays of treatments do not tackle breathing in patients suffering anxiety. This scoping review aims to identify the nature and extent of the available research literature on the efficacy of...
Brain Sciences
January 13, 2023
Maria Gałuszko‐węgielnik, Zuzanna Chmielewska, Katarzyna Jakuszkowiak‐wojten et al.
20 citations
Psychotic treatment-resistant depression is a complex and challenging manifestation of mood disorders in the clinical setting. Psychotic depression is a subtype of major depressive disorder characterized by mood-consistent hallucinations and/or delusions. Psychotic depression is often underdiagnosed and undertreated. Ketamine appears to have rapid and potent antidepressant effects in clinical...
Brain Sciences
October 27, 2022
Gemma Perry, Vince Polito, Narayan Sankaran et al.
32 citations
Chanting is practiced in many religious and secular traditions and involves rhythmic vocalization or mental repetition of a sound or phrase. This study examined how chanting relates to cognitive function, altered states, and quality of life across a wide range of traditions. A global survey was used to assess experiences during chanting including flow states, mystical experiences, mindfulness,...
Brain Sciences
September 3, 2022
Justin Matheson, Yollanda J. Zhang, Bruna Brands et al.
5 citations
Genetic influences on acute responses to psychoactive drugs may contribute to individual variability in addiction risk. ABCB1 is a human gene that encodes P-glycoprotein, an ATP-dependent efflux pump that may influence the pharmacokinetics of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive component of cannabis. Using data from 48 young adults (aged 19–25 years) reporting 1–4 days...
Brain Sciences
June 23, 2022
Thorsten Rudroff, Craig D. Workman, Phillip E. Gander et al.
3 citations
Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol is the main psychoactive component of cannabis and cannabidiol is purportedly responsible for many of the medicinal benefits. The effects of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol in younger populations have been well studied; however, motor function, cognitive function, and cerebral glucose metabolism in older adults have not been extensively researched. The purpose of...
Brain Sciences
March 12, 2022
Anya Ragnhildstveit, Matthew Slayton, Laura Kate Jackson et al.
Eating disorders (EDs) are serious, life-threatening psychiatric conditions associated with physical and psychosocial impairment, as well as high morbidity and mortality. Given the chronic refractory nature of EDs and the paucity of evidence-based treatments, there is a pressing need to identify novel approaches for this population. The noncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAr)...
Brain Sciences
February 24, 2022
Julia C. Harris, Alexander L. Wallace, Alicia M. Thomas et al.
Background. Numerous neuropsychological studies have shown that cannabis use during adolescence and young adulthood led to deficits in sustained and selective attention. However, few studies have examined functional connectivity in attentional networks among young cannabis users, nor have characterized relationships with cannabis use patterns following abstinence. Methods. Differences in...
Brain Sciences
January 12, 2022
Boglarka Vekety, H. N. Alexander Logemann, Zsófia K. Takács
24 citations
This is the first pilot study with children that has assessed the effects of a brain-computer interface-assisted mindfulness program on neural mechanisms and associated cognitive performance. The participants were 31 children aged 9-10 years who were randomly assigned to either an eight-session mindfulness training with EEG-feedback or a passive control group. Mindfulness-related brain activity...
Brain Sciences
December 9, 2021
Alessandra Giordano, Michele Boffano, Raimondo Piana et al.
the evaluation of body image perception, pain coping strategies, and dream content, together with phantom limb and telescoping phenomena in patients with sarcoma who underwent surgery for limb amputation. consecutive outpatients were evaluated at T0 (within 3 weeks after surgery) and T1 (4-6 months after surgery) as follows: demographic and clinical data collection; the Groningen Questionnaire...