Biological Psychology
March 20, 2012
Renate Reniers, Rhiannon Corcoran, Birgit Vӧllm et al.
168 citations
Moral decision-making involves more internally directed processing, such as self-referential thought and representation of intentions and feelings, than non-moral decision-making. Using fMRI, researchers compared brain activity when people deliberated moral versus non-moral scenarios. Greater activity appeared in parts of the Theory of Mind, empathy, and default mode networks during moral decisions. Higher scores on primary psychopathy showed a trend toward decreased brain activation in an area from dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to medial prefrontal cortex during moral versus non-moral decisions.
Biological Psychology
June 1, 1984
Peter Fenwick, Morton Schatzman, Alan Worsley et al.
56 citations
During lucid dreaming, a subject performed willed movements of fingers, toes, and feet, remembered tasks, and counted sensory stimuli. Dreamed speech was linked to respiration. Electromyographic activity associated with dreamed actions was stronger in flexor than in extensor limb muscles and never appeared in axial muscles.
Biological Psychology
October 1, 2025
Magdalena Kurek, Joanna Różycka‐Tran, Stanisław Radoń et al.
3 citations
During Zen meditation in a monastic setting, experienced Vietnamese monks showed significantly higher alpha and theta brainwave power than non-meditating controls, with no change in beta power. This pattern differs from mindfulness practices, where beta power often decreases. Among monks, brain activity did not differ between meditation and mind-wandering states, nor between brief 4-minute and extended 1.5-hour sessions, indicating a continuity of meditative and non-meditative states in advanced practitioners. The findings suggest Zen meditation fosters a distinct state combining relaxation and sustained alertness, and demonstrate the feasibility of mobile EEG technology for in-situ research.
Biological Psychology
July 9, 2026
Nattanon Bunrodchu, Ekkasit Kumarnsit, Wan Khairunizam Wan Ahmad et al.
Long-term cannabis use alters default mode network (DMN) dynamics and cross-frequency interactions in the brain. Resting-state EEG recordings from 23 participants with cannabis use disorder (CUD) and 23 healthy controls showed that delta-high gamma and beta-high gamma coupling in prefrontal regions distinguished CUD participants from controls, especially with eyes open. Frontal-parietal and frontal-temporal coherence was heightened during eye closure in CUD participants. A multilayer perceptron classifier using these multidimensional EEG features successfully differentiated cannabis users from controls, suggesting that altered DMN function and cross-frequency coupling are potential electrophysiological markers of long-term cannabis use.
Biological Psychology
June 3, 2026
Hongkeun Kim
Episodic recollection—remembering past experiences—consistently activates the default mode network (DMN) in brain imaging studies, but whether the type of remembered content matters was unclear. This meta-analysis of 24 verbal and 19 visual recollection studies found that both forms engage the DMN, but verbal materials produce stronger and more widespread activation across all three DMN subnetworks than visual materials. Direct comparisons confirmed a verbal bias in every DMN subdivision, and separate analyses of words, objects, and scenes supported this pattern. The bias may arise because verbal recollection relies more on DMN-supported conceptual integration or semantic scaffolding. The verbal-visual dimension may be an important organizing principle of DMN function in episodic memory.
Biological Psychology
January 1, 2026
Xiaonan Zhan, Huibiao Li, Ke Chen et al.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) reduces depressive symptoms in university students by altering brain activity and connectivity. In a randomized controlled trial, 42 healthy students completed an 8-week MBSR program or served as controls. MBSR participants showed greater improvement in depression scores. Brain imaging revealed reduced Amplitude of Low-Frequency Fluctuations (ALFF), fractional ALFF, and Regional Homogeneity in the right middle cingulate cortex (MCC). Functional connectivity between the right MCC and the left hippocampus and bilateral precuneus also decreased. These connectivity changes correlated with depression improvement, suggesting MBSR promotes adaptive neural reorganization in emotional regulation networks.
Biological Psychology
September 1, 2025
Norden E Huang, Wei-Shuai Yuan, Albert C Yang et al.
The intrinsic probability density function (iPDF) is a new quantitative method for evaluating dynamic interactions between brain regions that underlie conscious states. The method analyzes EEG signals by decomposing them into intrinsic mode functions and generating scale-dependent probability density functions that capture subtle variations in neural modulation. Testing across general anesthesia, sleep stages (wakefulness, REM, deep sleep), sensory conditions (eyes open vs closed), and between dementia patients and healthy subjects showed that active neural interactions during wakefulness and REM sleep produce super-Gaussian iPDF patterns, while reduced interactions during anesthesia and deep sleep yield near-Gaussian profiles. A classification model using iPDF features achieved approximately 87% accuracy in distinguishing dementia patients from healthy controls, suggesting iPDF as a potential clinical biomarker.
Biological Psychology
May 1, 2018
Ratna Jyothi Kakumanu, Ajay Kumar Nair, Rahul Venugopal et al.
Vipassana meditation, as taught by S.N. Goenka, involves distinct EEG patterns that vary by technique and practitioner proficiency. Compared to Novices, Senior meditators and Teachers showed greater delta, theta-alpha, and low-gamma power at rest. During concentrative and mindfulness meditation, they exhibited increased low-alpha and low-gamma power; during loving-kindness meditation, increased theta-alpha and low-gamma power. Measures of permutation entropy and Higuchi fractal dimension revealed that only Teachers, not Seniors, displayed consistent increases in network complexity from rest and across meditation states, indicating that high proficiency, not just duration of experience, drives neural complexity changes.
Biological Psychology
September 1, 2016
J Lutz, A B Brühl, H Scheerer et al.
Mindful self-awareness, a core component of mindfulness meditation, is linked to reduced activity in brain regions involved in self-referential thinking (cortical midline structures) and emotion (amygdala), alongside increased activity in somatosensory areas. Using fMRI, experienced meditators (average 4,652 practice hours) and meditation-naïve participants engaged in short periods of mindful self-awareness and self-referential thinking. Both groups showed somatosensory activation and decreased cortical midline activity during mindful awareness, but experienced meditators exhibited significantly stronger decreases in prefrontal midline regions and reduced activity in language-related areas. Higher amygdala and midline activity during mindful awareness correlated with depressiveness. Meditation training may reduce self-reference and verbalization during mindful awareness, supporting its role in healthy self-related neural functions.
Biological Psychology
December 1, 2013
Péter Simor, Klára Horváth, Péter P Ujma et al.
People with nightmare disorder show brain activity during REM sleep that resembles wakefulness more than healthy controls do. In a study of 19 individuals with nightmare disorder and 21 healthy controls, those with nightmares had increased high alpha (10-14.5Hz) power and increased fronto-central high delta (3-4Hz) power during REM sleep, along with a trend toward increased fronto-central low alpha (7.75-9Hz) power during NREM sleep. These differences were not explained by daytime emotional distress. The findings suggest that nightmare disorder involves wake-like electroencephalographic features during REM sleep, indicating impaired sleep regulation.
Biological Psychology
May 1, 2011
Sarah Laxhmi Chellappa, Sylvia Frey, Vera Knoblauch et al.
Dream recall is linked to distinct brain activity patterns during both NREM and REM sleep. In 17 young subjects under constant routine conditions, NREM sleep with dream recall showed lower EEG power density in delta frequencies, especially in frontal areas, and in spindle frequencies in centro-parietal areas. REM sleep with dream recall showed low frontal alpha activity and high alpha and beta activity in occipital areas. These frequency- and topography-specific EEG changes indicate that dream recall involves dual modulation across NREM and REM sleep, offering insights into the neural mechanisms of dreaming.
Biological Psychology
November 1, 2000
F Travis, J J Tecce, J Guttman
People who report having transcendent experiences daily show larger late contingent negative variation (CNV) amplitudes in simple reaction-time tasks and smaller distraction effects when a memory task is added, compared with people who have such experiences only a few times per year. Those with intermediate frequency (10–20 per year) fall in the middle. The pattern suggests that repeated transcendent experiences may cumulatively heighten cortical preparatory responses and improve executive control.