Spiritual experiences engage a distributed brain network, particularly a ventral frontotemporal circuit, that activates at the start and end of a spiritual condition but not during stress or neutral-relaxing conditions. The degree of network engagement correlated strongly with participants' self-reported spirituality during the task and moderately with a separate measure of spirituality taken outside the scanner. These findings suggest a specific functional neural network underlies spiritual experiences and may help explain how spirituality supports recovery from behavioral addictions.
Gambling disorder is a severe mental health and behavioral problem with harmful financial, relationship, and mental health consequences. This paper initiates discussion on using psychedelics combined with psychotherapeutic support as a potential treatment option. Recent studies have shown promising results with psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) for anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and various substance use disorders. Given similarities in underlying psychosocial and neurobiological mechanisms between gambling disorder and other addictions, the authors suggest PAT could be effective for gambling disorder. The paper underscores the need for further research into its viability and effectiveness.
Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) consistently reduce gambling frequency and cravings while improving psychological outcomes. When combined with cognitive behavioral therapy, MBIs produce significant declines in problem gambling behavior. Psychological distress and cravings also decrease notably across different intervention types. However, it remains unclear how much of these effects come from mindfulness-specific mechanisms. The evidence comes from 12 studies, including five randomized controlled trials, but small sample sizes and methodological limitations mean more robust research is needed.
Research on Buddhist-derived interventions (BDIs) for problem gambling is growing but remains limited to cross-sectional studies and clinical case studies. Findings suggest that Buddhist-derived mindfulness practices may help reduce problem gambling symptoms. Other potentially useful practices include insight meditation to address avoidance and dissociation, antidotes such as patience and impermanence to reduce impulsivity, loving-kindness meditation to foster positive thinking, and middle-way principles to reduce relapse and withdrawal. However, no controlled treatment studies exist, and barriers include a lack of experienced BDI clinicians and poor provision of both BDIs and gambling interventions. The authors conclude that preliminary findings are promising but further research is needed.