Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe psychiatric disorder with limited effective pharmacological treatments. Given the role of the endocannabinoid system (ECS) in regulating energy balance and its possible involvement in AN pathophysiology, cannabinoid-based interventions may hold therapeutic potential. Using the preclinical activity-based anorexia (ABA) model, we investigated whether...
Physiology & BehaviorApril 17, 2026Li Shen Chong, Rachel C. Bucher, Edward Merritt et al.
• Brief mindfulness intervention (bMBI) impacts autonomic nervous system functioning. • bMBI increased RSA and reduced SCL during mindfulness relative to the attention control condition. • bMBI reduced blood pressure after mindfulness and stress relative to controls. • The bMBI group displayed reciprocal RSA and SCL patterns (↑RSA, ↓SCL) during stress. • Controls showed non-reciprocal RSA-SCL...
Physiology & BehaviorOctober 1, 2025Irving Aguilar-Martínez, J. Góngora-Alfaro, R. Navarro-Polanco et al.
A significant percentage of depression patients are resistant to pharmacological treatments, highlighting the need for novel antidepressant strategies. Ketamine, an NMDA receptor antagonist, produces rapid antidepressant effects and is effective in treatment-resistant cases, but its association with cognitive and behavioral abnormalities resembling schizophrenia limits broader clinical utility....
Physiology & BehaviorSeptember 1, 2025Yiru Dong, Sebastian Goodwin-Groen, Jessie Ma et al.4 citations
The activity-based anorexia (ABA) animal model captures key maladaptive behaviors of anorexia nervosa - starvation-evoked hyperactivity, voluntary food restriction, severe weight loss and elevated anxiety-like behavior. By repeating ABA induction, the model reveals an animal's gain of resilience against ABA relapses and concomitant synaptic plasticity. We review findings on the efficacy of...
Psilocybin, a serotonergic psychedelic, has emerged as a promising treatment for a range of mental health conditions, including anorexia nervosa. Recent insights from animal models and human imaging studies suggest psilocybin enhances cognitive flexibility and modifies reward processing - two core processes disrupted in anorexia nervosa. Both cognitive flexibility and reward processing are...
There is growing interest in the therapeutic potential of psilocybin for the treatment of a wide variety of medical problems, and even for the promotion of wellbeing among healthy individuals. Interestingly, among the many proposed indications, both obesity and anorexia nervosa (AN) have been discussed. However, the effect of psilocybin on appetitive behavior and metabolism is not well known....
Many studies have indicated a strong relationship between cardiac and brain activities, both of which are sensitive to high-altitude exposure. This study combined a consciousness access task and electrocardiograms (ECG) to uncover conscious awareness in response to high-altitude exposure and its relation to cardiac activity. When compared with the low-altitude groups, the behavioral results...
Several theories of consciousness (ToC) have been proposed, but it is hard to integrate them into a consensus theory. Each theory has its merits, in dealing with some aspects of the question, but the terminology is inconsistent, each ToC aims at answering a different question, and there is not even a reasonable agreement about what 'consciousness' is in the first place. Some common implicit...
Physiology & BehaviorJanuary 18, 2022Paula Michelotti, Francini Franscescon, T. E. Müller et al.
Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic in human and veterinary clinic, as well as an abuse drug that acts on several neurotransmitter systems. The use of alternative animal models, such as zebrafish, is emerging to study the effects of drugs on neurobehavioral responses. Here, we evaluated the effects of ketamine on memory consolidation (acute protocol), as well as on anxiety-, aggressive-like...
How the animal regulates its internal environment is a central question in physiology. In recent years, the account of biological functions known as Bayesian enactivism has been extended from neuroscience to address processes of physiological regulation. Enactivism understands sensory action cycles of perception and behaviour to entail expectations of the causes of sensations received from the...
Subanesthetic ketamine (KET) elicits rapid, robust, but transient antidepressant effects. KET's antidepressant actions can be augmented and maintained for a longer duration when repeatedly delivered. However, KET is recreationally abused, raising long-term treatment safety concerns. Women are more likely than men to seek treatment for depression, escalate from casual to compulsive drug use, and...
Clinical trials have demonstrated that 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) paired with psychotherapy is more effective at reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy, alone or in combination. The processes through which MDMA acts to enhance psychotherapy are not well understood. Given that fear memories contribute to PTSD symptomology,...
Effective emotional regulation is critical for overall psychological well-being; as such, it is important to investigate potential methods to optimize emotion regulation abilities. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of an acute bout of aerobic exercise and meditation on emotional regulation among young adults. Participants (N=63, mean age=21.3yrs) were randomly assigned to...
Somatic sensations may arise in the total absence of external stimuli, i.e., spontaneous sensations (SPSs). Because the background of body sensations has been mentioned as a possible contributor to interoceptive functions, such as the perception of the self and the conscious awareness of one's own body, a possible link between SPSs and interoception has been advocated. Yet, no study has...
Physiology & BehaviorMarch 15, 2015Hwi-Jin Im, Yoon-Jung Kim, Hyeong-Geug Kim et al.
Kouksundo is a traditional Korean mind-body practice that has been practiced for thousands of years. We investigated the effects of Kouksundo on oxidative stress-related biomarkers and stress hormones. A single-arm observational study was conducted on 57 Kouksundo trainees (34 males and 23 females). Blood samples were collected 30 min before and after Kouksundo practice (25 min for warm-up, 45...
BackgroundHallucinogenic drugs were used to treat alcoholic patients in the past, and recent developments in the study of hallucinogens led to a renewal of interest regarding the application of these drugs in the treatment of addiction. In this scenario, accumulating evidence suggests that the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca (Aya) may have therapeutic effects on substance abuse problems.MethodsWe...
Foxy or Methoxy Foxy (5-methoxy-N,N-di(iso)propyltryptamine hydrochloride; 5-MeO-DIPT) is rapidly gaining popularity among recreational users as a hallucinogenic "designer drug." Unfortunately, much remain unknown about the consequences of its use on neuropsychological development or behavior. During one of two adolescent periods, the rats were given repeated injections of 5 mg/kg or 20 mg/kg...
Physiology & BehaviorMarch 23, 2009Valerie B Thompson, Justin Heiman, James B Chambers et al.
The current study sought to determine whether prenatal 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methamphetamine (MDMA) exposure from E14-20 in the rat resulted in behavioral sequelae in adult offspring. Prenatal MDMA exposure results in increased dopaminergic fiber density in the prefrontal cortex, striatum and nucleus accumbens of young rats. Since these areas are critical in response to novelty, reward,...
Phencyclidine (PCP), a dissociative anaesthetic, acts as a noncompetitive N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist. PCP is a psychostimulant capable of producing both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, including cognitive dysfunction in normal humans. Perinatal phencyclidine administration to rats has been widely accepted as an animal model of schizophrenia. It has been...
Hyperthermia and hyperlocomotor activity are commonly reported acute effects of high dose, experimenter-delivered 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). The current investigation was performed to determine short- to long-term physiological and behavioral changes induced by moderate intake MDMA self-administration. In the present study, rats self-administered MDMA (approx. 2.0-7.0 mg/kg/day)...
This study was undertaken to determine the effect of 24-h transdermal nicotine patches on sleep and dream mentation in 15 smokers aged 20 to 33. Utilising a repeated measures design, it was found that more time awake and more ASDA micro-arousals occurred while wearing the nicotine patch compared to placebo. Also, the percentage of REM sleep decreased, but REM latency and the proportion of time...
With the aim of evaluating the sympathetic-adrenal medulla system in subjects practicing transcendental meditation (TM), their plasma catecholamine levels were determined at two different times of day. The study group consisted of 19 subjects who regularly practice either TM or Sidhi-TM technique, with a control group made up of 16 healthy subjects who had not previously used any relaxation...
We have evaluated the effect of Transcendental Meditation (TM) on the hypothalamo-hypophyseal-adrenal axis diurnal rhythms through the determination of hormone levels. Blood samples were taken at 0900 hours. and at 2000 hours. These samples were taken from 18 healthy volunteers who regularly practice TM and from nine healthy non-meditators. Cortisol, beta-endorphin, and adrenocorticotropic...
We have previously shown that chronic developmental administration of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonists reduces synaptic development; however, on withdrawal from NMDA antagonism, there is a rebound period during which synaptogenesis exceeds control levels. The current research was undertaken to explore this period of withdrawal, using the noncompetitive antagonist phencyclidine (PCP),...