Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
July 9, 2026
Andrew P. Maurer, Sara Burke, Mary A. Peterson et al.
How does the brain generate meaning from the continuous flow of sensory input? We propose that meaning is not the product of isolated regions or circuits but an emergent property of large-scale recurrently connected networks in which the hippocampus plays a pivotal role. Drawing from cognitive science, developmental studies and systems neuroscience, we outline five key principles by which the...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
October 21, 2024
Stefanie Enriquez‐geppert, Jaroslav Krc, Fiachra O'Higgins et al.
5 citations
Executive function deficits, common in psychiatric disorders, hinder daily activities and may be linked to diminished neural plasticity, affecting treatment and training responsiveness. In this pioneering study, we evaluated the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of psilocybin-assisted frontal-midline theta neurofeedback (NF), a neuromodulation technique leveraging neuroplasticity, to improve...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
December 13, 2020
Jennifer Windt
56 citations
Whether we are awake or asleep is believed to mark a sharp divide between the types of conscious states we undergo in either behavioural state. Consciousness in sleep is often equated with dreaming and thought to be characteristically different from waking consciousness. Conversely, recent research shows that we spend a substantial amount of our waking lives mind wandering, or lost in...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
December 13, 2020
Madeleine E. Gross, Anna Smith, Yvette M. Graveline et al.
37 citations
Humans spend a considerable portion of their lives engaged in 'stimulus-independent thoughts' (SIT), or mental activity that occurs independently of input from the immediate external environment. Although such SITs are, by definition, different from thoughts that are driven by stimuli in one's external environment (i.e. stimulus-dependent thoughts; SDTs), at times, the phenomenology of these...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
December 13, 2020
Caitlin Mills, Andre Zamani, Rebecca White et al.
27 citations
Thoughts that appear to come to us ‘out of the blue’ or ‘out of nowhere’ are a familiar aspect of mental experience. Such thoughts tend to elicit feelings of surprise and spontaneity. Although we are beginning to understand the neural processes that underlie the arising of such thoughts, little is known about what accounts for their peculiar phenomenology. Here, we focus on one central aspect...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
December 13, 2020
Flavie Waters, Joseph M Barnby, Jan Dirk Blom
26 citations
Within the broad field of human perception lies the category of stimulus-independent perceptions, which draws together experiences such as hallucinations, mental imagery and dreams. Traditional divisions between medical and psychological sciences have contributed to these experiences being investigated separately. This review aims to examine their similarities and differences at the levels of...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
October 11, 2016
Anil K. Seth, Karl Friston
936 citations
We review a recent shift in conceptions of interoception and its relationship to hierarchical inference in the brain. The notion of interoceptive inference means that bodily states are regulated by autonomic reflexes that are enslaved by descending predictions from deep generative models of our internal and external milieu. This re-conceptualization illuminates several issues in cognitive and...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
March 17, 2014
Randolph Blake, Jan Brascamp, David J. Heeger
102 citations
This essay critically examines the extent to which binocular rivalry can provide important clues about the neural correlates of conscious visual perception. Our ideas are presented within the framework of four questions about the use of rivalry for this purpose: (i) what constitutes an adequate comparison condition for gauging rivalry's impact on awareness, (ii) how can one distinguish...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
July 23, 2012
Ronald S. Duman, Nanxin Li
361 citations
Molecular and cellular studies have demonstrated opposing actions of stress and antidepressant treatment on the expression of neurotrophic factors, particularly brain-derived neurotrophic factor, in limbic structures of the brain. These changes in neurotrophic factor expression and function result in structural alterations, including regulation of neurogenesis, dendrite length and spine density...
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
November 29, 1998
M. E. Raichle
130 citations
This paper presents a functional brain-imaging strategy designed to isolate neural correlates of consciousness in humans. This strategy is based on skill learning. In the example presented (rapidly generating verbs for visually presented nouns), a cognitive skill is examined before and after practice. As shown, there are marked qualitative differences in the neural circuitry supporting...