Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
September 30, 2021
Fiona Harding, Mathieu Seynaeve, Johanna Keeler et al.
18 citations
About 1.25 million people in the UK have an eating disorder, but current treatments have limited effectiveness, prompting interest in new approaches. A web survey of 200 people with eating disorders found that 70% had used complementary therapies to manage their condition. Participants viewed psychedelic research as worthwhile but expressed moderate concern. To address these concerns, they suggested education about psychedelics and their psychiatric use, endorsement from professionals, and a safe, monitored environment with strong patient-therapist rapport. These findings inform future trials of psychedelics for eating disorders.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
August 16, 2022
Ezio Carboni, Anna R. Carta
15 citations
Major depressive disorder is a leading cause of disability worldwide, and current treatments mostly target monoamine reuptake. The recent approval of esketamine as a rapid-acting antidepressant highlights glutamatergic transmission's role. This review examines the hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), nucleus accumbens (NAc), lateral habenula (LHb), amygdala, and bed nucleus of stria terminalis (BNST) in animal models of depression. Chronic stress alters brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression and dendritic density in these areas. Ketamine and standard antidepressants can reverse these changes. The authors propose that the mPFC, NAc/ventral tegmental area (VTA), and hippocampus form a primary circuit where normal function supports resilience. Disruption by environmental challenges or activation of the amygdala, LHb, or BNST can spread detrimental effects and generate depression symptoms, including anhedonia.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
August 31, 2022
Noémi Császár-nagy, Petr Bob, István Bókkon
9 citations
A complex hypothesis proposes that serotonergic psychedelics act on gut microbes, prompting host enterochromaffin cells to temporarily increase production of 5-HT (serotonin). This 5-HT is taken up and distributed by platelets, potentially acting as a hormone-like signal that influences membrane permeability in organs and the brain. Elevated plasma 5-HT may transiently increase blood-brain barrier permeability, allowing 5-HT to enter the central nervous system via volume transmission. There, gut-derived 5-HT could modulate excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission, causing network disintegration. This transient neural disruption may allow patients access to suppressed fear information and enable an emotional reset, with the amygdala playing a key role.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
May 26, 2025
Zhusheng Chen, Tong Cheng, Haorui Yang et al.
5 citations
Several treatment options for neuropathic pain and depression, especially when they occur together, are reviewed. Physiotherapy approaches like electroacupuncture and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation alter neuronal function. Pharmacological treatments include tricyclic antidepressants, gabapentin, ketamine, minocycline, and Chinese medicine, which work by modifying ion channels, neurotransmitter release, or inflammation. The review discusses the mechanisms and limitations of these therapies, aiming to guide future research and improve care for this common comorbidity.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
July 25, 2025
Christopher Zaki
1 citation
Ketamine shows significant efficacy for managing chronic pain conditions such as neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, and complex regional pain syndrome, especially in treatment-resistant cases. Up to 50% of chronic pain patients experience depression or anxiety. Ketamine's NMDA receptor antagonism underlies both its analgesic effects and rapid antidepressant responses in treatment-resistant depression and acute suicidal ideation, as evidenced by its FDA-approved formulation Spravato (esketamine). Emerging evidence supports potential use in anxiety disorders, OCD, PTSD, and some substance use disorders. Psychomimetic effects and safety concerns require careful clinical oversight.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
August 25, 2025
Yi'an Wang, Qi Li, Zhijun Zhong et al.
Sleep paralysis is a temporary inability to move or speak while falling asleep or waking up, caused by REM-sleep muscle atonia persisting into wakefulness. The brain's subcoeruleus nucleus (or sublaterodorsal nucleus in rats) primarily induces this paralysis. The condition appears in the International Classification of Sleep Disorders as a REM-sleep parasomnia, either isolated or narcolepsy-associated. This article systematically reviews the neural circuits controlling REM sleep, predisposing factors, clinical features, and treatments for sleep paralysis, compares isolated and narcolepsy-associated forms, and speculates on microsleep's role.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
January 28, 2022
Snezana Kusljic, Maarten Van den Buuse, Andrea Gogos
Locomotor hyperactivity triggered by psychotomimetic drugs like amphetamine and phencyclidine is often linked to dopamine and NMDA receptors, but their pharmacological profiles are more complex. In 32 rats, pre-treatment with haloperidol (dopamine antagonist) or prazosin (noradrenaline antagonist) reduced amphetamine-induced hyperactivity, while ritanserin (serotonin antagonist) had only a partial effect. None of these pre-treatments significantly altered phencyclidine-induced hyperactivity. The findings indicate that both noradrenergic and dopaminergic systems are critical for amphetamine's effects, whereas phencyclidine's hyperlocomotion likely depends on NMDA receptor antagonism. This helps interpret drug-induced hyperactivity as a model of psychosis.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
December 30, 2020
Rong Chen, Na Li, Hao Qian et al.
In mice, increasing calcium ion concentration in the brain did not raise consciousness as previously proposed. Injecting a calcium chelator (EGTA) increased the sevoflurane dose needed to suppress the righting reflex—indicating heightened consciousness—while injecting either calcium-40 or calcium-43 chloride lowered that dose, reducing consciousness. The identical effects of the two calcium isotopes show no isotope dependence, contradicting predictions based on Posner molecules and nuclear-spin entanglement. These findings disprove the conventional idea that calcium ion concentration correlates with consciousness.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
December 30, 2020
Jack A Tuszynski
Quantum physics, originally developed to explain early 20th-century experiments, now provides a framework for molecular bonds via quantum chemistry and is being applied to biological phenomena such as photosynthesis and bird navigation. The quantum metabolism theory extends these concepts to explain allometric scaling laws in physiology. The paper also examines whether quantum physics can help understand consciousness, a topic some researchers consider science's last frontier while others deem it outside science. It discusses the Orch OR theory and other hypotheses that aim to provide a scientific basis for consciousness, evaluating their merits and potential extensions.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
March 23, 2020
R. R. Poznanski, L. A. Cacha, A. Z. A. Latif, S. H. Salleh, J. Ali, P. Yupapin, J. A. Tuszynski, M. A. Tengku
A macro-quantum model uses computable equations to describe spontaneous processes. Solving a macro-quantum wave equation via a Madelung transformation yields a complex-valued solution whose real part gives the macro-quantum potential energy. The mechanism behind spontaneous phase differences is a pilot-wave force from internal thermo-quantum energy, contributing to phase synchrony and the emergence of 'long-range order' through actualized phase differences. Macroscopic pilot-wave theory explains how informational patterns carry 'meaning' via a 'consciousness code' from thermo-quantum fluctuations. Negentropic entanglement of phase differences, according to panexperientialism, acts as a 'conscious pilot' providing stability.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
March 30, 2019
R R Poznanski, L A Cacha, A Z A Latif et al.
Subjectivity has a physical basis in guidance waves that carry meaning through negentropically entangled non-electrolytic brain regions. These waves originate from de Broglie 'hidden' thermodynamics and act at microscopic scales. Preconscious experienceability involves a nested hierarchy of microprocesses actualized as patterns of discrete atomic microfeels (qualia). The mechanism is suggested to be negentropic entanglement of thermodynamic information transfer as thermo-qubits from nonpolarized regions of actin-binding proteinaceous structures in nonsynaptic spines. This produces a negentropic force encoded as a 'consciousness code'. Consciousness comprises two subprocesses: preconscious experienceability (governing subjectivity) and conscious experience (governing self-awareness), both framed within nonreductive physicalism and panexperiential materialism.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
January 1, 2017
J Shashi Kiran Reddy, Contzen Pereira
Microorganisms display intelligent behavior that resembles consciousness, possibly arising from quantum-mediated mechanisms in cytoskeletal structures such as microtubules, which may perform quantum computation. This paper hypothesizes that proto-consciousness emerged in primitive cytoskeletal systems within archaea, bacteria, and eukarya during the pre-Cambrian period. Using the Subject-Object Model (SOM) of consciousness, the authors argue that proto-consciousness or sentience, computed via these structures, drove microbial intelligence—from single-celled to collective behaviors—as an adaptive survival mechanism. The increasing complexity of intelligence, cytoskeletal systems, and adaptive behaviors supports a Lamarckian evolutionary framework, where quantum-mediated proto-consciousness progresses toward full consciousness as described by the SOM.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
September 1, 2015
Lucio Tonello, Massimo Cocchi, Fabio Gabrielli et al.
Cell membrane fatty acids (FAs) in neurons and platelets may be linked to psychopathologies through their connection to membrane dynamics and cytoskeleton dynamics, particularly microtubules (MTs). The quantum model of Craddock et al. (2014) proposes that MTs support collective quantum coherent excitations in aromatic groups of tryptophan residues, acting as a sub-nanosecond clocking mechanism. Such excitations, induced by photons and observed in light-harvesting complexes in plants and bacteria, suggest quantum processes in biology. Intra-cellular photons could arise from membrane lipid peroxidation, linking FA profile to bio-photon emission. The model proposes two new roles for serotonin: as an antioxidant counterbalancing FA oxidative effects, and in quantum interactions with MTs, similar to anesthetics and psychoactive compounds. FA profile could indirectly measure serotonin levels.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
June 1, 2014
C G Hales
A biophysically realistic mechanism is proposed for how the brain's endogenous electromagnetic (EM) field could originate consciousness. The spatial and temporal coherent action of transmembrane ion channel currents, acting like tiny current filaments, produces electric and magnetic fields that dominate all other field sources. Computational exploration of a realistic hippocampus CA1 pyramidal neuron reveals that action potential signaling creates a highly structured, focused, and directed "sweeping-lighthouse beam" that "illuminates" neighbors at millimeter scales. This offers a possible explanation for EEG/MEG origins and functional EM coupling. An EM field decomposition reveals objective and subjective perspectives intrinsic to membrane-centric field dynamics, where perceptual "fields" operate as collective virtual EM-boson composites called qualeons, offering a physically plausible route to solving the "hard problem" of consciousness.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
June 1, 2014
Mark Solms
A neuropsychoanalytical approach to the hard problem of consciousness prioritizes the subject over objects of consciousness. The subject is the indispensable foundation upon which consciousness of objects is inscribed. Subjective being is not registered in classical exteroceptive modalities; rather, those modalities are registered within subjectivity. Cognitive representations are mental solids embedded in subjectivity, and these solids are no more real than the subjective being they inhabit. Pure subjectivity has content and quality, conventionally described as level of consciousness or wakefulness, but it feels like something to be awake. Affect supplies the subjectivity that underpins all consciousness.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
June 1, 2014
Stuart Hameroff, Travis J A Craddock, Jack A Tuszynski
Quantum physics, originally developed for inanimate matter, is increasingly applied to biology and consciousness studies. Individual biological phenomena such as photosynthesis and bird navigation have been analyzed using quantum methods, building conceptual foundations for quantum biology. Several proposals, especially the Orch OR hypothesis, suggest microtubules as the substrate for conscious processes based on quantum coherence and entanglement. Quantum Metabolism, quantum processes in ion channels, and quantum effects in sensory stimulation are also discussed. The paper reviews challenges and merits of quantum consciousness approaches and their potential extensions.
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience
March 1, 2008
Ram Lakhan Pandey Vimal
The authors propose a framework called the proto-experience (PE) and subjective experience (SE) framework to address problems in reductive monism and non-reductive substance dualism. They hypothesize that elementary particles have both material aspects (mass, charge, spin) and phenomenal aspects (elemental PEs). These PEs are superimposed in particles, making them appear non-experiential. Matter and PEs co-evolved into neural networks and associated neural-net PEs through neural Darwinism, where neural-net PEs emerge via non-computational self-organization. The framework aims to integrate reductive and non-reductive views, complement existing models, bridge explanatory gaps, and minimize the problem of causation.