Abstract A central challenge in neuroscience is understanding how the human brain is organised to support optimal functioning and adaptability. One approach to characterise complex brain dynamics is by artificially perturbing whole-brain models. Here, we asked whether whole-brain organisation under perturbation in major depressive disorder (MDD) changes after intervention with psilocybin and...
ABSTRACT Intense aesthetic experiences are among the most complex responses arising from the interaction of mind, brain, and context. Observations from fMRI suggest that when viewers feel highly moved by artworks, the underlying neural states differ from those accompanying less intense responses, particularly through recruitment of the DMN. Using electroencephalography and Bayesian...
The neural correlates of conscious perception remain debated, particularly regarding the role of extra-sensory regions such as the prefrontal cortex. One promising approach is to study the dynamical properties of neural processing in task-related and task-free contexts. A previous EEG study showed that conscious perception is associated with all-or-none late activations, giving rise to...
Abstract In recent decades, the psychedelic psilocybin has been studied as a potential treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD), offering an alternative to traditional antidepressants. However, the brain changes underlying the clinical effects of different interventions remain unclear. Here, we investigated the effects of psilocybin and a conventional antidepressant, escitalopram, from the...
Abstract Psilocybin and other serotonergic psychedelics show therapeutic promise for psychiatric disorders, yet objective neural correlates linking the acute psychedelic state to persisting psychological outcomes remain limited. Electroencephalography (EEG) microstate analysis characterizes the rapid spatiotemporal organization of large-scale brain activity, offering a millisecond-resolution...
Abstract Brain dynamics can be described in three different convenient mathematical languages, namely connectome harmonics, turbulence and complex harmonics (CHARM). Here we demonstrate that these theoretical frameworks can be rigorously unified, under the functional calculus, as one self-adjoint operator and its single spectral measure. The connectome Laplacian carries that measure; the...
Abstract Dream recall varies substantially both between individuals and from night to night within the same individual. Although nocturnal awakenings are thought to facilitate the encoding and later retrieval of dream experiences, it remains unclear whether dream recall is shaped primarily by awakening frequency or by more specific awakening characteristics, including duration, sleep stage, and...
ABSTRACT Meditation has been associated with improvements in attention, emotional regulation, and mental well-being, motivating increasing interest in objective methods for assessing meditative states. In this study, we investigate whether EEG-based machine learning can reliably distinguish between multiple meditation styles and mind-wandering states. EEG data were recorded from experienced...
Abstract Functional connectivity (FC) is a statistical measure that reflects the degree of phase consistency between two signals and provides insights about potential interactions between two brain regions. Previous studies have reported conflicting results on the effect of meditation on FC, with some showing enhancement while others reporting suppression of FC. However, even though meditation...
Flow, as defined by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (1975), is a holistic sensation experienced when individuals are fully immersed in an activity, resulting in a mental state characterized by a diminished sense of self and altered perception of time. To investigate the global neural dynamics underlying flow, we employed EEG microstate analysis to capture the spatial and temporal properties of...
Abstract Mindfulness-based interventions effectively reduce stress and anxiety, yet the neural mechanisms underlying contemplative practices and their optimal implementation parameters remain poorly understood. A critical barrier to real-world application is the absence of validated minimally invasive neural recording technologies. Here, we simultaneously recorded full-coverage scalp and...
Abstract A central question in consciousness research is whether perceptual awareness arises predominantly from activity in posterior sensory regions or from later frontal processes associated with access and report. Empirical tests of these alternatives are challenging because most paradigms rely on explicit perceptual reports, introducing motor and decisional confounds. Here, we used an...
ABSTRACT Schizophrenia (SCZ) is increasingly linked to neuroimmune dysregulation and impaired synaptic plasticity, yet the cellular mechanisms connecting inflammatory signaling to neural dysfunction remain poorly understood. Using human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cortical spheroids (hCS) and astrocytes from patients with SCZ and matched controls, we investigated the effects of...
Recent studies pioneered the use of classic hallucinogens as Rapid-Acting Antidepressants (RAAD). To further understand the link between their neuromodulatory and antidepressant effects, we combine pharmacodynamic profiles of four classic hallucinogens and the anaesthetic Ketamine with receptor density distributions from both Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and layer-resoluted...
Abstract Background Contemporary research indicates that psychedelics induce notable neurophysiological changes, some lasting weeks to months after a single dose. However, most evidence derives from acute administration studies and limited post-acute follow-ups. Long-term naturalistic psychedelic users remain critically underexamined, yet may exhibit distinct neurobiological profiles informing...
Abstract Self-transcendence, the reorientation of experience away from the self toward others, nature, or broader meaning, is a fundamental dimension of human psychology, yet its causal neural architecture remains poorly understood. Here we applied lesion network mapping to 88 neurosurgical patients with pre- and post-operative assessments of trait self-transcendence to identify the distributed...
Abstract Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating condition that affects millions of veterans. A recent observational study in 30 veterans showed that a single dose of the atypical psychedelic ibogaine can be highly effective at treating PTSD up to twelve months later. Although a prior study demonstrated that ibogaine transiently alters electroencephalography (EEG) power in...
Abstract Serotonergic psychedelics have attracted considerable interest as promising therapeutic agents. However, the molecular mechanisms linking their acute hallucinogenic-like effects to longer-lasting neuroplastic responses remain incompletely understood, partly because of the scarcity of native neural models suitable for mechanistic studies. Here, we developed a neural stem cell-derived in...
Abstract The brain continuously integrates information from the external environment (exteroception) and the internal bodily milieu (interoception). How the balance between these two processing streams shifts across vigilance states with differing levels of environmental responsiveness, however, remains poorly understood. Here, we examined neural responses to external auditory and internal...
Abstract Despite numerous investigations, a comprehensive electrophysiological characterization of iconic memory remains lacking. Through a partial report paradigm, we aimed to shed light on this topic by disentangling electrophysiological activity related to stimulus perception from that linked with the specific task. We collected EEG data from 26 participants while they performed a partial...
Abstract Lucid dream (LD) induction using external sensory stimulation has most commonly relied on distal cues such as lights or auditory signals, with mixed success rates. In this study, we investigated whether more direct bodily stimulation targeting the muscle and vestibular systems could influence LD induction. We compared electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) and galvanic vestibular...
Abstract Lucid dreaming (LD), during which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming, is frequently induced in laboratory settings by delivering sensory cues during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. These cues should be incorporated into ongoing dreams and can trigger reflective awareness. This approach relies on the continuity between waking experiences and dream content. In sleep...
Abstract New treatments for depression are needed that combine robust efficacy with improved scalability. Although psilocybin has demonstrated antidepressant effects in Phase 3 clinical trials, some of its psychedelic effects limit tolerability, necessitating administration in highly supervised clinical settings, and thus motivating development of serotonergic therapeutics that preserve...
Abstract Ketamine’s rapid neuropsychiatric actions emerge from interactions that span receptors, cells, and circuits, but their net effects on human neuronal population dynamics remain incompletely defined. Here we combine human dorsal forebrain organoids with high-density microelectrode arrays (MEAs) to quantify ketamine’s effects from spikes to networks. In 6-month-old organoids, acute...
Abstract Fear extinction requires dynamic updating of cortical representations, yet the neural mechanisms underlying successful extinction remain poorly understood. Some psychoactive substances induce structural plasticity in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), possibly underlying their therapeutic potential. Here we investigated whether MDMA, which enhances fear extinction, induces prefrontal...