Scientific Reports
February 28, 2018
Will Lawn, Jaime E. C. Hallak, José A. Crippa et al.
3 citations
A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has not been fixed in the paper.
Scientific Reports
February 8, 2018
Delphine Oudiette, Pauline Dodet, Nahema Ledard et al.
Breathing is irregular during rapid eye-movement (REM) sleep, whereas it is stable during non-REM sleep. Why this is so remains a mystery. We propose that irregular breathing has a cortical origin and reflects the mental content of dreams, which often accompany REM sleep. We tested 21 patients with narcolepsy who had the exceptional ability to lucid dream in REM sleep, a condition in which one...
Scientific Reports
February 5, 2018
U. Kreplin, Miguel Farias, Inti A. Brazil
Many individuals believe that meditation has the capacity to not only alleviate mental-illness but to improve prosociality. This article systematically reviewed and meta-analysed the effects of meditation interventions on prosociality in randomized controlled trials of healthy adults. Five types of social behaviours were identified: compassion, empathy, aggression, connectedness and prejudice....
Scientific Reports
January 12, 2018
Kim P. C. Kuypers, Rafael de la Torre, Magı́ Farré et al.
12 citations
Abstract MDMA exerts its main effects via the serotonergic system and the serotonin transporter. The gene coding for this transporter determines the expression rate of the transporter. Previously it was shown that healthy individuals with the short allelic variant (‘ s -group’) of the 5-HTTLPR-polymorphism displayed more anxiety and negative mood, and had a lower transcriptional efficiency...
Scientific Reports
January 11, 2018
Robert David Sanders, Joel S. Winston, Gareth Robert Barnes et al.
13 citations
Bistability occurs when two alternative percepts can be derived from the same physical stimulus. To identify the neural correlates of specific subjective experiences we used a bistable auditory stimulus and determined whether the two perceptual states could be distinguished electrophysiologically. Fourteen participants underwent magnetoencephalography while reporting their perceptual experience...
Scientific Reports
December 15, 2017
Selen Atasoy, Leor Roseman, Mendel Kaelen et al.
225 citations
Recent studies have started to elucidate the effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on the human brain but the underlying dynamics are not yet fully understood. Here we used 'connectome-harmonic decomposition', a novel method to investigate the dynamical changes in brain states. We found that LSD alters the energy and the power of individual harmonic brain states in a frequency-selective...
Scientific Reports
December 5, 2017
Sakari Kallio, Mika Koivisto, Johanna K. Kaakinen
10 citations
Are synaesthetic experiences congenital and so hard-wired, or can a functional analogue be created? We induced an equivalent of form-colour synaesthesia using hypnotic suggestions in which symbols in an array (circles, crosses, squares) were suggested always to have a certain colour. In a Stroop type-naming task, three of the four highly hypnotizable participants showed a strong...
Scientific Reports
December 1, 2017
Minji Lee, Robert D. Sanders, Seul-Ki Yeom et al.
Reliable electroencephalography (EEG) signatures of transitions between consciousness and unconsciousness under anaesthesia have not yet been identified. Herein we examined network changes using graph theoretical analysis of high-density EEG during patient-titrated propofol-induced sedation. Responsiveness was used as a surrogate for consciousness. We divided the data into five states:...
Scientific Reports
November 17, 2017
Katja Weckmann, Michael J Deery, Julie A Howard et al.
Fewer than 50% of all patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) treated with currently available antidepressants (ADs) show full remission. Moreover, about one third of the patients suffering from MDD does not respond to conventional ADs and develop treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Ketamine, a non-competitive, voltage-dependent N-Methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist, has been...
Scientific Reports
November 16, 2017
Keisuke Suzuki, Warrick Roseboom, David J. Schwartzman et al.
111 citations
Altered states of consciousness, such as psychotic or pharmacologically-induced hallucinations, provide a unique opportunity to examine the mechanisms underlying conscious perception. However, the phenomenological properties of these states are difficult to isolate experimentally from other, more general physiological and cognitive effects of psychoactive substances or psychopathological...
Scientific Reports
November 10, 2017
Youge Qu, Chun Yang, Qian Ren et al.
126 citations
Accumulating evidence suggests a key role of the gut-microbiota-brain axis in the antidepressant actions of certain compounds. Ketamine, an N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist, showed rapid and sustained antidepressant effects in treatment-resistant depressed patients. In contrast, another NMDAR antagonist, lanicemine, did not exhibit antidepressant effects in such patients....
Scientific Reports
November 3, 2017
Will Lawn, Jaime E. C. Hallak, José Alexandre S. Crippa et al.
78 citations
Abstract Ayahuasca is a natural psychedelic brew, which contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Its potential as a psychiatric medicine has recently been demonstrated and its non-medical use around the world appears to be growing. We aimed to investigate well-being and problematic alcohol use in ayahuasca users, and ayahuasca’s subjective effects. An online, self-selecting, global survey examining...
Scientific Reports
November 3, 2017
Sagnik Bhattacharyya, Alice Egerton, Euitae Kim et al.
Use of Cannabis, the most widely used illicit drug worldwide, is associated with acute anxiety, and anxiety disorders following regular use. The precise neural and receptor basis of these effects have not been tested in man. Employing a combination of functional MRI (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), we investigated whether the effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-9-THC),...
Scientific Reports
October 25, 2017
Liila Taruffi, Corinna Pehrs, Stavros Skouras et al.
177 citations
Music is a ubiquitous phenomenon in human cultures, mostly due to its power to evoke and regulate emotions. However, effects of music evoking different emotional experiences such as sadness and happiness on cognition, and in particular on self-generated thought, are unknown. Here we use probe-caught thought sampling and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the influence...
Scientific Reports
October 17, 2017
Constanza Baquedano, Rodrigo C. Vergara, Vladimir Lopez et al.
34 citations
Immersing ourselves in food images can sometimes make it feel subjectively real, as if the actual food were right in front of us. Excessive self-immersion into mental content, however, is a hallmark of psychological distress, and of several psychiatric conditions. Being aware that imagined events are not necessarily an accurate depiction of reality is a key feature of psychotherapeutic...
Scientific Reports
October 13, 2017
Robin Carhart-Harris, Leor Roseman, Mark Bolstridge et al.
590 citations
Psilocybin with psychological support is showing promise as a treatment model in psychiatry but its therapeutic mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, cerebral blood flow (CBF) and blood oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) were measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and after treatment with psilocybin (serotonin agonist) for...
Scientific Reports
October 9, 2017
Vanja Dakic, Juliana Minardi Nascimento, Rafaela Costa Sartore et al.
137 citations
Dimethyltryptamines are entheogenic serotonin-like molecules present in traditional Amerindian medicine recently associated with cognitive gains, antidepressant effects, and changes in brain areas related to attention. Legal restrictions and the lack of adequate experimental models have limited the understanding of how such substances impact human brain metabolism. Here we used shotgun mass...
Scientific Reports
August 25, 2017
Gaël Chételat, Florence Mezenge, Clémence Tomadesso et al.
67 citations
Aging is associated with progressive cerebral volume and glucose metabolism decreases. Conditions such as stress and sleep difficulties exacerbate these changes and are risk factors for Alzheimer's disease. Meditation practice, aiming towards stress reduction and emotion regulation, can downregulate these adverse factors. In this pilot study, we explored the possibility that lifelong meditation...
Scientific Reports
August 24, 2017
Étienne Allard, Elisa Canzoneri, Dan Adler et al.
55 citations
Dyspnoea, a subjective experience of breathing discomfort, is a most distressing symptom. It implicates complex cortical networks that partially overlap with those underlying bodily self-consciousness, the experience that the body is one's own within a given location (self-identification and self-location, respectively). Breathing as an interoceptive signal contributes to bodily...
Scientific Reports
August 15, 2017
B. Martin, Nicolas Franck, Michel Cermolacce et al.
58 citations
Patients with schizophrenia have difficulty in making sensory predictions, in the time domain, which have been proposed to be related to self-disorders. However experimental evidence is lacking. We examined both voluntary and automatic forms of temporal prediction in 28 patients and 24 matched controls. A visual cue predicted (temporal cue) or not (neutral cue) the time (400 ms/1000 ms) at...
Scientific Reports
July 18, 2017
Kaixiang Zhuang, Minghua Bi, Yu Li et al.
45 citations
The most widely used measurements of mindfulness are the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ). However, controversies exist regarding the application of these scales. Additionally, the neural mechanisms of dispositional mindfulness havebecome a topic of interest. In the current study, we used surface-based methodology to identify the brain...
Scientific Reports
July 11, 2017
Sunghyon Kyeong, Joohan Kim, Dae-Jin Kim et al.
A sense of gratitude is a powerful and positive experience that can promote a happier life, whereas resentment is associated with life dissatisfaction. To explore the effects of gratitude and resentment on mental well-being, we acquired functional magnetic resonance imaging and heart rate (HR) data before, during, and after the gratitude and resentment interventions. Functional connectivity...
Scientific Reports
July 7, 2017
José Á. Morales-García, Mario de la Fuente Revenga, Sandra Alonso‐gil et al.
173 citations
Abstract Banisteriopsis caapi is the basic ingredient of ayahuasca, a psychotropic plant tea used in the Amazon for ritual and medicinal purposes, and by interested individuals worldwide. Animal studies and recent clinical research suggests that B . caapi preparations show antidepressant activity, a therapeutic effect that has been linked to hippocampal neurogenesis. Here we report that...
Scientific Reports
June 5, 2017
Ze-Min Xie, Xingming Wang, Ning Xu et al.
69 citations
Although pain is frequently accompanied with depression, little is known about the risk factors contributing to individual differences to the comorbidity of pain and depression. In this study, we examined whether cytokines and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) might contribute to the individual differences in the development of neuropathic pain-induced depression. Rats were randomly...
Scientific Reports
May 25, 2017
Xiaoming Li, Ru Ma, Liangjun Pang et al.
Cigarette craving is a key contributor of nicotine addiction. Hypnotic aversion suggestions have been used to help smoking cessation and reduce smoking relapse rates but its neural basis is poorly understood. This study investigated the underlying neural basis of hypnosis treatment for nicotine addiction with resting state Electroencephalograph (EEG) coherence as the measure. The sample...