Scientific Reports
May 8, 2026
Erola Pons, Julieta Galante, Nicholas T. van Dam et al.
Depersonalization/derealization (DPDR) involves feeling detached from one's body, thoughts, or emotions and is often triggered by trauma, stress, mental health issues, or drug use, typically causing high distress. Similar experiences are also reported in meditation contexts, where they are often described as positive, insightful, and meaningful. However, no study has systematically compared...
Scientific Reports
May 2, 2026
Sebastian Halder, Bjørn Erik Juel, Kenneth J Pope et al.
Both basic and clinical consciousness research aims to find objective measures that reliably distinguish conscious from unconscious brain states. Electroencephalogram (EEG) measures are widely used, although they may be affected by interference from electrical signals such as those generated by muscles. To assess this source of error, we investigated the impact of neuromuscular blockade (NMB)...
Scientific Reports
April 25, 2026
Audrey G. Evers, Elizabeth C. Stade, Aadesh Salecha et al.
1 citation
Enthusiastic media coverage of psychedelics as a treatment for mental health disorders is perceived as hyped compared to coverage of established treatments. To measure potential hype, we conducted pre-registered analyses comparing media coverage (e.g., newspaper articles) of psychedelics to FDA-approved antidepressants for major depressive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder. We used...
Scientific Reports
April 21, 2026
Rong Ding, Daojie Wang, Guoxin Wang et al.
Elderly colorectal cancer (CRC) patients face high risks of postoperative depression state, inadequately addressed by opioid-based analgesia. Esketamine, an NMDA receptor antagonist with rapid antidepressant effects, offers potential benefits but lacks evidence in this population. This double-blind RCT enrolled 99 elderly (≥ 65 years) CRC resection patients, randomized to three postoperative...
Scientific Reports
April 16, 2026
Min Seo Lee, Im-Sook Song, Yeonsu Jang et al.
Eutylone is a methylenedioxy-substituted synthetic cathinone increasingly detected in toxicological case analyses and commonly encountered under polydrug use conditions. To support metabolism-informed surveillance and risk assessment of emerging stimulants, this study comprehensively characterized eutylone disposition and interaction liability using plasma protein binding, metabolic stability...
Scientific Reports
April 15, 2026
Jacob S. Aday, Nicolas G. Glynos, Anne Baker et al.
Psychedelic drugs show promise in facilitating a variety of long-term psychological changes, but they may also lead to unexpected major life changes that have not been captured by measures typically used in clinical trials. The Psychedelic-related Major Life Changes Questionnaire ( P-MLCQ ) was created to assess psychedelic-related major life changes across 10 different domains and evaluated in...
Scientific Reports
April 14, 2026
Mohamed Ali Sifi, Hamza Marzouki, Okba Selmi et al.
2 citations
This study examined whether a three-week mindfulness program integrated into swim training could enhance mental skills, stabilize internal-load responses, and affect short-term endurance performance in youth swimmers. Thirty trained swimmers (20 males, 10 females; aged 19.7 ± 1.7 years) were randomly assigned to an experimental group (EG, n = 15) or a control group (CG, n = 15). The EG...
Scientific Reports
April 6, 2026
Koichiro Adachi, Takumu Kurosawa, Ryu Takizawa
This study investigated whether gender moderates the effects of online mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) on mental health outcomes in non-clinical populations. Specifically, we explored gender-related patterns in emotion regulation and cognitive flexibility. Data were obtained from a randomised controlled trial employing a crossover design in 2022 and 2023. Three hundred Japanese workers...
Scientific Reports
March 27, 2026
Gianmauro Palombelli, Valentina Zecca, Marta Boffa et al.
1 citation
Major depressive disorder is highly prevalent and disabling, and many patients do not respond to standard therapies, resulting in treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Progress in TRD requires preclinical models with poor response to conventional treatments. The Wistar-Kyoto rat exposed to chronic mild stress (WKY/CMS) offers a robust paradigm: it shows limited responsiveness to standard...
Scientific Reports
March 26, 2026
Y. J. Gordon, Golan Karvat, Noa Dagan et al.
Altered states of consciousness (ASC) involve shifts in perception, cognition, and awareness, offering a unique lens on the nature of consciousness. Across cultures, rhythmic drumming in the theta range (4-7 Hz) is often used to induce such states, but it remains unclear whether actively enhancing brain rhythms in this range can cause ASC. We tested whether theta-frequency drumming (4 beats per...
Scientific Reports
March 25, 2026
Johannes Björkstrand, Emil Olsson, Oisín Hugh Clancy et al.
Fear-based disorders affect millions worldwide, yet current treatments show limited effectiveness for many patients. While mindfulness is increasingly used clinically for anxiety and trauma disorders, the neural mechanisms underlying its effects on fear processing remain unclear. We conducted a randomized controlled trial using 7T fMRI to test whether mindfulness training enhances fear...
Scientific Reports
March 18, 2026
Jonas T. T. Schlomberg, Daniel Meling, Robin Grylka et al.
The acute subjective effects (ASEs) of psychedelic substances are assumed to play a critical role for their therapeutic and well-being enhancing benefits. However, recent work voiced critique regarding the validity and adequacy of conventional measures and modalities utilized to study ASEs of psychedelics, and call for data-driven, unbiased, and experience-based research approaches. The...
Scientific Reports
March 13, 2026
Daniel Soares Brandão, Rafael N. B. Scott, Ernesto Soares et al.
Every studied animal species exhibits some form of sleep, a state evolved under the sustained influence of prey and predator behaviors. Dreams have been proposed to have evolved as offline mental simulations able to warn against impending threats from the environment, such as predators. To assess how the ecological roles of prey and predator interact with sleep and dreaming, we used a...
Scientific Reports
March 10, 2026
Bruna Brands, Adam Zaweel, Madison Wright et al.
Given the increasing availability of high-potency Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) products, understanding potency-related effects of Δ9-THC on driving performance is an important public safety issue. This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subjects trial examined the effects of smoked cannabis with varying Δ9-THC concentrations on simulated driving. Adults aged 19–45 who...
Scientific Reports
March 10, 2026
Olympia Karampela, Aurelie Fontan, Lenita Lindgren et al.
How the brain generates conscious experiences remains profoundly mysterious. Pharmacological interventions that alter the state of consciousness have been proposed as a tool to investigate the neural mechanisms of consciousness. However, we have recently demonstrated that the sedative Propofol influences both conscious and unconscious neural processing. Altered arousal, and other...
Scientific Reports
March 9, 2026
Saad M. Alshahrani
N, N-Dimethyltryptamine (N, N-DMT) is a potent psychedelic substance whose detection is crucial in medical and forensic contexts. In this study, we computationally evaluate the potential of aluminum- and zinc-doped C20 fullerenes (AlC19 and ZnC19) as advanced sensors for N, N-DMT detection. Using density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT, along with NBO, NCI, RDG, and ESP analyses,...
Scientific Reports
March 3, 2026
Wenbo Li, Tianxing Liu, Chao Sun
Interoceptive dysfunction represents a critical therapeutic target across multiple health domains. Contemporary interventions demonstrate limitations in efficacy and specificity, while traditional mind-body practices present empirically underexplored yet theoretically promising alternatives. This investigation systematically evaluates the psychophysiological effects of Hunyuan Zhuang, a Chinese...
Scientific Reports
February 28, 2026
Patryk Główczyński, Paweł Dębski, Karina Badura-Brzoza
Spirituality and religiosity are increasingly examined as factors relevant to mental health, yet less is known about individualized nonreligious forms of spiritual practices. In this cross-sectional study, we investigated associations between spirituality, religious affiliation, non-religious forms of spiritual practices (NFSP) and symptoms of anxiety and depression in 1240 young adults aged...
Scientific Reports
February 26, 2026
Gianluca Rho, Francesco Bossi, Ngawang Norbu et al.
Meditation is a complex cognitive practice associated with significant neurophysiological changes, particularly in long-term practitioners. These individuals represent an ideal human model for investigating neural changes associated to their consistent, frequent, and sustained cognitive engagement. However, in Western societies, long-term practitioners are relatively rare compared to Eastern...
Scientific Reports
February 25, 2026
Albert Garcia‐romeu, Gideon P. Naudé, Alison W. Rebman et al.
2 citations
Abstract Lyme disease, caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi , is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States and Europe. Although antibiotics effectively treat most cases, an estimated 10–20% of patients develop post-treatment Lyme disease (PTLD), a chronic syndrome marked by fatigue, pain, cognitive difficulties, mood disturbance, and reduced quality of life. There are no...
Scientific Reports
February 14, 2026
Zurika Murray, Angélique Lewies, Johannes F. Wentzel et al.
3 citations
The therapeutic potential of psilocybin in treating psychiatric disorders has gained attention recently. While most research has focused on isolated psilocybin, evidence suggests that whole mushroom extracts exhibit greater efficacy, implicating a possible entourage effect of additional bioactive compounds. This study aimed to elucidate the holistic neuropharmacological effects of...
Scientific Reports
February 13, 2026
Romanos Konstantinos Antonopoulos, Evangelos Dadiotis, Kostas Ioannidis et al.
This study revisits the hypothesis that Claviceps purpurea (Fr.) Tul., a fungus infecting cereals and producing ergot alkaloids (EAs), was the psychedelic agent in kykeon, the sacred elixir of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Although archaeological evidence supports this link, experimental data confirming the transformation of toxic ergopeptides into psychoactive lysergic acid amide derivatives in...
Scientific Reports
February 10, 2026
Michelle Olofsson, Kasim Acar, Otto Simonsson et al.
Recent research has highlighted the potential of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and other trauma-related psychiatric conditions. However, less is known about the effects of MDMA use on psychological well-being in populations with trauma histories outside of clinical contexts. In the present study, we assessed...
Scientific Reports
February 3, 2026
Giovanni Granato, Andrea Mattera, Emilio Cartoni et al.
Executive functions rely on goal-directed manipulation of representations, while metacognition reflects the evaluation and control of one’s own representations. Several studies have examined these processes separately, but none formalise the neuro-representational computations underlying their interaction during goal-directed behaviour. This gap prevents comprehensive frameworks and extended...
Scientific Reports
January 30, 2026
Lucy B G Tan, Marius Golubickis, C Neil Macrae
1 citation
Brief mindfulness-based meditation exerts a potent influence on social cognition. What is not yet understood, however, is whether and how it impacts an important facet of daily life-risk taking. Specifically, it is unclear the extent to which a single episode of mindfulness meditation shapes risk-taking behavior. Addressing this issue, here we examined the effects of mindfulness meditation on...