Scientific Reports
January 28, 2026
Nicholas A. Carlisle, Otto Simonsson, Sarah Maccarthy et al.
Psychedelic use has been linked to major life changes that may impact health outcomes, yet few studies have systematically examined the prevalence, types, and demographic characteristics that may be associated with such changes. This paper draws subsamples of respondents who endorsed lifetime psychedelic use from two samples of US adults - one nationally representative by age, race/ethnicity,...
Scientific Reports
January 20, 2026
Alicja Ewa Dubiel, Mateusz Siembab, Krystian Macheta
This study examines the relationship between yoga practice and socioemotional functioning, comparing practitioners and non-practitioners across dimensions of emotional intelligence and social relationship patterns. Results indicate that yoga practitioners reported higher levels of emotion understanding and emotion control, but lower cognitive empathy and lower levels of support given to...
Scientific Reports
January 8, 2026
Suong Welp, Andrea Hildelbrandt, David A. Magezi et al.
The Rubber Voice Illusion is an auditory analogue of the classic Rubber Hand Illusion, a “mind-trick” for the voice. When speakers hear a stranger’s utterances that are perfectly time‑locked and syllable‑matched to their own voice, many momentarily adopt that alien voice as self‑generated. We used this illusion to probe the integrity of predictive auditory mechanisms across the psychosis...
Scientific Reports
December 12, 2025
Gisela Lima, Carla Soares, Marta Teixeira et al.
Reward processing is a broad psychological construct that can be parsed into distinct components known as "reinforcement learning" (learning), "reward responsiveness" (liking), and "motivation to obtain a reward" (wanting). Dysfunctions in reward processing in mesolimbic and mesocortical pathways are a core feature of many pathologies. Psychedelics have been proposed as a treatment option for...
Scientific Reports
December 12, 2025
Nadia Fox, Hannah Biddell, Jemma King
The paradoxical nature of stress lies in its ability to both enhance and hinder psychological, physiological, and cognitive functioning. While chronic stress impairs functioning, acute stress can enhance resilience, cognition, and performance. We examined whether intentional short-term stress induced by cyclic hyperventilation and cold exposure (the Wim Hof Method (WHM)) improves...
Scientific Reports
December 8, 2025
Amrit Baral, Yue Pan, Wayway M. Hlaing et al.
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths among U.S. men. While cannabis and classic psychedelics gain attention for symptom management in oncology, their associations with prostate cancer remain unexplored. This study evaluates associations between lifetime classic psychedelic and cannabis use with prostate cancer diagnoses among older U.S. adults using 2015-2019...
Scientific Reports
December 3, 2025
Jie Leng, Bingqing Ma, Qingke Guo
The self-reference effect (SRE) describes enhanced memory and perception for self-related information. Using a perceptual matching paradigm across three experiments, this study examined the SRE and two associated phenomena in a Chinese sample: self-retention (difficulty updating self-associations) and self-obstruction (interference from self-cues). Study 1 established the basic SRE, revealing...
Scientific Reports
November 29, 2025
Leehe Peled-Avron, Jacob S. Aday, Madeline M. Pantoni et al.
1 citation
3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is an amphetamine derivative known as an "entactogen," influencing emotional and social processing. Phase III clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder have reported promising results, and MDMA-assisted therapy is currently under regulatory review. However, the precise mechanisms underlying positive treatment...
Scientific Reports
November 28, 2025
Theresa Rieger, Josefine Feuerstein, Niko A Busch et al.
The visual awareness negativity (VAN) has been identified as a potential neuronal correlate of consciousness (NCC). The VAN is typically found when comparing experimental trials in which a stimulus was perceived with trials in which the same stimulus was not perceived. However, if the VAN represents a reliable NCC, it should also be observed under conditions in which participants report...
Scientific Reports
November 27, 2025
Guy Simon, Nir Tadmor, Michael Skragge et al.
6 citations
This mixed-methods study examines how participant-identified childhood or youth trauma resurfaces during psychedelic states and how such episodes relate to post-experience trajectories. Including events participants identified as traumatic during psychedelic experiences, and subsequent psychological outcomes, both positive and negative. While psychedelics can facilitate emotional processing of...
Scientific Reports
November 26, 2025
Małgorzata Domżalska, Joanna Kwiatkowska, Iwona Cichoń et al.
2 citations
Depression is a debilitating mental disorder affecting millions worldwide, yet current pharmacological treatments, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), often exhibit delayed onset and limited efficacy. The chronic social defeat (CSD) stress model in mice is a well-established preclinical paradigm for inducing depression-like behaviors and evaluating antidepressants...
Scientific Reports
November 21, 2025
Kira S A Borgdorf, Gabriela Küchler, Cornelia Wrzus et al.
1 citation
Previous research has identified state mindfulness as a key change mechanism in explicitly mindfulness-based interventions to increase trait mindfulness and reduce stress. This study extends previous work by examining trajectories of state mindfulness and their associations with trait indicators of mindfulness, self-compassion, and perceived stress when mindfulness practices are delivered...
Scientific Reports
November 20, 2025
Daniel Perkins, Andreas Halman, Anna Urokohara et al.
Acute subjective experiences induced by psychedelics have been identified as important mediators of therapeutic outcomes in many studies. Mystical experiences specifically, have been correlated with a range of therapeutic outcomes including reductions in symptoms of depression, anxiety and addiction. This paper assesses acute subjective experiences induced by an encapsulated DMT-harmala...
Scientific Reports
November 6, 2025
Isaac N Treves, Ya-Yun Chen, Caitlyn L Wilson et al.
5 citations
Mindfulness meditation training may cultivate interoceptive awareness and provide therapeutic benefit when implemented within mental and physical health interventions. This pre-registered meta-analysis evaluated the impact of mindfulness interventions on self-reported interoception measures and associated relationships with psychological outcomes. Twenty-nine randomized controlled trials with...
Scientific Reports
November 3, 2025
Ryoichi Watanabe, Yusuke Moriguchi
Understanding how perception transitions from an unconscious to conscious state is a central aim of visual consciousness research. The threshold is the boundary at which consciousness arises, and the process from unconsciousness to consciousness is the emergent process. Although studies have investigated the thresholds and emergent processes of visual consciousness in adults, how these...
Scientific Reports
October 28, 2025
Sacha Haudry, Natacha Lambert, Christian Gaser et al.
Meditation is thought to promote healthy aging by improving mental health, preserving brain integrity and reducing Alzheimer's disease risk. We examined the impact of long-term meditation expertise and an 18-month meditation training on brain aging in older adults using machine learning. We included 25 Older Expert Meditators (OldExpMed) with > 20 years of practice and 135 Cognitively...
Scientific Reports
October 24, 2025
Ling Yut Hooi, Po Ling Chen, Kok Wei Tan et al.
9 citations
In recent years, there has been an increase in research on the effect of mindfulness meditation-based intervention on mental health 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 . Meditation is an umbrella term that involves a variety of mental practices 8 , 9 . Meditation can be used to define the state of consciousness or as the techniques used in mental training 10 , 11 , 12 . Meditation is easy to learn and...
Scientific Reports
October 23, 2025
Li Liping, Xiaoxia Fang, Zhang Huimin
Children with Tourette Syndrome (TS) commonly experience chronic motor and vocal tics, anxiety, and impaired daily functioning, underscoring the need for accessible, developmentally appropriate interventions. This study evaluated the effects of a 12-week movement-based mindfulness intervention-Mindful Energy Balance Exercise (MEBE)-on self-regulation in children with TS. A total of 135 children...
Scientific Reports
September 29, 2025
Nerea L Herrero, Yohann Corfdir, Aylin A Vázquez-Chenlo et al.
Consciousness does not always fade during sleep. Instead, it can re-emerge in the form of non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC), such as lucid dreams (LDs), sleep paralysis (SP), out-of-body experiences (OBEs), and false awakenings (FAs). While some of these states have been studied phenomenologically, their neurophysiological underpinnings remain unclear. In this exploratory study, we...
Scientific Reports
September 24, 2025
Imad J. Bajwa, André Sevenius Nilsen, René Skukies et al.
3 citations
Abstract Patients undergoing general anesthesia are often assumed to be unconscious. However, it is known that conscious experiences in the form of dreams occur even in unresponsive states induced by anesthetics. Here, we recorded resting state electroencephalography (EEG) as well as EEG combined with TMS perturbations in 20 healthy participants during propofol sedation. Participants were...
Scientific Reports
September 23, 2025
Daniel Heppt, Niklas Bergmann, Ingmar Conell et al.
The present article explores the relationship between mindfulness meditation and personality. Based on a substantial body of research, mindfulness has been shown to have significant associations with personality. Recent research suggests that mindfulness meditation may influence personality traits in accordance with the Five Factor Personality Model. To examine this, we investigated whether...
Scientific Reports
September 12, 2025
Emma T Eliasson, Elisa Vigna, Elisa Dal Bò et al.
Body odours (BOs) of individuals in specific emotional states can influence receivers' responses - referred to as an emotional contagion. To investigate the potential of BOs to enhance the effects of mindfulness practice, this quasi-randomised pilot study tested the hypothesis that participants exposed to emotional BOs during mindfulness meditation would exhibit a steeper decrease in state...
Scientific Reports
September 9, 2025
Bogoan Kim, Dayoung Jeong, Yoonseon Choi et al.
The increasing prevalence of depression has highlighted Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) as an effective treatment. However, conventional MBCT has several limitations, including barriers to access, the need for trained professionals, and inconsistent levels of participant engagement. The feasibility of using Virtual Reality (VR) for MBCT has emerged as a promising solution, but...
Scientific Reports
September 1, 2025
Oscar Soto-Angona, Óscar Andión, Pablo Sabucedo et al.
3 citations
Preliminary evidence suggests that ayahuasca may alleviate severe grief symptoms. This three-arm, sequentially allocated, open-label study examines the therapeutic changes associated with ayahuasca-assisted meaning reconstruction therapy (A-MR) compared to meaning reconstruction therapy alone (MR) and a no-treatment control (NT). A total of 84 adults experiencing severe grief within 12 months...
Scientific Reports
August 29, 2025
Abbie Little, Malcolm Boyle
Paramedics worldwide have a higher prevalence of PTSD, anxiety, and depression than the general population. Paramedicine students predominately enter the profession without preventative techniques to manage stress, depression and fatigue. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of Transcendental Meditation (TM) on the well-being and resilience of paramedicine students. A pilot...