NeuroSci
August 27, 2025
Alexander Thomas, R Andrew Chambers
4 citations
Interest in ketamine as a treatment for substance use disorders has grown because it blocks NMDA glutamate receptors and because glutamate signaling is linked to depression and addiction. This narrative review covers clinical evidence from the 1970s to 2025, focusing on randomized blinded controlled trials. Nine such trials have tested ketamine for cocaine (three studies), alcohol (three studies), opioid use disorder (two studies), and nicotine (one study). The evidence suggests ketamine is effective for addiction when combined with psychotherapies, especially at doses that produce mystical or psychedelic experiences. The review calls for more rigorous studies to determine which addictions ketamine may treat, optimal dosing, the role of concurrent psychotherapies, safety monitoring, and contraindications.
NeuroSci
March 27, 2023
The paper proposes a framework called the morphospace of consciousness, which maps possible kinds of conscious experience based on three distinct forms of complexity: structural, functional, and phenomenal. It argues that these complexity types define a space in which both biological minds and artificial systems can be located, allowing for a systematic comparison of their conscious capacities. The authors suggest that this approach clarifies debates about machine consciousness by showing that different kinds of complexity support different kinds of conscious experience, and that no single metric suffices to determine whether a system is conscious.
NeuroSci
December 1, 2022
James William Hendry Sonne
Questions about consciousness and individual agency have practical implications for health, social policy, and economics, including ethical issues around patient consent in dementia or coma, the health impacts of individual choices, and moral dilemmas in animal testing. New scientific methods and theories in biology, physics, computer science, and philosophy are enabling testable hypotheses about consciousness. This Topical Collection provides a peer-reviewed space for discussing falsifiable hypotheses about consciousness across disciplines, emphasizing their relevance to human health, society, and policy.
NeuroSci
October 17, 2022
Perceptual multistability, where a single sensory input gives rise to alternating perceptions, offers clues about the relationship between perceptual awareness and consciousness. The work argues that studying these phenomena can reveal how the brain constructs conscious experience from ambiguous information. It suggests that perceptual awareness is not a single state but a dynamic process involving competition between neural representations. The text discusses how multistable perception can help disentangle the neural correlates of consciousness from those of perceptual content, providing a framework for understanding conscious awareness.
NeuroSci
August 9, 2022
The paper proposes a transmissive theory of brain function, arguing that the brain acts as a filter or receiver for a broader field of consciousness rather than generating consciousness itself. This theory suggests that health and disease may involve disruptions in this transmission process, and that consciousness is not solely a product of neural activity. The implications for understanding neurological and psychiatric conditions, as well as the nature of subjective experience, are explored.