6-(2-aminopropyl)benzofuran (6-APB) is a recreational drug that is structurally similar to MDMA. Very little is known about the behavioral effects of 6-APB or its dose-effect relationship in vivo. As the popularity of new psychoactive substances (NPS), such as 6-APB, increases due to their unscheduled status and easy availability, it is important to understand the potential benefits and/or...
Cumulative reports of psychiatric and neurological outcomes due to synthetic cathinones continue to raise public concern. However, the understanding of the neurotoxic mechanism of action is still poorly understood, particularly for the under-explored αPHP, one of the main MDPV derivatives. In particular, the effects of this synthetic drug on neural stem/progenitor cell cultures are still...
Mindfulness-based interventions have demonstrated benefits for emotional regulation, psychological resilience, and well-being, yet the structural mechanisms through which mindfulness produces sustained transformation remain insufficiently articulated. Existing explanations—attention regulation, body awareness, decentring, emotion regulation, neuroplasticity—are typically presented as parallel...
The sense of agency (SoA) and the sense of metacognitive presence (SoP) — the felt engagement of the self-monitoring system — are typically treated as convergent markers of intact conscious experience: both high in normal function, both degraded in dissociative states. Here I propose that they are, in fact, two dissociable axes of a single predictive mechanism that diverge in antiphase under...
Current psychiatric models, while clinically valuable, remain limited in their ability to account for the complexity, variability, and context dependence of mental disorders. Converging evidence from neuroscience, complexity science, and psychedelic research suggests that psychiatric symptoms may be better understood as stable patterns of organization within dynamic, multilevel systems rather...
Subjective experience remains tied to the same individual despite continuous turnover of the brain’s physical components. Existing theories explain conscious content, neural mechanisms, and information processing, but none specifies the physical basis of numerical conscious identity or explains why one individual, rather than an identical duplicate, continues to experience consciousness. I...
Abstract Chemsex involves the use of psychoactive substances to facilitate or enhance sexual activity, particularly among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM). Common substances used include methamphetamine, gamma‐hydroxybutyric acid/gamma‐butyrolactone (GHB/GBL), mephedrone, ketamine, inhaled nitrites (‘poppers’), and cocaine, all of which are linked to various...
Background: Both cardiovascular exercise and mindfulness meditation have been shown to influence cognitive performance, particularly executive functions such as attention, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility. Virtual reality-guided meditation (VRM) is an emerging intervention that combines mindfulness techniques with immersive technology and may enhance engagement compared to...
A resurgent therapeutic frontier, the contemporary renaissance in psychedelic science has accelerated investigation of classic serotonergic psychedelics (psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), mescaline), empathogenic entactogenic agents (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)), and glutamatergic dissociatives (ketamine) as adjuncts to psychotherapy. While...
Throughout the preclinical phase of Alzheimer's disease (AD) β-amyloid (Aβ) accumulates preferentially within the default mode network (DMN), yet the functional and behavioural consequences of this pathological burden remain poorly understood. Using task-based fMRI combined with Aβ, tau, and dopamine PET in cognitively normal older adults, we show that Aβ burden impairs learning independent of...