Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) remains a major clinical challenge, with highly variable responses to ketamine. Immune activation characterizes a subset of patients with TRD. The kynurenine pathway (KP), which integrates immunometabolic signals with glutamatergic neurotransmission, may provide candidate biomarkers to inform personalized treatment. We investigated whether KP metabolites and...
The opening essay of the Turning Toward series sets out the method and the stakes of a philosophy of psychology grounded in testimony and in the analytical psychology of C. G. Jung. Moving from the etymology of agnosticism to Jung's 1959 "I know" and the letters in which he qualified it, the essay places the meditative encounter with the boundary between ego and Self within a long...
The field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has seen major advances in the last few years. This note argues that it will soon become self-conscious, since the final developmental step is embodiment.
Human societies have long used stimulant plants, psychoactive preparations, prescription medicines, commercial products, and traditional botanical substances to support wakefulness, endurance, labor, ritual, social participation, attention, motivation, fatigue resistance, performance, and human optimization. Modern drug policy regulates this field unevenly. Coffee, tea, caffeine, nicotine,...
Abstract Background Negative symptoms in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) remain insufficiently treated and require novel therapeutic approaches. Oxytocin may improve negative symptoms, although its effects appear highly context-dependent according to the social salience hypothesis. We conducted a randomized, triple-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study combining intranasal oxytocin with...
Ketamine is a fast-acting intervention for treatment-resistant depression (TRD), yet only a subset of patients show robust clinical response, and the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. High-order interactions (HOI) derived from multivariate information theory provide a framework for examining nonlinear dependencies among brain regions beyond pairwise connectivity. One such metric, the...
Abstract Serotonin (5-HT) 2A receptors (5-HT 2 AR) modulate corticolimbic circuits regulating fear extinction. Although activation of these receptors has been shown to facilitate fear extinction, the behavioral consequences of 5-HT 2 AR antagonism during extinction is not well defined. Here, we examined the systemic effects of two 5-HT 2 A receptor antagonists, the mixed 5-HT 2 A/ 2 C...
Traditional mental healthcare frameworks across Kasar Hausa (Hausa land) remain a primary resource for individuals experiencing psychological distress. Despite this widespread reliance, Western clinical models frequently marginalize these practices as mere superstition. This conceptual review synthesizes anthropological literature and material culture studies to map out the internal logic,...
Space and time are irreducible dimensions of nature—measurable but not derivable from anything more fundamental. Life and experience are here proposed as similarly irreducible dimensions. Together—sometimes referred to as lifeexperience to mark their inseparability—they constitute the dimensional ground from which emerges the Force of Experience—proposed as a candidate fifth fundamental force...
Background: Ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic, is widely used in experimental schizophrenia models due to its ability to mimic psychotic symptoms through N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonism. Despite its utility, concerns remain regarding its potential systemic toxicity, particularly in the liver and kidneys. Method: This study investigated the dose- and time-dependent hepatotoxic...