Erkenntnis
May 9, 2026
Mahammad Ayvazov
Abstract This paper addresses a fundamental tension in contemporary epistemology: how finite cognitive agents achieve reliable knowledge despite operating under severe informational constraints. Drawing from the statistical learning concept of the bias-variance tradeoff, I argue that human epistemic success depends not on minimizing error through optimal model selection, but on achieving what I...
SLEEPJ
May 8, 2026
Jing Zhang, Andres Pena, Negin Sattari Barabadi et al.
Abstract Introduction Sleep supports emotion regulation by preferentially consolidating emotional memories while attenuating reactivity. We have shown that dream recall plays an active role by increasing negative over neutral memories and reducing reactivity. In women, fluctuating reproductive hormones across the menstrual cycle influence sleep features implicated in emotional memory, yet...
Communications Psychology
May 8, 2026
Ronald Fischer, Giovanna Bortolini, Tiago Bortolini et al.
Nonordinary experiences (NOEs) that are subjectively marked as unusual or special have important implications for our understanding of consciousness but are challenging to quantify. Estimates of their prevalence vary widely across disciplines and research traditions, and the reasons for this variation remain unclear. We address this discrepancy in a series of six studies. In study 1, we...
British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
May 8, 2026
Ioanna Artemis Vamvakopoulou, Dasha Nicholls, David Nutt et al.
Rates of mental illness in young people are increasing, whereas the development of novel mental health treatments has not significantly progressed. Psychedelic-assisted therapy, using substances such as psilocybin and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), has shown potential in the treatment of mental illnesses in the adult population, including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress...
Bodhi International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Science
May 7, 2026
B. Kumar
Mental health disorders such as stress, anxiety, and depression are increasing globally, creating a strong need for holistic and accessible treatment approaches. Alongside conventional psychiatric care, alternative medicine systems have gained significant attention for their emphasis on mind–body balance and natural healing. This study examines the role of selected alternative medicine...
Psychopharmacology
May 7, 2026
Emillie Beyer, Martine Skumlien, Govinda Poudel et al.
Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) affects ~ 50 million individuals worldwide and is associated with alterations in brain reward pathways. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) show promise in reducing substance use and aberrant brain function in substance use disorders (SUD), but the effects on CUD or brain reward function have not been investigated. To examine whether a 2-week MBI vs. active...
Annual review of vision science
May 6, 2026
Paolo Bartolomeo
Visual mental imagery-the ability to generate percept-like experiences in the absence of external stimuli-varies widely across individuals, from vivid visualization to aphantasia, the reported absence of imagery. Evidence from neurological patients and functional neuroimaging converges to challenge the classical view that imagery depends on the reactivation of the early visual cortex. Instead,...
Neuropharmacology
May 6, 2026
Taisiia Prosvirova, Wiktoria Podolecka, Jacek Wróbel et al.
Ketamine produces rapid antidepressant effects accompanied by marked changes in fast brain rhythms. High-frequency oscillations (HFO; 130-180 Hz) are an increasingly recognized signature of ketamine across species. However, their relationship to classical gamma activity and their circuit-level organization remain unclear. Using simultaneous multiregion recordings in freely moving male Wistar...
Behavioural Pharmacology
May 6, 2026
Bart A. Ellenbroek, Gernot Riedel
The past two decades have seen a remarkable renaissance in research on psychedelic drugs and ketamine. Following decades of regulatory restriction that severely limited, especially clinical research, a growing body of evidence has shown that psychedelics such as lysergic acid diethylamide and psilocybin can have long-lasting beneficial effects for treatment-resistant depression, drug and...
bioRxiv
May 5, 2026
Aleksandra Lipińska, Kinga Ciupińska, Renate Rutiku
preprint
Visual working memory (vWM) is often linked to conscious experience and visual imagery, but it is typically described as a system that stores separate, independent items. These assumptions are difficult to reconcile, given the unified nature of conscious experience. Here, we test the hypothesis that vWM relies on at least two distinct representations: an underlying, unconscious memory trace and...