Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
June 11, 2012
Norman A. S. Farb, Zindel V. Segal, Adam K. Anderson
566 citations
One component of mindfulness training (MT) is the development of interoceptive attention (IA) to visceral bodily sensations, facilitated through daily practices such as breath monitoring. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined experience-dependent functional plasticity in accessing interoceptive representations by comparing graduates of a Mindfulness-Based Stress...
Drug and Alcohol Dependence
June 3, 2012
Pai-Kai Huang, Shawn. M. Aarde, D. Angrish et al.
74 citations
BACKGROUND Reports from US, UK and European drug policy entities, and ongoing media accounts, show increasing recreational use of 4-methylmethcathinone (4-MMC, mephedrone) and 3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV). Severe sympathomimetic symptoms, hallucinations, psychoses, and even deaths have been reported, yet little scientific information is available on the effects of these compounds in...
Biological Psychiatry
June 1, 2012
Rong-Jian Liu, Francis S Lee, Xiao-Yuan Li et al.
Knock-in mice with the common human brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) Val66Met polymorphism have impaired trafficking of BDNF messenger RNA to dendrites. It was hypothesized, given evidence that local synapse formation is dependent on dendritic translation of BDNF messenger RNA, that loss-of-function Met allele mice would show synaptic deficits both at baseline and in response to...
Consciousness and Cognition
June 2012
Dan Lloyd
The continual background awareness of duration is an essential structure of consciousness, conferring temporal extension to the many objects of awareness within the evanescent sensory present. Seeking the possible neural correlates of ubiquitous temporal awareness, this article reexamines fMRI data from off-task "default mode" (DM) periods in 25 healthy subjects studied by Grady et al....
Neuropsychopharmacology
June 2012
Deepak Cyril D'Souza, Daniel J Fridberg, Patrick D. Skosnik et al.
Cannabinoids induce a host of perceptual alterations and cognitive deficits in humans. However, the neural correlates of these deficits have remained elusive. The current study examined the acute, dose-related effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ⁹-THC) on psychophysiological indices of information processing in humans. Healthy subjects (n=26) completed three test days during which they...
Asian Journal of Psychiatry
June 1, 2012
Russell Meares
Experiential evidence suggests that the main features of spiritual experience are euphoria, and a feeling of the expansion and unification of consciousness. A way towards understanding this state and how it might arise comes from a consideration of a state in which these features are lacking. Such a state is borderline personality disorder, central to which is a "painful incoherence" that is...
NeuroQuantology
June 1, 2012
Ümit Sayın
17 citations
Altered states of consciousness induced by hallucinogens (H-ASC) is still a vaguely understood phenomenon. Taken the diverse psychological effects they exert, the main mechanism of action of hallucinogens; LSD, ibogaine, THC, PCP, MDMA, methamphetamine, mescaline, psilocybin and DMT, of which psychological effects are discussed in the article, are not properly understood and explained by the...
Drug and Alcohol Dependence
June 1, 2012
Matthew W Johnson, R Andrew Sewell, Roland R. Griffiths
121 citations
Psilocybin is a well-characterized classic hallucinogen (psychedelic) with a long history of religious use by indigenous cultures, and nonmedical use in modern societies. Although psilocybin is structurally related to migraine medications, and case studies suggest that psilocybin may be efficacious in treatment of cluster headache, little is known about the relationship between psilocybin and...
Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
June 1, 2012
Eduardo R Butelman, Michael J Caspers, Kimberly M Lovell et al.
27 citations
Active blood-brain barrier mechanisms, such as the major efflux transporter P-glycoprotein (mdr1), modulate the in vivo/central nervous system (CNS) effects of many pharmacological agents, whether they are used for nonmedical reasons or in pharmacotherapy. The powerful, widely available hallucinogen salvinorin A (from the plant Salvia divinorum) is a high-efficacy, selective κ-opioid agonist...
Journal of Sleep Research
May 29, 2012
Ursula Voss, Clemens Frenzel, Judith Koppehele-Gossel et al.
76 citations
The current study focused on the distribution of lucid dreams in school children and young adults. The survey was conducted on a large sample of students aged 6-19 years. Questions distinguished between past and current experience with lucid dreams. Results suggest that lucid dreaming is quite pronounced in young children, its incidence rate drops at about age 16 years. Increased lucidity was...