Fouad Meraji Far, Hamid Reza Banafshe, Amir Ghaderi et al.
preprint
Abstract Background The insula, a central hub of the salience network, is implicated in craving and loss of control in addiction. Despite its relevance, the structural morphometric and white matter connectivity correlates of chronic cannabis use remain inconsistent across studies. Methods Twenty-six all-male participants (13 chronic cannabis users, 13 controls) underwent a 3.0 Tesla MRI....
Abhishek Gupta, Tuhin Bhattacharya, Subhamoy Pratihar et al.
preprint
Abstract The clinical importance of iboga alkaloids lies in their efficacy in reversing drug addiction and modulating drug tolerance. However, due to safety concerns, their use is restricted to appropriate medical supervision. These alkaloids often cause severe hallucinogenic effects due to differential binding to various brain receptors and cardiotoxicity by blocking the human...
Ryoko Uno, Shu Imaizumi
preprint
The contribution of language to the narrative self is well-known, but does language play a role in creating the sense of minimal self? In this paper, we investigated whether variations in sentence structure affected the speaker's sense of minimal self. We examined whether expressing the first-person subject's actions and perceptions in sentences influenced the speaker's sense of agency and...
Manvir Singh
35 citations
Shamans, including medicine-men, mediums, and the prophets of religious movements, recur across human societies. Shamanism also existed among nearly all documented hunter-gatherers, likely characterized the religious lives of many ancestral humans, and is often proposed by anthropologists to be the “first profession”, representing the first institutionalized division of labor beyond age and...
Bernard J. Crespi, Nancy Yang, Sam M Doesburg
preprint
The human brain apparently harbors no network or region uniquely dedicated to spiritual or religious thought, or clearly evolved specifically in these contexts. God is thus nowhere in the brain. Could God, instead, be virtually everywhere in the brain? We propose and evaluate the hypothesis that religious and spiritual cognition are derived predominantly from the effects of (virtually...
Michael Timothy Bennett, Sean Welsh
Please note this is a draft on which we are seeking feedback. Substantial changes and a third author are likely be added to the next version. The hard problem of consciousness asks why there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. We address this from 1st principles, by constructing a formalism that unifies lower and higher order theories of consciousness. We assume...
Viviana D. Evans, Alejandro Arenas, Kenneth Shinozuka et al.
preprint
Background: Ketamine, an arylcyclohexylamine dissociative anesthetic agent, has evolved into a versatile therapeutic. It has a rapid onset, well-understood cardiovascular effects, and a favorable safety profile in clinical use. Its enantiomeric compound, esketamine, was approved by the FDA in 2019 for both treatment-resistant depression as well as major depressive disorder (MDD) with suicidal...
Kenneth Shinozuka, Burton J. Tabaac, Alejandro Arenas et al.
preprint
Background: After becoming notorious for its use as a party drug in the 1980s, 3,4-methylenedioxy-methampetamine (MDMA), also known by its street names “molly” and “ecstasy,” has emerged as a powerful treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Areas of uncertainty: There is extensive data about the risk profile of MDMA. However, the literature is significantly biased. Animal models...
Research Square
Ulrich Gergs, Hannes Jacob, Pauline Braekow et al.
1 citation
preprint
Abstract Introduction: Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is an artificial hallucinogenic drug. Thus, we hypothesized that LSD might act 5-HT4 serotonin receptors and/or H2 histamine receptors. Methods: We studied isolated electrically stimulated left atrial preparations, spontaneously beating right atrial preparations, and spontaneously beating Langendorff-perfused hearts from transgenic mice...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
Shawn. M. Aarde, Pai-Kai Huang, Michael A. Taffe
1 citation
preprint
Abstract Rationale MDMA alters body temperature in rats with a direction that depends on the ambient temperature (T A ). The thermoregulatory effects of MDMA and T A may affect intravenous self-administration (IVSA) of MDMA but limited prior reports conflict. Objective To determine how body temperature responses under high and low T A influence MDMA IVSA. Methods Male Sprague-Dawley rats were...