Pre-stimulus oscillations predispose subsequent stimulus detection, but the connection between the pre-stimulus EEG activity and post-stimulus event-related potentials (ERPs) has rarely been examined in people in a disorder of consciousness (DoC). Hence, we investigate how pre-stimulus EEG band power is related to post-stimulus ERPs in individual DoC patients. We conducted an active auditory...
Frontiers in Neuroscience2025Christine Ramirez, Gertrude Asumpaame Alayine, Cyril Selase Kwaku Akafia et al.3 citations
Anxiety and depression reduce autonomic system activity, as measured by Heart Rate Variability (HRV), and exacerbate cardiac morbidity. Both music and mindfulness have been shown to increase HRV, and clinical approaches incorporating these interventions show promise as effective treatments for symptoms of anxiety and depression. Music mindfulness, which combines music listening with mindfulness...
Molecular pain2025Mostafa Saberian, Afzal Shamsi, Mahdieh Mehrab Mohseni et al.
Calcium channels play an essential role in the molecular and physiological mechanisms underlying anesthesia by mediating intracellular calcium ion (Ca2+) flux, which regulates key processes such as neurotransmitter release, neuronal excitability, and immune responses. Voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs) and ligand-gated calcium channels (LGCCs) are integral to the anesthetic process, with...
Recent years have seen growing interest in the use of metrics inspired by complexity science for the study of consciousness. Work in this field has shown remarkable results in discerning conscious from unconscious states, and in characterizing states of altered conscious experience following psychedelic intake as involving enhanced complexity. Here, we study the relationship between complexity...
Nursing students are at risk for traumatic stress, but current treatments have limited benefits. Regenerating Images in Memory (RIM) is a verbal psychotherapeutic approach to help people safely re-experience troubling memories, then integrate them into meaningful life narratives. RIM's developers propose a mechanism of action based on nonconscious processes like emotional processing and body...
Global signal regression (GSR) is widely used in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis, yet its effects on anesthetic-related brain activity are not well understood. Using fMRI data from patients under general anesthesia, we analyzed temporal variability indices, amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations, functional connectivity, and graph theoretical measures with and without...
Since the 1930s, researchers have awakened people from different stages of sleep to record what they have experienced. While some aspects, including asking whether participants had dreams or thoughts before awakening, largely remain the same, others, such as the method of awakening, vary greatly. In addition, it is often assumed that the influence of participant characteristics, such as...
Depression, a global health concern with significant implications for suicide rates, remains challenging to treat effectively with conventional pharmacological options. The existing pharmaceutical interventions for these illnesses need daily dosing, are accompanied by various adverse effects, and may exhibit limited efficacy in certain cases. However, hope emerges from an unlikely...
How is it that psychedelics so profoundly impact brain and mind? According to the model of "Relaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics" (REBUS), 5-HT2a agonism is thought to help relax prior expectations, thus making room for new perspectives and patterns. Here, we introduce an alternative (but largely compatible) perspective, proposing that REBUS effects may primarily correspond to a particular (but...
DMT reliably induces profound experiences of immersion in other worlds and encounters with seemingly autonomous presences, yet the lived qualities and unfolding of these experiences remain poorly understood. Using micro-phenomenological interviews with twenty-three healthy participants who received DMT during fMRI scanning, this study explores how these experiences arise and develop in...