Transcultural Psychiatry
December 1, 2020
Boon-Ooi Lee, Laurence J. Kirmayer
41 citations
This article explores the processes of transformation of the self in dang-ki healing, a form of Chinese spirit mediumship in Singapore, drawing on more than a decade of ethnographic research. In dang-ki healing, it is believed that a deity possesses a human, who is called a dang-ki, to help clients (i.e., devotees). Through the dang-ki, clients can interact with powerful deities in ways that...
The Journal of Comparative Neurology
December 1, 2020
Paul R Manger, Jerome M Siegel
21 citations
The presence of dreams in human sleep, especially in REM sleep, and the detection of physiologically similar states in mammals has led many to ponder whether animals experience similar sleep mentation. Recent advances in our understanding of the anatomical and physiological correlates of sleep stages, and thus dreaming, allow a better understanding of the possibility of dream mentation in...
Journal of Neuroscience
November 23, 2020
Lucie Berkovitch, Lucie Charles, Antoine del Cul et al.
According to global neuronal workspace (GNW) theory, conscious access relies on long-distance cerebral connectivity to allow a global neuronal ignition coding for conscious content. In patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, both alterations in cerebral connectivity and an increased threshold for conscious perception have been reported. The implications of abnormal structural...
Neural Plasticity
November 23, 2020
Yan Cui, Qiao Chen, Yang Xia et al.
The default-mode network (DMN) is believed to be associated with levels of consciousness, but how the functional connectivity (FC) of the DMN changes across different states of consciousness is still unclear. In the current work, we addressed this issue by exploring the coactive micropattern (CAMP) networks of the DMN according to the CAMPs of rat DMN activity during the sleep-wake cycle and...
PLoS One
November 23, 2020
Nadine Farnes, Bjørn E. Juel, André S. Nilsen et al.
81 citations
How and to what extent electrical brain activity reflects pharmacologically altered states and contents of consciousness, is not well understood. Therefore, we investigated whether measures of evoked and spontaneous electroencephalographic (EEG) signal diversity are altered by sub-anaesthetic levels of ketamine compared to normal wakefulness, and how these measures relate to subjective...
Frontiers in Psychology
November 17, 2020
Gert Ouwersloot, Jan Derksen, Gerrit Glas
9 citations
Alterations in consciousness are among the most common transdiagnostic psychopathological symptoms. Therefore clinical practice would benefit from a clear conceptual framework that guides the recognition, comprehension, and treatment of consciousness disorders. However, contemporary psychopathology lacks such a framework. We describe how pathology of consciousness is currently being addressed...
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
November 12, 2020
Anne Vallely
2 citations
The promise that Psychedelic Medicine holds for debilitating, treatment-resistant, disorders rests as much upon novel explanations of illness as it does upon novel treatments. If actu-alized, Psychedelic Medicine will revolutionize heath care and theories of healing. Psychedelic medicine ’ s unintended consequences may prove to be just as far-reaching, as non-ordinary states of consciousness,...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
November 10, 2020
Aurelie Fontan, Lenita Lindgren, Tiziana Pedale et al.
preprint
Being conscious is a profound aspect of human existence, and understanding its function and its inception is considered one of the truly grand scientific challenges. However, the nature of consciousness remains enigmatic, to a large part because “being conscious” can refer to both the content (phenomenology) and the level (arousal) of consciousness, and how these different aspects are related...
Scientific Reports
November 5, 2020
D M L De Boer, Patrick Johnston, Graham Kerr et al.
Recent theories suggest that self-consciousness, in its most elementary form, is functionally disconnected from the phenomenal body. Patients with psychosis frequently misattribute their thoughts and actions to external sources; and in certain out-of-body experiences, lucid states, and dreams body-ownership is absent but self-identification is preserved. To explain these unusual experiences, we...
Scientific Reports
October 29, 2020
Timo Torsten Schmidt, Nisha Jagannathan, Michal Ljubljanac et al.
Different pharmacologic agents have been used to investigate the neuronal underpinnings of alterations in consciousness states, such as psychedelic substances. Special attention has been drawn to the role of thalamic filtering of cortical input. Here, we investigate the neuronal mechanisms underlying an altered state of consciousness (ASC) induced by a non-pharmacological procedure. During fMRI...