Functional neuroimaging studies of epilepsy patients often show, at the time of epileptic activity, deactivation in default mode network (DMN) regions, which is hypothesized to reflect altered consciousness. We aimed to study the metabolic and electrophysiological correlates of these changes in the DMN regions. We studied six epilepsy patients that underwent scalp EEG-fMRI and later stereotaxic...
The article develops philosophical aspect of the problem of nonordinary states of consciousness research. The demarcation of terms «altered states of consciousness» and «nonordinary states of consciousness» is based on their phenomenology. Ontology and philosophical anthropology are the context of philosophical comprehension of this problem. The statement about the connection of the problem of...
The study of consciousness is poised today at interesting crossroads. There has been a surge of research into various neurobiological underpinnings of consciousness in the past decade. The present article looks at the theories regarding this complex phenomenon, especially the ones that neurobiology, cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology have to offer. We will first discuss the origin...
The consequences of vestibular disorders on balance, oculomotor control, and self-motion perception have been extensively described in humans and animals. More recently, vestibular disorders have been related to cognitive deficits in spatial navigation and memory tasks. Less frequently, abnormal bodily perceptions have been described in patients with vestibular disorders. Altered forms of...
In what sense is dreaming real to people of different cultures? How do they come to conclude that dreaming is real, and how do they use dreams to expand their knowledge and control of real events? The reader is introduced to dream anthropology and shown that there are universal patterns to how dreams are experienced, expressed, and used by societies. The distinction between monophasic and...
Parietal networks are hypothesised to play a central role in the cortical information synthesis that supports conscious experience and behavior. Significant reductions in parietal level functional connectivity have been shown to occur during general anesthesia with propofol and a range of other GABAergic general anesthetic agents. Using two analysis approaches (1) a graph theoretic analysis...
INTRODUCTION: Synaesthesia is a phenomenon in which a certain stimulus induces a concurrent sensory perception; it has an estimated prevalence of 4%. Sexual arousal as an inducer for synaesthetic perceptions is rarely mentioned in the literature but can be found sometimes in case reports about subjective orgasmic experiences. AIMS: To examine whether synaesthetic perceptions during sexual...
The biological foundation for a shamanic epistemology is indicated by the cross-cultural distribution of a shamanic cosmology derived from knowledge obtained during altered consciousness. These special forms of consciousness involve integrative brain conditions that access ancient ways of knowing, expressive systems which have evolutionary roots in the communicative and social processes...
Hypnosis research binds phenomenology and neuroscience. Here we show how recent evidence probing the impact of hypnosis and suggestion can inform and advance a neurophenomenological approach. In contrast to meditative practices that involve lengthy and intensive training, hypnosis induces profound alterations in subjective experience following just a few words of suggestion. Individuals highly...
Music is known to alter people's ordinary experience of space and time. Not only does this challenge the concept of invariant space and time tacitly assumed in psychology but it may also help us understand how music works and how music can be understood as an embodied experience. Yet research about these alterations is in its infancy. This review is intended to delineate a future research...