PLoS One2018Chloe E Atreya, Ai Kubo, Hala T Borno et al.
A metastatic cancer diagnosis is associated with high levels of distress in patients and caregivers. Mindfulness interventions can reduce distress and improve quality of life in cancer patients. However, standard mindfulness training relies on in-person instruction, which is often not practical for either patients receiving chemotherapy or their caregivers. In the Being Present single arm pilot...
Shamans deal with events that involve the threat of death. They help buffer death anxiety because, through their claimed supernatural abilities, they can provide both hope for averting death and evidence for existence of a spirit world offering continuance beyond death. Thus, managing the threat of mortality probably played a major role in the development and maintenance of shamanism.
Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD) is rarely encountered in clinical settings. It is described as a re-experiencing of some perceptual distortions induced while intoxicated and suggested to subsequently cause functional impairment or anxiety. Two forms exist: Type 1, which are brief "flashbacks," and Type 2 claimed to be chronic, waxing, and waning over months to years. A review...
Dynamic and static body postures are a defining characteristic of mind-body practices such as Tai Chi and Qigong (TCQ). A growing body of evidence supports the hypothesis that TCQ may be beneficial for psychological health, including management and prevention of depression and anxiety. Although a variety of causal factors have been identified as potential mediators of such health benefits,...
This essay examines possibilities for a reflexive understanding of knowledge attainment that is grounded in the enactive capacities of living systems.Appreciating the enactivist agenda requires a dislodging of obstructions created by an accumulated history of transcendental abstractions that have sought to provide a Cartesian "unmovable point" against which knowledge claims are veridically...
Chronic stress contributes to both mental and physical illness. A high prevalence and cost of stress-related illnesses North America warrants investigation into alternative or complementary therapies which may help reduce adverse reactions to stressful stimuli. Emotion regulation is the process of monitoring and adjusting emotional responses to environmental stimuli and stressors. Individuals...
Compassion meditation training is hypothesized to increase the motivational salience of cues of suffering, while also enhancing equanimous attention and decreasing emotional reactivity to suffering. However, it is currently unknown how compassion meditation impacts visual attention to suffering, and how this impacts neural activation in regions associated with motivational salience as well as...
Human research with psychedelics is making groundbreaking discoveries. Psychedelics modify enduring elements of personality and seemingly reduce anxiety, depression, and substance dependence in small but well-designed clinical studies. Psychedelics are advancing through pharmaceutical regulatory systems, and neuroimaging studies have related their extraordinary effects to select brain networks....
Basic self-disturbance (BSD) is proposed to constitute the clinical core of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, including prodromal states and schizotypy. Anomalous self-experiences (ASEs) are suggested as phenotypic variants of BSD, representing markers of schizophrenia vulnerability. However, ASEs are not restricted to the schizophrenia spectrum, but may also occur in non-psychotic states like...
Depression and anxiety are psychiatric diagnoses commonly associated with low quality of life and low percentage of responsiveness by patients treated with currently available drugs. Thus, research into alternative compounds to treat these disorders is essential to guarantee a patient's remission. The last decade has witnessed a revamped interest for the application of psychedelic medicine for...