Abstract Psilocybin is a classic psychedelic drug known to alter subjective experience and elicit long-term psychological changes, enhancing cognitive flexibility and reducing rigid self-related beliefs. Combined with compassion motivational primes that involve generating mental representations of compassion, it may increase the potential for activating the care-affiliative motivational...
Classical psychedelics, like lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), and psilocybin, can alter perception, emotion, and cognition, and have shown promise as 're-purposed' treatments for some psychiatric disorders. Recent trials have, e.g., demonstrated rapid and sustained symptom relief in treatment-resistant depression. While promising as a treatment, the...
Individual variability in psilocybin response is a major challenge for psychedelic-assisted therapy, with structural brain features potentially serving as predictive biomarkers. (Lewis et al. Biomedicines 8(2):34 2020) reported that rostral anterior cingulate cortex thickness predicted emotional experiences under psilocybin, suggesting cortical morphometry as a marker of psychedelic...
Psilocybin holds promise as a treatment for mental illnesses. One dose of psilocybin induces structural remodeling of dendritic spines in the medial frontal cortex in mice. The dendritic spines would be innervated by presynaptic neurons, but the sources of these inputs have not been identified. Here, using monosynaptic rabies tracing, we map the brain-wide distribution of inputs to frontal...
The default mode network (DMN) is a collection of interconnected transmodal brain regions that is engaged during internally oriented thought processes. It has been linked with multiple functions, including self-referential judgment, social cognition, episodic memory, and semantic memory. In an effort to identify a unitary overarching purpose of the DMN, Menon [Menon, V. 20 years of the default...
MRI is a noninvasive imaging technique that measures the neurological activity of a person’s brain over time. The BOLD signal, which represents variations in blood oxygenation associated with brain activity, is what it depends on.The investigation of functional connectivity emphasizes on the timevarying spontaneous variations in these BOLD signals. Functional connectivity measures the...
Socioeconomic hardship (SES-H) is a known risk factor for adolescent suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB). This study examined sleep health as a pathway linking SES-H to suicide risk and evaluated the moderating role of Default Mode Network (DMN) coherence. Data came from three waves of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (N = 11,878). Increased SES-H predicted greater...
One of the most striking features of human consciousness is its ability to foster an ongoing, seemingly continuous stream of thought. Prior studies have provided valuable insights into the neural correlates of the content of thought (e.g., whether it is task related or not). However, independent of its content, the stream of thought can also be characterized by its dynamics—how it changes over...
The Default Mode Network (DMN) is associated with an internal self-referential view of the world, and its intrinsic properties have been linked to different cognitive abilities. While its function and structure has been well characterized through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), much less is known about its behavior using electroencephalography (EEG). This study examines the...
The therapeutic potential of psychedelic substances faces limitations due to safety and legal concerns. This study explores a non-pharmacological alternative using a brain-computer interface (BCI) within a Virtual Reality (VR) environment to modulate Default Mode Network (DMN) activity, specifically targeting the Posterior Cingulate Cortex (PCC). We present an offline validation of an EEG...
Abstract Mind-body interventions offer promising avenues for improving physical and mental health, yet the comprehensive biological effects of increasingly popular mind-body retreat interventions remain poorly understood. The neural and molecular effects of a 7-day retreat intervention combining meditation, reconceptualization, and open-label placebo healing rituals are investigated in an...
The neural foundations of the Dark Triad (DT) personality traits-narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy-remain largely unexplored despite their profound impact on social behavior. Previous research has indicated potential structural and functional alterations in the default mode network (DMN) and reward-related regions in individuals exhibiting high levels of DT traits. However, these...
Chanting is an ancient and globally widespread ritualistic practice involving rhythmic vocalization or repetition of words, phrases, or sounds. While previous reviews have considered the neurophysiological impact of meditation and spirituality, chanting has received limited systematic investigation. This review aimed to identify and synthesize neural correlates of chanting, examine...
Despite a renewed scientific interest in lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), its local neural effects remain underexplored. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study explored and compared LSD-induced changes in local activity (amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations: ALFF) and local connectivity (regional homogeneity: ReHo), assessing their relationship to regional receptor density....
This paper introduces the Fixation-Projection Framework (F-P), a conceptual framework that models the brain as a fixation–projection system. Fixations are defined as functional set points instantiated in biological tissue, from synaptic stabilizations to beliefs, while and projections are cast as the remapping and transmission of fixated content. Based on this, it is argued that the F-P...
NeuroimageOctober 6, 2025Chun-Wei Hsu, Shu-Lan Hsieh, Wan-Rue Lin et al.
Dynamic variations of information in our environment constantly influence our thoughts, requiring the brain to regulate its internal state transitions to maintain stable psychological functioning. Presumably, effective regulation of brain state transitions — defined as changes from one functional state to another over time — reflects psychological resilience whereas failure to adapt can lead to...
Psilocybin, an indoleamine alkaloid derived from various fungal species, is the subject of renewed, rigorous investigation for its therapeutic potential in psychiatry. This compound, a prodrug for the active metabolite psilocin, functions primarily as a partial agonist at the serotonin 2A (5-HT2A) receptor. Its administration within a structured psychotherapeutic context is associated with...
NeuropsychologiaOctober 3, 2025Guanghui Zhai, Yang Feng, Xin Ling et al.
Human attention is a limited resource increasingly taxed by continuous, socially embedded media streams, but how habitual short-video use shapes core attentional operations and their neural substrates remains unclear. Here we distinguish active from passive short video usage and examine whether they differentially relate to the alerting, orienting, and executive components of attention and to...
NeuroimageOctober 1, 2025Chang-hyun Park, Song E. Kim, Y. Choi et al.
Transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS) has emerged as a promising noninvasive technique for brain stimulation due to its precise focusing and deep penetration capabilities. However, its potential to modulate brain networks beyond the stimulation site and optimal sonication parameters required for such modulation remain unclear. In light of this knowledge gap, this study investigates the effects...