Recent studies demonstrate that ketamine, a fast-acting antidepressant, rapidly activates the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and increases synaptogenesis in the prefrontal cortex. Because of the side-effect and abuse potential of ketamine we are investigating alternative agents that produce similar effects. Here, we demonstrate that a single dose of LY 341495, an mGluR₂/₃ antagonist,...
Few studies have investigated the relation between dream features and cognition in Parkinson's disease (PD), although vivid dreams, hallucinations and cognitive decline have been proposed as successive steps of a pathological continuum. Our objectives were therefore to characterize the dreams of early stage PD and to study the relation between dream characteristics, cognitive function, motor...
Bipolar disorder is associated with impairments in cognition, including difficulties in executive functioning, even when patients are euthymic (neither depressed nor manic). The purpose of this study was to assess changes in self-reported cognitive functioning in patients with bipolar disorder who participated in an open pilot trial of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). Following MBCT,...
OBJECTIVES: Treatments of female sexual dysfunction have been largely unsuccessful because they do not address the psychological factors that underlie female sexuality. Negative self-evaluative processes interfere with the ability to attend and register physiological changes (interoceptive awareness). This study explores the effect of mindfulness meditation training on interoceptive awareness...
Buddhist practices have been increasingly influencing psychotherapy. For over 20 centuries, Buddhism has been the religion of a majority of Sri Lankans. However, there is little documentation of the use of Buddhist practices in psychotherapy in Sri Lanka. This paper presents a case study in which Theravadan Buddhist mindfulness meditation and cognitive therapy practices were used in the...
CONTEXT: Mind wandering--defined as a cognitive focus on information that is unrelated to immediate sensory input or the task at hand--is a ubiquitous characteristic of the human condition. When it occurs, the integrity of a wide range of cognitive skills can be compromised. OBJECTIVES: The current paper describes the phenomenon of mind wandering, explores its potential role in medical practice...
Mindfulness refers to an enhanced attention to and awareness of present moment experience. This study examined how trait mindfulness, as measured with six items from Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale, might influence adolescent cigarette smoking frequency through its impact on depressive affect, anger affect and perceived stress mediators. Self-reported data from Chinese adolescents (N =...
This study is an 11-part investigation of the psychology and neuropsychology of early Christian asceticism as represented by Evagrius Ponticus (AD 345-399), the tradition's first ascetical theologian and possibly its mosfinfluential. Evagrius's biography is reviewed in the first section. The living circuinstaii and perceptual consequences of desert asceticism are considered in the second....
The characteristics of dispositional mindfulness have rarely been explored in unhealthy populations. We sought to evaluate its association(s) with psychological morbidity and disease severity in 30 outpatients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators naïve to mindfulness training. We used the Five Facets of Mindfulness and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale to measure dispositional...
Low-dose ketamine administration mimics, both clinically and on gross neuroimaging, depersonalization disorder. The perceptual effects of ketamine may be due to secondary stimulation of glutamate release and lamotrigine, possibly by inhibited glutamate release, may reduce some of ketamine's so-called dissociative effects. However, lamotrigine does not seem to be useful in the treatment of...