Brain Topography
November 1, 2009
Shisei Tei, Pascal L Faber, Dietrich Lehmann et al.
Many meditation exercises aim at increased awareness of ongoing experiences through sustained attention and at detachment, i.e., non-engaging observation of these ongoing experiences by the intent not to analyze, judge or expect anything. Long-term meditation practice is believed to generalize the ability of increased awareness and greater detachment into everyday life. We hypothesized that...
Contemporary Hypnosis
October 30, 2009
Ulrike Halsband, Susanne Mueller, Thilo Hinterberger et al.
93 citations
Abstract Neuroscientific evidence interprets both hypnotic trance induction and different meditation traditions as modified states of consciousness that emphasize attention, concentration and the letting go of thoughts, but they differ in terms of sensory input, processing, memory, and the sense of time. Furthermore, hypnosis is based on the suggestibility of a person and meditation on...
Brain Stimulation
October 2009
Giacomo Koch, Francesco Mori, Claudia Codecà et al.
In animal models, the cannabinoid system has been convincingly implicated in the regulation of long-lasting synaptic plasticity. Both long-term potentiation (LTP) and depression (LTD) phenomena can be induced in the human motor cortex by transcranial magnetic theta burst stimulation (TBS). Here, we explored the potential involvement of the cannabinoid system in TBS-induced synaptic plasticity...
Current Medicinal Chemistry
August 20, 2009
John S. Adams
7 citations
Pyramidal neurons in layer 5 of the cerebral cortex are involved in learning and memory and have complex connections with other neurons through a very large array of dendrites. These dendrites can switch between long term depression and long term potentiation depending on global summation of various inputs. The plasticity of the input into pyramidal neurons makes the neuronal output variable....
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
August 1, 2009
Joseph J. Loizzo
This overview surveys the new optimism about the aging mind/brain, focusing on the potential for self-regulation practices to advance research in stress-protection and optimal health. It reviews recent findings and offers a research framework. The review links the age-related biology of stress and regeneration to the variability of mind/brain function found under a range of conditions from...
Neuroscience
May 5, 2009
Kevin T. Ball, C L Wellman, E Fortenberry et al.
Repeated, intermittent exposure to the psychomotor stimulants amphetamine and cocaine induces a progressive and enduring augmentation of their locomotor-activating effects, known as behavioral sensitization, which is accompanied by similarly stable adaptations in the dendritic structure of cortico-striatal neurons. We examined whether repeated exposure to the increasingly abused amphetamine...
The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology
March 2009
Simret Beraki, Rochellys Diaz-Heijtz, Fadao Tai et al.
A number of studies indicate that glutamatergic N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) neurotransmission is disturbed in schizophrenia partly based on the findings that NMDA receptor antagonists such as phencyclidine (PCP) can reproduce a schizophrenia-like syndrome in both humans and rodents. This study investigated whether repeated administration of low doses of PCP can induce cognitive dysfunctions in...
Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy
2009
Kelley Raab Mayo
Research in neurobiology supports use of spiritual techniques as a beneficial treatment for anxiety. Psychotherapy, including mindfulness CBT and meditation, has been shown to change brain structure. The amygdala-the brain structure responsible for processing emotion and anxiety-demonstrates plasticity, and the purpose of therapy may be to allow the cortex to establish more effective and...
Progress in Brain Research
2009
Lambros Malafouris
This paper aims primarily at two things: The first is to present an overview of the newly developed field of "neuroarchaeology" and discuss its theoretical grounding in Material Engagement Theory (MET) and the extended mind hypothesis. The second is to use the above overview as a basis for advancing some tentative proposals about the role that neuroarchaeology, by placing the mutual...
Neural Plasticity
2009
Birgitta Dresp, Jean Durup
20 citations
Consciousness is known to be limited in processing capacity and often described in terms of a unique processing stream across a single dimension: time. In this paper, we discuss a purely temporal pattern code, functionally decoupled from spatial signals, for conscious state generation in the brain. Arguments in favour of such a code include Dehaene et al.'s long-distance reverberation...