Despite national efforts to curb the opioid crisis, the clinical and societal challenges continue to grow. FDA-approved medications for opioid use disorder (OUD) are effective but are associated with high rates of treatment discontinuation and relapse. A collection of agents with acute effects on consciousness, collectively (if variably) categorized as 'psychedelics', have emerged as potential...
Hallucinations sit at the crossroads of philosophy and the empirical sciences, but are often approached with divergent aims. In philosophy, they are mainly treated stipulatively as experiences subjectively indistinguishable from veridical perception and used to probe theories of perception, justification, and consciousness. Empirical research, by contrast, investigates heterogeneous, clinically...
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and near-death experiences (NDEs) represent profound disruptions in brain function, often associated with dramatic changes in consciousness, self-perception, and behavior. While these events are typically studied for their pathological consequences, a growing body of evidence suggests they may also trigger unexpected cognitive and creative enhancements in a subset...
Understanding the neural correlates of consciousness remains a central challenge in neuroscience. In this study, we explore the potential of neural field theory (NFT) as a computational framework for representing consciousness states. While prior research has validated NFT's capacity to differentiate between normal and pathological states of consciousness, the relationship of its parameters to...
During the wake-sleep cycle, consciousness waxes and wanes, and this is thought to be reflected in varying levels of integration between brain areas. Recent studies challenged the notion that consciousness is homogeneously present or absent in a brain state, as exemplified by conscious reports found in otherwise unconscious Non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. Here, we tested if functional...
A central tension exists within Charles S. Peirce's philosophy of mind: while he characterizes perception as an "extreme case of abduction," its involuntary nature seems to exclude it from the realm of reasoning. This paper aims to resolve this tension and develop a unified framework for understanding perception and emotion. We propose a two-tier model of abduction, distinguishing between...
Bipolar II disorder is traditionally understood as a condition of mood dysregulation, yet beneath its psychological manifestations lies a physiological rhythm often overlooked: the regulation of the autonomic nervous system. This perspective proposes that while bipolar II is not caused by a dysregulated nervous system, its course-and particularly the depth and duration of depressive episodes-is...
Current AI benchmarks often equate mimicry with genuine intelligence, emphasizing task performance over the underlying cognitive processes that enable human-like understanding. The Machine Perturbational Complexity & Agency Battery (mPCAB) introduces a new, substrate-independent framework that applies neurophysiological methods used initially to assess consciousness in artificial systems....
Integrative neuroscience increasingly recognizes that the brain evolved primarily as a biological system for generating movement. Viewed as a complex oscillator, the brain is now widely investigated through electroencephalography (EEG), which occupies a central position in both motor neuroscience and cognitive research, particularly in the study of consciousness. In this perspective article, we...
Psilocybin containing mushrooms have been utilized for ceremonial, medicinal, and spiritual purposes for millennia. Recently there has been a surge of scientific interest in the therapeutic potential and mechanistic understanding of serotonergic psychedelics, including psilocybin. Psilocybin is classified as a serotonergic psychedelic because the non-ordinary state of consciousness that it...