Transcultural psychiatry
April 1, 2018
Marco Aurélio Vinhosa Bastos, Paulo Roberto Haidamus de Oliveira Bastos, Igraíne Helena Scholz Osório et al.
12 citations
Female spiritist mediums who regularly engage in spirit possession showed mild, short-lived physiological arousal during possession experiences, while nonmedium participants from the same religious context showed relaxation. Compared to controls, mediums had increased heart rate and higher plasma levels of noradrenaline, thyroid-stimulating hormone, prolactin, and creatine phosphokinase during possession. These changes returned to baseline within one hour, with no lasting difference in cardiac autonomic regulation. No group differences were found in melatonin levels. The findings suggest that nonpathological dissociation, unlike pathological dissociation, may involve cognitive control processes and produce only transient physiological changes.
Brain and behavior
July 1, 2020
Marco Aurélio Vinhosa Bastos, Paulo Roberto Haidamus de Oliveira Bastos, Loyná Euá Flores E Paez et al.
8 citations
Alleged mediums showed no differences in pineal gland or pituitary volumes, or in urinary 6-sulfatoxymelatonin levels, compared to nonmedium controls. During mediumistic experience, anxiety and heart rate increased to a level between reading and a stressful test, but 6-sulfatoxymelatonin levels did not differ across conditions. Salivary cortisol response to stress was attenuated. The normal neuroimaging and stress reactivity findings contrast with abnormalities typically seen in psychotic and dissociative disorders.
Explore (New York, N.Y.)
January 1, 2022
Marco Aurélio Vinhosa Bastos, Paulo Roberto Haidamus Oliveira Bastos, Geraldo Barbosa Foscaches Filho et al.
6 citations
Alleged mediums who report regular communication with deceased personalities show no differences in brain structure, hypnotizability, dissociation, or empathy compared to non-medium controls. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed normal corpus callosum areas in the medium group, contrasting with abnormalities seen in psychotic and dissociative disorders. Both groups had intermediate hypnotic susceptibility levels, and the rostrum of the corpus callosum area did not correlate with hypnotizability. The medium group reported more anomalous experiences but scored similarly on dissociation, empathy, and mental health measures. The findings suggest that mediumship is not associated with the brain abnormalities or dissociative pathology found in clinical conditions.
PloS one
January 1, 2026
Kleber Monteiro Pinto, Thaise G L de O Toutain, Hugo Saba et al.
Mediums in a trance state showed distinct brain electrical activity compared to when they wrote in a normal waking state, with increased power in theta, alpha, beta1, and beta2 frequency bands. The quality of texts produced during trance was higher than the mediums' own waking texts, but there was no overall difference in text quality between mediums and a control group who simulated mediumistic writing. The findings indicate that complex language production is preserved across groups, while trance is associated with unique spectral brain dynamics during writing.