PloS one
January 1, 2026
Diego Castellano-Ramírez, Elisa Hernández-Álvarez, Lucas F Borkel et al.
A survey of 325 medical and nursing students at a Spanish university found cautiously optimistic views toward psychedelic-assisted therapy, though concerns persist. Women reported lower perceived knowledge about psychedelics, while older students showed greater openness to their therapeutic potential. Medical students had higher perceived knowledge and stronger agreement with therapeutic applications than nursing students, who more strongly linked psychedelic use to psychiatric risk. Students who had personally used psychedelics were more supportive of legalization and therapeutic use. Formal education on psychedelics was associated with more favorable attitudes and increased knowledge, suggesting that training may reduce stigma and support evidence-based policy.
PloS one
January 1, 2026
Clement Abbatecola, Bernard Marius ’t Hart, Belén M. Montabes De la Cruz et al.
The subjective experience of space around the visual blind spot is investigated to test three theories of consciousness: Integrated Information Theory (IIT), Predictive Processing Active Inference (AI), and Predictive Processing Neurorepresentationalism (NREP). IIT predicts that the blind spot region, lacking feedforward input from one eye, should contribute differently to perceived spatial quality. The Predictive Processing accounts argue that internal models accommodate structural deviations based on sensory evidence. Participants evaluate distances, areas, and illusory motion with or without the blind spot involved. Psychometric models quantify bias and precision in perceived versus objective space. Simulated results correspond to each theory's predictions, and challenges for dissemination are discussed.
PloS one
January 1, 2025
Jiuhong You, Zunera Khan, Reena Swaroop et al.
An eight-week, online-delivered mindfulness program is being tested for feasibility and acceptability in people over 60 with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia in the UK. The study will recruit 32 participants who will attend weekly live online sessions led by an experienced teacher, plus daily home practice. Primary outcomes are feasibility and acceptability measured through participation records and interviews. Secondary outcomes include changes in cognition, mood, sleep, quality of life, mindfulness, and resilience. Online delivery could reduce travel burdens and costs, and the study aims to provide evidence supporting remote interventions for this population.
PloS one
January 1, 2025
Timothy Sweeney, Elena Nixon, Richard Morriss et al.
Depression affects about 5% of people worldwide, with high relapse rates and 10-20% experiencing chronic depression. In 20 participants with moderate-to-severe persistent depression who had no prior mindfulness training, interviews revealed that mindfulness capacity decreases during depressive episodes. Six themes emerged: behavioral withdrawal, perceptual detachment from experience, intentional reduction in awareness, increased self-criticism, racing thoughts, and impaired cognitive performance. Reduced mindfulness appears to occur both as an indirect consequence of depression-related processes like rumination and as a deliberate self-protective strategy, but it also maintains and intensifies depressive experience. Introducing mindfulness-based treatments to this population may be challenging because severe symptoms can obstruct access to a mindful perspective.
PloS one
January 1, 2025
Bastien Perroy, Pablo Fernandez Velasco, Umer Gurchani et al.
During the Covid-19 restrictions, people reported unusual disruptions in their experience of time, such as time passing both slower and faster, or feeling unreal. An analysis of 149 subjective reports from France and the UK in March 2021 identified three forms of temporal disorientation: loss of temporal landmarks making orientation harder and causing episodic disorientation; sustained temporal disbelief, an existential form where past perspective was severely distorted; and a future-oriented form marked by anxiety and hopelessness, with inability to project into the future. The findings suggest that providing future landmarks could help those most exposed to dissociative temporal experiences during crises.
PloS one
January 1, 2024
Benjamin A Korman
Lifetime use of LSD before job loss is associated with a higher likelihood of severe psychological distress afterward, not with resilience. Analyzing data from over 5 million unemployed, job-seeking individuals, the study found that those who used LSD prior to losing their job reported worse mental health following the stressful experience, even after accounting for sociodemographic factors. This contradicts earlier suggestions that classic psychedelics might confer psychological protection. The findings indicate that, in naturalistic settings, LSD use does not buffer against the distress of unemployment.
PloS one
January 1, 2024
Kunal Desai, Patricia O'Malley, Emily Van Culin
A randomized trial compared Heartfulness meditation to gratitude practice among 83 healthcare providers (50% nurses, 37% allied professionals, 13% physicians) across the US. After six weeks, the Heartfulness group showed significant improvement in burnout and secondary traumatic stress, and increased vigor at work, while the gratitude group did not. Compassion satisfaction trended higher with Heartfulness but was not statistically significant. Qualitative reports indicated Heartfulness practitioners experienced better sleep and less reactivity to stress, while gratitude practitioners reported improved mood and positive family interactions. The authors conclude that Heartfulness meditation is associated with reduced burnout and greater work vigor, but larger trials are needed.
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.
PloS one
January 1, 2026
Matilda Gibbons, Ethan G McBride, Raghuram Holenarasipura Venkatasubbaiah et al.
An adversarial collaboration will test competing predictions from Global Neuronal Workspace Theory and Integrated Information Theory about the neural correlates of consciousness. Non-human primates and mice will perform a go-nogo task with supra-threshold visual and auditory stimuli while neural activity is recorded from multiple cortical areas using Neuropixels electrodes. To causally test timing and location predictions, prefrontal cortex activity will be manipulated via electrical stimulation in primates or optogenetic silencing in mice. The protocol details experimental design, analyses, divergent predictions, and anticipated outcomes.
PloS one
January 1, 2025
Ryoko Uno, Shu Imaizumi
The way a sentence is structured can affect a speaker's sense of agency and ownership—key components of the minimal self. In an experiment with Japanese sentences, participants rated their sense of agency lower when causation or perception was absent from the sentence compared to when either was present. Agency was also higher for perceiver-prominent sentences (e.g., "I saw a star") than for perceiver-stimulus-prominent sentences (e.g., "A star was visible to me"). Ownership was similarly higher for perceiver-prominent sentences, though results for perceiver-stimulus-prominent sentences varied with the perceived stimulus. These findings suggest that linguistic structure can distinctly influence the embodied experience of selfhood.
PloS one
January 1, 2024
Mark J H Lim, Rajan Iyyalol, Joseph W Y Lee et al.
A single-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study tested whether a synthetic THC analogue, Nabilone (1-2 mg), alters the sense of agency and body ownership in 32 healthy volunteers, comparing effects to those previously seen in schizophrenia. The study found that Nabilone had multimodal and bidirectional effects on the projected hand illusion, widening the spatio-temporal binding window in some participants and narrowing it in others, depending on spatial and temporal conditions. Evidence supported a unitary spatio-temporal binding window rather than separate spatial and temporal windows. No significant associations were found between agency and embodiment measures, and a large proportion of participants did not experience the illusion.
PloS one
January 1, 2024
Wolf E Mehling, Irina A Strigo, Veronica Goldman et al.
A 2-minute mindful attention exercise guided by a smartphone app, repeated several times daily for 8 weeks, helped people with chronic low back pain. Pain intensity dropped from 4.8 to 3.1 on a 0-10 scale, and a combined measure of pain intensity and interference (PEG score) improved from 13.7 to 8.4. Twenty-one of 29 participants had at least a 30% improvement in PEG score. Participants reported becoming aware of their usual avoidance of pain, were surprised that pain sensations varied over time, and found that focusing on pain reduced its threat. Many described pain in 3D shapes with changing colors, temperature, and density. The approach may be a beneficial alternative to ignoring or distracting from pain.
PloS one
January 1, 2024
Karim S Ladha, Jiwon Lee, Gabriella F Mattina et al.
A pilot trial will test whether weekly inhaled nitrous oxide is feasible and preliminarily effective for treatment-resistant depression compared with the active placebo midazolam. Forty participants will receive either nitrous oxide (1 hour at 50% concentration) plus intravenous saline or oxygen (1 hour at 50% concentration) plus intravenous midazolam once per week for 4 weeks, with 6 weeks of follow-up. Feasibility will be assessed by recruitment and withdrawal rates, adherence, missing data, and adverse events. The main exploratory clinical outcome is change in depression scores at day 42. Results will guide a future definitive trial.
PloS one
January 1, 2021
Rui Miguel Costa, Arlindo Madeira, Matilde Barata et al.
Drinking a moderate dose of red wine (about 40.98 g of ethanol) in a wine bar designed for pleasurable drinking increases pleasure and arousal, slows the subjective passage of time, focuses attention on the present moment, and reduces body awareness. It also enhances imagination, insightfulness, originality of thoughts, and feelings of oneness with the environment, spiritual feelings, all-encompassing love, and profound peace. These changes occurred regardless of whether participants drank alone, in pairs, or in groups. Older age correlated with greater pleasure increases; younger age with greater fascination with the environment. The findings suggest that red wine in such a setting can trigger changes in consciousness similar to mystical-type states.
PloS one
January 1, 2020
Alexandre Seillier, Alex A Martinez, Andrea Giuffrida
In a rat model of schizophrenia, low doses of THC (0.1 mg/kg) reversed social withdrawal and elevated anandamide levels caused by PCP, while higher doses (0.3, 1.0 mg/kg) worsened social deficits and disrupted dopamine neuron activity similarly to PCP alone. THC also activated the Akt/GSK3β pathway in a dose-dependent manner in both control and PCP-treated animals. These findings suggest that only low doses of THC may have beneficial effects on behavioral, neurochemical, and electrophysiological correlates of schizophrenia symptoms, potentially informing the debate on marijuana use as self-medication in patients.
PloS one
January 1, 2013
Levin Kuhlmann, Brett L Foster, David T J Liley
Nitrous oxide (N2O), an NMDA receptor antagonist, reduces parietal network functional connectivity by about 50% and frontal network connectivity by about 10%, as measured by EEG. Parietal reductions were detected only with a surface Laplacian derivation, indicating superficial cortical networks are most affected, while frontal reductions were detected with a common-reference derivation, suggesting widespread perturbations. These findings support the idea that different anesthetic agents may produce similar final network changes underlying reduced consciousness.