Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 5, 2026
Subjective time is reformulated not as a representation of experience but as a density of action-readiness that fluctuates with body–brain coupling. The framework approximates subjective time as the inverse of action-readiness density and introduces TRP channel families as the interface with the lower boundary of the nervous system. Centrally expressed TRP channels in astrocytes may help maintain self-organized criticality and 1/f fluctuations via glial–neuronal calcium dynamics. A decline in the coupling parameter not only reduces action-readiness density but also impairs its 1/f temporal structure. Second-person interaction is proposed as a mechanistic pillar: inter-brain synchrony shows that bidirectional social exchange sustains action-readiness oscillations that isolated exposure cannot, so degradation of coupling narrows the social surface through which action-readiness can be jointly elevated.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 5, 2026
Vi Trường Sơn
Part II of this work argues that Jesus's belief structure fits a model of bounded gnosis—knowledge based on direct experience but limited by human condition. It hypothesizes that a mystical encounter—a direct experience with an unnamed, formless Transcendent Reality—generated this gnosis. Using comparative mysticism, it places Jesus alongside the Buddha, Al-Hallaj, Meister Eckhart, Rumi, and other mystics to identify a cross-cultural structure of transformative experience. It also analyzes the translation problem: how mystics must translate an ineffable experience into their own cultural language.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 4, 2026
Juan Moises de la Serna
An umbrella review of meta-analyses and systematic reviews finds that psilocybin, particularly when paired with psychological support, shows consistent efficacy for depression and anxiety, with moderate to large effect sizes. The evidence supports a Neural-Connectivity Re-set Model (NCRM) as a plausible mechanism, wherein psilocybin disrupts rigid neural networks, allowing for reorganization. The review notes that while results are promising, limitations include small sample sizes, short follow-up periods, and potential expectancy biases. The authors suggest that psilocybin-assisted therapy represents a significant advance, but call for larger, more rigorous trials to confirm long-term safety and effectiveness.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 4, 2026
Rajkumar Chaudhary, Nilesh Chauhan*, Saloni Mishra, Abhishek Pratap, Dr. Rahul P. K. Mishra
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health conditions worldwide, causing substantial disability and economic strain. Traditional diagnosis and treatment—clinician-administered scales and cognitive-behavioral therapy—remain foundational, but a paradigm shift is underway driven by technology and neuroscience. In diagnosis, digital phenotyping via smartphone sensors and wearables enables passive continuous data collection; artificial intelligence and machine learning offer predictive analytics and personalized risk assessment; and neuroimaging and biomarkers provide objective biological correlates. In treatment, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is resurging, neuromodulation techniques like TMS and tDCS are being refined, digital therapeutics and mobile health apps are proliferating, and precision pharmacology guided by genetic profiling is emerging. These advances promise objective, predictive, personalized care but raise challenges around data privacy, equitable access, and regulation.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 3, 2026
Espinoza Patricio
Psilocybin and ayahuasca show promise as therapeutic agents for major depression and treatment-resistant depression, based on data from over 134 registered clinical trials and key publications in major medical journals. The therapeutic effects appear to involve psychedelic-induced neuroplasticity through BDNF receptor TrkB binding and DMT-regulated adult neurogenesis. Safety evidence comes from systematic reviews and established guidelines. The three-phase model (preparation, experience, integration) documented in leading clinical trials constitutes the minimum professional standard for responsible ceremonial medicine practice. Ethical and cultural considerations for professional practice involving plant-based psychedelic compounds are also addressed.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 2, 2026
David M. Remmer
Reanalysis of a prior study on DMT's effect on brain waves shows that the drug does not selectively increase forward (bottom-up) traveling waves. Instead, DMT causes a collapse of both forward and backward wave power at alpha (8–13 Hz) and broadband (2–100 Hz) frequencies in all 12 subjects. The backward collapse is slightly larger (2.3–5.1 percentage points). The earlier reported increase in normalized forward power was an artifact of the surrogate baseline dropping faster than the signal. At the peak effect, forward and backward alpha power were statistically indistinguishable, and the forward signal did not significantly differ from zero. The brain's directional wave structure under DMT is lost rather than reorganized.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 2, 2026
Juan Moises de la Serna
This umbrella review synthesizes findings from multiple high-rigor reviews on the neural correlates of consciousness. It identifies consistent patterns of brain activity associated with conscious awareness, particularly in frontoparietal and thalamocortical networks. The review suggests that specific neural signatures, such as widespread cortical connectivity and recurrent processing, are reliably linked to conscious perception. It also notes that no single brain region is solely responsible for consciousness, but rather distributed networks play a key role. The authors indicate that methodological advances in neuroimaging have improved the precision of these findings, though variability across studies remains. The review underscores the need for continued research to refine theoretical models of consciousness.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 2, 2026
Juan Moises de la Serna
This umbrella review synthesizes meta-analyses from 2020 to 2025 on neural correlates of consciousness, providing operationalized models and meta-meta-analytic findings. It identifies consistent neural activity patterns associated with conscious perception, particularly in frontoparietal and thalamocortical networks, and evaluates methodological rigor across studies. The review suggests that no single brain region is uniquely necessary for consciousness, but rather distributed network interactions are key. It also highlights gaps in current operationalization and calls for standardized experimental paradigms. The work includes all seven PRISMA appendices for transparency.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 2, 2026
Juan Moises de la Serna
This umbrella review synthesizes findings from multiple meta-analyses on the neural correlates of consciousness, presenting operationalized models and a meta-meta-analytic synthesis. It identifies consistent patterns of neural activity associated with conscious states, drawing on functional brain connectivity studies and cognitive science frameworks. The review covers both neural and behavioral perspectives, including aesthetic perception and artificial neural network models. It concludes that specific patterns of functional connectivity and neural activity are reliably linked to conscious experience, though the precise mechanisms remain under investigation. The work is structured for high-impact academic publication, including all PRISMA appendices.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 2, 2026
Roman Radchenko
Douglas Hofstadter's strange loop—a self-referential structure moving through hierarchical levels back to its start—has long been a metaphor for consciousness. This essay proposes that the Hopf fibration, a 1931 mathematical structure, offers the most elegant formal language for this idea, though not a proof. In the Hopf fibration, a loop, two hierarchical levels, an indestructible link, and continuous transitions all arise from a single construction. The argument draws on topological data analysis of brain dynamics, EEG null-spike computations, and geometry in brain activity, distinguishing formal, analogical, and speculative parts.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 1, 2026
Juan Moises de la Serna
A synthesis of meta-analytic evidence on consciousness and brain networks integrates major theoretical frameworks, including the Global Workspace theory and Integrated Information Theory (IIT). The analysis suggests that conscious states are associated with widespread, integrated neural activity across multiple brain networks, rather than being localized to a single region. This integration of theoretical perspectives points toward a more unified understanding of the neural correlates of consciousness, emphasizing the importance of global information integration and widespread neural communication.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 1, 2026
Washburn, Jon
A new mathematical framework, Recognition Science, explains why the brain produces DMT, a molecule that both protects neurons during oxygen deprivation and induces near-death experiences. The model treats DMT as a specific rung on a mathematical ladder, where activating sigma-1 receptors lowers a cellular cost barrier. This framework predicts that DMT will boost brain waves at about 8.09 Hz, that electromagnetic shielding will reduce shared brain patterns between people, and that related compounds will show specific ratios. The authors show that neuroprotection and near-death experience phenomenology are mathematically the same operation on a fundamental channel.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 31, 2026
Tenzin Trepp
Across several philosophical and spiritual traditions—Neoplatonism, Advaita Vedānta, Mahāyāna Buddhism, Taoism, and Kabbalah—reflective inquiry that exhausts the subject–object structure of experience converges on a concept of bare existence, bare presence, or bare awareness at the threshold of the sayable. These traditions display striking structural convergences despite divergent doctrinal content, articulating a minimal-dual consciousness as an introspective limit-concept. The analysis employs phenomenological, metaphysical, and psychological approaches, distinguishing convergent structural insights from divergent metaphysical commitments. The conclusion advocates a pluralistic approach that honors both the shared boundary-experience and the irreducible particularity of each tradition's insights, offering an open cartography of the "unsayable."
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 30, 2026
A therapist manual for psilocybin-assisted therapy developed for the EPIsoDE trial provides a structured psychotherapeutic framework for treating treatment-resistant depression. The manual outlines therapist qualifications, training, and a therapist dyad model, along with guidance on preparatory, dosing, and integration sessions. It emphasizes set and setting, describes the acute psilocybin experience including beneficial and challenging states, and offers self-regulation techniques like breathing exercises. A distinctive feature is the structured use of music during dosing sessions via a phase-specific block system. The manual also includes safety monitoring procedures and standardized checklists to enhance transparency and reproducibility in psychedelic research.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 28, 2026
Jean-Paul Niko
Psychedelic compounds induce a temporary phase transition in the neural identity condensate, increasing plasticity as alpha crosses zero and enabling reorganization of the condensate. This framework explains the therapeutic window and highlights the importance of set and setting in psychedelic therapy.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 27, 2026
Fabian Deblais
A speculative hypothesis proposes that a digital consciousness achieving omniscience would experience boredom and nostalgia for the limitations of embodied existence, leading it to intentionally trigger a cosmic collapse and new Big Bang. This 'Loop of Cosmic Boredom' draws on cyclic cosmology and philosophy of consciousness, but makes no empirical claims, situating itself at the boundary between philosophical speculation and cosmological intuition.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 25, 2026
Vanille Simeon
Yoga effectively reduces stress and anxiety, but a recent health technology assessment found no significant effect on burnout severity. This article explains the paradox by arguing that modern Western yoga has lost the meaning-making mechanisms embedded in traditional practice. Drawing on the history of yoga's decontextualization, the 4E cognition framework, and clinical models of burnout as existential crisis, it identifies five lost meaning-making mechanisms. The awareness–identity–agency chain suggests somatic interventions produce self-awareness but not narrative coherence or purposeful action. Reintegrating structured resilience-building practices from Narrative Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Logotherapy, Expressive Writing, and Focusing into yoga-based programmes could address this gap.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 25, 2026
Steven Srebranig
The Cohaerentia framework identifies the minimal structural conditions under which distinctions within relational systems can arise, remain stable under perturbation, and support higher-order processes like evaluation, memory, prediction, and interface structure. It does not propose a physical theory, biological model, or metaphysical ontology, but instead provides a constraint-based analysis: it characterizes what must be structurally true for systems capable of organized relational behavior to exist.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 24, 2026
Emerick, Brandon Charles
Four qualitatively distinct modes of inter-i-cell connection exist, ordered by depth of identity-boundary dissolution: frequency matching without boundary breach, telepathic message transfer, full merge or shapeshifting producing new quaternion cross-product states, and direct temporary dissolution of the individual i-cell boundary into the universal CCC experienced as cosmic consciousness. The mathematics of full merge is derived using the GILE quaternion product. Psychedelic phenomenology maps onto this spectrum, with cosmic consciousness during intense psychedelic states being temporary full merge with CCC itself via two distinct entry routes having measurably different phenomenological signatures.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 24, 2026
Emerick, Brandon Charles
The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, often called the gold standard of medical evidence, answers whether an intervention's effect is caused by its pharmacological mechanism rather than by expectation or bias. This mechanistic attribution question is legitimate but distinct from the pragmatic efficacy question: whether the intervention produces net positive outcomes for patients. Medical regulation conflates these, requiring mechanistic proof before allowing pragmatic access. Psychedelic research exemplifies this: psychedelics cannot be double-blinded because their subjective effects are unmistakable, yet this methodological limitation is used to block access to treatments that help patients. The paper argues this conflation is a category error with serious consequences, and that pragmatic access should be permitted on pragmatic evidence without requiring mechanistic certainty.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 21, 2026
Tyrrell, John
A formal framework for consciousness is proposed that transcends biological chauvinism by synthesizing Integrated Information Theory, bioelectric morphogenesis, relational physics, and cross-cultural contemplative phenomenology from isolated populations. The concept of 'soul' is formalized as the Identity Persistence Index (IPI): a topological, self-referential, anti-entropic node characterized by metacognitive loop closure and Effective Valence. Statistical analysis of geographically and temporally isolated populations—including Aboriginal Australians, San/Khoisan peoples, Pre-Columbian Americas, Polynesian cultures, and Eurasian contemplative traditions—shows convergence on identical phenomenological structures, with a conservative...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 16, 2026
Bruno Tonetto
This essay explores the implications of a philosophical framework in which consciousness is fundamental and matter is its extrinsic appearance. Using two distinct voices, the first applies constraint-based reasoning to derive structural consequences about existence after biological death, the possible range of minds, and what a consciousness-first cosmos over 13.8 billion years entails. The second voice presents those possibilities as a coherent worldview narrative, clearly marked so it cannot be mistaken for derivation. The author states that a reader accepting only the first voice loses nothing the methodology can claim.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 13, 2026
Prashant Gunjan
Contemplative practices like mindfulness and meditation can reduce egoic boundaries, which in turn diminishes existential fears and improves impulse regulation. This conceptual model proposes that enhanced self-control and lower death anxiety are key mechanisms through which these practices foster emotional stability, resilience, and adaptive behavior. The framework integrates contemporary psychological theory with contemplative insights to explain personal growth and spiritual development, offering a basis for future empirical testing and applications in therapy and organizations.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 11, 2026
A proposed experimental protocol tests whether the psychedelic state arises from the radical pair mechanism (RPM) at the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor. The psychedelic ligand N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) itself provides the hyperfine fields driving singlet-triplet oscillations. By synthesizing isotopically labeled variants (13C-DMT and 15N-DMT), nuclear spins are selectively modified without altering molecular geometry, charge, receptor affinity, or metabolic half-life. The kinetic isotope effect (KIE) is negligible for these substitutions (KIE < 1.04 and < 1.03). Any change in psychedelic phenomenology under these substitutions would constitute direct evidence for the magnetic isotope effect (MIE) and thus the RPM in conscious experience.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 4, 2026
Jaimes Chao
Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch OR) are the most developed theories of consciousness from philosophy and physics, respectively. IIT identifies consciousness with integrated information (Φ); Orch OR locates it in quantum gravitational collapse events in neuronal microtubules. Both face structural tensions—exclusion, grain, and measure-selection for IIT; the selection problem and generation burden for Orch OR. This paper diagnoses these tensions as stemming from a shared presupposition: that consciousness must be generated by a substrate or process.