#default-mode-network — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #default-mode-network, aggregated by home.social.
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DATE: July 4, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Brain signal chaos increases during an active migraine attack
People with migraines experience a drop in the complexity of their innate brain activity, which leaves their neural networks less adaptable to everyday stimuli. A recent study published in the journal NeuroImage suggests that an active migraine attack temporarily jolts the brain back into a more flexible state. This momentary increase in neural unpredictability offers a fresh perspective on how recurring headaches alter the brain’s internal rhythm.
Majid Saberi, a researcher at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, led the investigation alongside Alexandre F. DaSilva and a team of colleagues. They wanted to explore how the brain’s internal dynamics shift over the lifespan of a recurrent headache disorder. Migraines affect over a billion people worldwide, causing intense head throbbing, nausea, and severe sensitivity to light and sound.
The condition is increasingly viewed not just as an issue of constricted blood vessels, but as a widespread disruption in how the brain’s networks communicate with one another. To measure this communication, the research team focused on a concept called brain entropy. In general physics, entropy refers to the degree of disorder or unpredictability within a physical system.
When applied to neuroscience, brain entropy measures the complexity and irregularity of brain signals. Higher entropy means the brain is highly adaptable, processing information efficiently and responding flexibly to new environments. Lower entropy points to rigid, restricted patterns of brain activity where the neural connections are stuck in predictable loops.
Imagine a conversation where the participants recite the exact same script repeatedly, rather than adapting to new topics. In the brain, this lack of flexibility can limit the biological ability to properly process incoming sensory data or regulate emotional states. The researchers also wanted to evaluate whether these brain signals were purely random or driven by chaotic dynamics.
In mathematics, chaos refers to a system that follows strict behavioral rules but remains highly sensitive to seemingly minor changes in its starting conditions. A weakly chaotic brain state suggests that the neural connections form complex patterns that are flexible enough to break out of rigid behavioral loops without descending into total randomness.
To investigate these patterns, the research team recruited 66 adult participants. The cohort included 24 healthy adults, 25 people with episodic migraines, and 15 people with chronic migraines. Episodic migraines are defined as happening on fewer than 15 days a month, while chronic migraines occur on 15 or more days a month and represent a more disabling form of the condition.
The team used functional magnetic resonance imaging to track blood flow in the brain while the participants rested quietly inside a scanner with their eyes open. This specific approach, called a resting-state scan, is designed to capture the brain’s default hum of background activity rather than its response to a specific task. By mapping this spontaneous behavior, scientists can evaluate the baseline connectivity of the mind.
The imaging technique allows researchers to watch which areas of the brain are absorbing the most oxygen, providing a proxy for active neural firing. The researchers then calculated the entropy, or signal complexity, for thousands of tiny, three-dimensional cubes of brain tissue across the entire organ.
The results demonstrated that people with migraines experienced widespread reductions in brain entropy compared to the healthy adults. This drop in complexity was most pronounced in the individuals living with chronic migraines. The affected brain areas included the visual network, regions involved in paying attention to the outside world, and the default mode network.
The default mode network is a group of connected brain regions that govern internal thoughts, memory retrieval, and pain perception. The researchers observed that a longer overall history of migraines and a higher frequency of monthly headaches mirrored a steeper decline in brain entropy. This association hints that a prolonged headache disorder coincides with an increasingly constrained operational mode in the organ.
When the researchers looked at the exact timing of the brain scans, a different pattern emerged for the chronic migraine group. Participants who were scanned during or immediately after a migraine attack displayed a relative increase in brain entropy. This temporary boost occurred mainly in the brain’s multisensory integration regions.
These multisensory areas sit near the top and back of the brain, processing sights, sounds, and physical sensations simultaneously to create a unified picture of reality. To understand this temporary increase in complexity, the researchers applied mathematical tools to measure the underlying nature of the brain’s signal changes. They calculated a metric known as the largest Lyapunov exponent, which identifies how fast a system’s internal behaviors diverge over time.
If a system has a positive exponent, it means that even microscopic differences at the starting line will lead to wildly different outcomes later on. The team found that the sudden spike in complexity during an attack was associated with weakly chaotic dynamics rather than pure biological noise. This dynamic instability suggests that the intense neural storm of a migraine attack might act as a biological reset switch.
An attack aligns with a temporary break from the brain’s excessively rigid holding pattern, allowing a brief return to a more chaotic, flexible state. The specific symptoms an individual experienced also mapped onto entirely different brain entropy patterns. Participants who felt highly sensitive to sound during their recent attacks exhibited elevated complexity in the regions that mix incoming sensory information.
This underlying acoustic irregularity might explain why everyday noises suddenly feel overwhelming and impossible to tune out. Similarly, individuals who experienced severe nausea showed higher entropy in the default mode network. This network is heavily linked to processing internal bodily sensations and maintaining a baseline sense of physical normalcy, meaning disrupted communication in this area could explain the profound physical sickness that accompanies headache pain.
To ensure their measurements were precise, the researchers accounted for multiple outside variables that could muddy the data. They adjusted their mathematical models for the age and sex of the participants, as these factors naturally influence brain activity. The team also verified that minor head movements during the scanning process did not artificially distort the entropy readings.
Additional tests confirmed that the overall severity of depressive symptoms did not explain the primary brain differences they observed across the varying groups. However, the study does involve a few methodological limitations. The total number of participants was modest, which makes it challenging to draw sweeping conclusions about all migraine variations.
In addition, the project only captured a single snapshot in time for each participant, rather than tracking their brain waves continuously. Because the study did not follow the exact same individuals all the way through the onset, peak, and resolution of a single migraine, the exact sequence of events remains somewhat abstract. The results associated with specific symptoms were also exploratory.
The researchers did not find the differences between groups related to symptoms to be statistically significant enough to withstand certain rigorous mathematical corrections, meaning these specific links require independent validation. The investigators hope to conduct repeated assessments that track patients over an extended period. By watching the brain transition in real time, they aim to map exactly how these chaotic states arise and eventually fade away.
Such work might eventually illuminate new targets for treatments that safely restore brain flexibility without triggering the agonizing pain of a full migraine episode.
The study, “Reduced brain entropy in migraine with partial restoration during attacks: A resting-state fMRI study,” was authored by Majid Saberi, Dajung J. Kim, Xiao-Su Hu, and Alexandre F. DaSilva.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MigraineBrainEntropy #BrainEntropy #MigraineAttack #NeuralFlexibility #RestingStatefMRI #ChaoticDynamics #MultisensoryProcessing #DefaultModeNetwork #CNSMarketers #NeuroimageStudy
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DATE: July 4, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Brain signal chaos increases during an active migraine attack
People with migraines experience a drop in the complexity of their innate brain activity, which leaves their neural networks less adaptable to everyday stimuli. A recent study published in the journal NeuroImage suggests that an active migraine attack temporarily jolts the brain back into a more flexible state. This momentary increase in neural unpredictability offers a fresh perspective on how recurring headaches alter the brain’s internal rhythm.
Majid Saberi, a researcher at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, led the investigation alongside Alexandre F. DaSilva and a team of colleagues. They wanted to explore how the brain’s internal dynamics shift over the lifespan of a recurrent headache disorder. Migraines affect over a billion people worldwide, causing intense head throbbing, nausea, and severe sensitivity to light and sound.
The condition is increasingly viewed not just as an issue of constricted blood vessels, but as a widespread disruption in how the brain’s networks communicate with one another. To measure this communication, the research team focused on a concept called brain entropy. In general physics, entropy refers to the degree of disorder or unpredictability within a physical system.
When applied to neuroscience, brain entropy measures the complexity and irregularity of brain signals. Higher entropy means the brain is highly adaptable, processing information efficiently and responding flexibly to new environments. Lower entropy points to rigid, restricted patterns of brain activity where the neural connections are stuck in predictable loops.
Imagine a conversation where the participants recite the exact same script repeatedly, rather than adapting to new topics. In the brain, this lack of flexibility can limit the biological ability to properly process incoming sensory data or regulate emotional states. The researchers also wanted to evaluate whether these brain signals were purely random or driven by chaotic dynamics.
In mathematics, chaos refers to a system that follows strict behavioral rules but remains highly sensitive to seemingly minor changes in its starting conditions. A weakly chaotic brain state suggests that the neural connections form complex patterns that are flexible enough to break out of rigid behavioral loops without descending into total randomness.
To investigate these patterns, the research team recruited 66 adult participants. The cohort included 24 healthy adults, 25 people with episodic migraines, and 15 people with chronic migraines. Episodic migraines are defined as happening on fewer than 15 days a month, while chronic migraines occur on 15 or more days a month and represent a more disabling form of the condition.
The team used functional magnetic resonance imaging to track blood flow in the brain while the participants rested quietly inside a scanner with their eyes open. This specific approach, called a resting-state scan, is designed to capture the brain’s default hum of background activity rather than its response to a specific task. By mapping this spontaneous behavior, scientists can evaluate the baseline connectivity of the mind.
The imaging technique allows researchers to watch which areas of the brain are absorbing the most oxygen, providing a proxy for active neural firing. The researchers then calculated the entropy, or signal complexity, for thousands of tiny, three-dimensional cubes of brain tissue across the entire organ.
The results demonstrated that people with migraines experienced widespread reductions in brain entropy compared to the healthy adults. This drop in complexity was most pronounced in the individuals living with chronic migraines. The affected brain areas included the visual network, regions involved in paying attention to the outside world, and the default mode network.
The default mode network is a group of connected brain regions that govern internal thoughts, memory retrieval, and pain perception. The researchers observed that a longer overall history of migraines and a higher frequency of monthly headaches mirrored a steeper decline in brain entropy. This association hints that a prolonged headache disorder coincides with an increasingly constrained operational mode in the organ.
When the researchers looked at the exact timing of the brain scans, a different pattern emerged for the chronic migraine group. Participants who were scanned during or immediately after a migraine attack displayed a relative increase in brain entropy. This temporary boost occurred mainly in the brain’s multisensory integration regions.
These multisensory areas sit near the top and back of the brain, processing sights, sounds, and physical sensations simultaneously to create a unified picture of reality. To understand this temporary increase in complexity, the researchers applied mathematical tools to measure the underlying nature of the brain’s signal changes. They calculated a metric known as the largest Lyapunov exponent, which identifies how fast a system’s internal behaviors diverge over time.
If a system has a positive exponent, it means that even microscopic differences at the starting line will lead to wildly different outcomes later on. The team found that the sudden spike in complexity during an attack was associated with weakly chaotic dynamics rather than pure biological noise. This dynamic instability suggests that the intense neural storm of a migraine attack might act as a biological reset switch.
An attack aligns with a temporary break from the brain’s excessively rigid holding pattern, allowing a brief return to a more chaotic, flexible state. The specific symptoms an individual experienced also mapped onto entirely different brain entropy patterns. Participants who felt highly sensitive to sound during their recent attacks exhibited elevated complexity in the regions that mix incoming sensory information.
This underlying acoustic irregularity might explain why everyday noises suddenly feel overwhelming and impossible to tune out. Similarly, individuals who experienced severe nausea showed higher entropy in the default mode network. This network is heavily linked to processing internal bodily sensations and maintaining a baseline sense of physical normalcy, meaning disrupted communication in this area could explain the profound physical sickness that accompanies headache pain.
To ensure their measurements were precise, the researchers accounted for multiple outside variables that could muddy the data. They adjusted their mathematical models for the age and sex of the participants, as these factors naturally influence brain activity. The team also verified that minor head movements during the scanning process did not artificially distort the entropy readings.
Additional tests confirmed that the overall severity of depressive symptoms did not explain the primary brain differences they observed across the varying groups. However, the study does involve a few methodological limitations. The total number of participants was modest, which makes it challenging to draw sweeping conclusions about all migraine variations.
In addition, the project only captured a single snapshot in time for each participant, rather than tracking their brain waves continuously. Because the study did not follow the exact same individuals all the way through the onset, peak, and resolution of a single migraine, the exact sequence of events remains somewhat abstract. The results associated with specific symptoms were also exploratory.
The researchers did not find the differences between groups related to symptoms to be statistically significant enough to withstand certain rigorous mathematical corrections, meaning these specific links require independent validation. The investigators hope to conduct repeated assessments that track patients over an extended period. By watching the brain transition in real time, they aim to map exactly how these chaotic states arise and eventually fade away.
Such work might eventually illuminate new targets for treatments that safely restore brain flexibility without triggering the agonizing pain of a full migraine episode.
The study, “Reduced brain entropy in migraine with partial restoration during attacks: A resting-state fMRI study,” was authored by Majid Saberi, Dajung J. Kim, Xiao-Su Hu, and Alexandre F. DaSilva.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MigraineBrainEntropy #BrainEntropy #MigraineAttack #NeuralFlexibility #RestingStatefMRI #ChaoticDynamics #MultisensoryProcessing #DefaultModeNetwork #CNSMarketers #NeuroimageStudy
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DATE: July 4, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Brain signal chaos increases during an active migraine attack
People with migraines experience a drop in the complexity of their innate brain activity, which leaves their neural networks less adaptable to everyday stimuli. A recent study published in the journal NeuroImage suggests that an active migraine attack temporarily jolts the brain back into a more flexible state. This momentary increase in neural unpredictability offers a fresh perspective on how recurring headaches alter the brain’s internal rhythm.
Majid Saberi, a researcher at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, led the investigation alongside Alexandre F. DaSilva and a team of colleagues. They wanted to explore how the brain’s internal dynamics shift over the lifespan of a recurrent headache disorder. Migraines affect over a billion people worldwide, causing intense head throbbing, nausea, and severe sensitivity to light and sound.
The condition is increasingly viewed not just as an issue of constricted blood vessels, but as a widespread disruption in how the brain’s networks communicate with one another. To measure this communication, the research team focused on a concept called brain entropy. In general physics, entropy refers to the degree of disorder or unpredictability within a physical system.
When applied to neuroscience, brain entropy measures the complexity and irregularity of brain signals. Higher entropy means the brain is highly adaptable, processing information efficiently and responding flexibly to new environments. Lower entropy points to rigid, restricted patterns of brain activity where the neural connections are stuck in predictable loops.
Imagine a conversation where the participants recite the exact same script repeatedly, rather than adapting to new topics. In the brain, this lack of flexibility can limit the biological ability to properly process incoming sensory data or regulate emotional states. The researchers also wanted to evaluate whether these brain signals were purely random or driven by chaotic dynamics.
In mathematics, chaos refers to a system that follows strict behavioral rules but remains highly sensitive to seemingly minor changes in its starting conditions. A weakly chaotic brain state suggests that the neural connections form complex patterns that are flexible enough to break out of rigid behavioral loops without descending into total randomness.
To investigate these patterns, the research team recruited 66 adult participants. The cohort included 24 healthy adults, 25 people with episodic migraines, and 15 people with chronic migraines. Episodic migraines are defined as happening on fewer than 15 days a month, while chronic migraines occur on 15 or more days a month and represent a more disabling form of the condition.
The team used functional magnetic resonance imaging to track blood flow in the brain while the participants rested quietly inside a scanner with their eyes open. This specific approach, called a resting-state scan, is designed to capture the brain’s default hum of background activity rather than its response to a specific task. By mapping this spontaneous behavior, scientists can evaluate the baseline connectivity of the mind.
The imaging technique allows researchers to watch which areas of the brain are absorbing the most oxygen, providing a proxy for active neural firing. The researchers then calculated the entropy, or signal complexity, for thousands of tiny, three-dimensional cubes of brain tissue across the entire organ.
The results demonstrated that people with migraines experienced widespread reductions in brain entropy compared to the healthy adults. This drop in complexity was most pronounced in the individuals living with chronic migraines. The affected brain areas included the visual network, regions involved in paying attention to the outside world, and the default mode network.
The default mode network is a group of connected brain regions that govern internal thoughts, memory retrieval, and pain perception. The researchers observed that a longer overall history of migraines and a higher frequency of monthly headaches mirrored a steeper decline in brain entropy. This association hints that a prolonged headache disorder coincides with an increasingly constrained operational mode in the organ.
When the researchers looked at the exact timing of the brain scans, a different pattern emerged for the chronic migraine group. Participants who were scanned during or immediately after a migraine attack displayed a relative increase in brain entropy. This temporary boost occurred mainly in the brain’s multisensory integration regions.
These multisensory areas sit near the top and back of the brain, processing sights, sounds, and physical sensations simultaneously to create a unified picture of reality. To understand this temporary increase in complexity, the researchers applied mathematical tools to measure the underlying nature of the brain’s signal changes. They calculated a metric known as the largest Lyapunov exponent, which identifies how fast a system’s internal behaviors diverge over time.
If a system has a positive exponent, it means that even microscopic differences at the starting line will lead to wildly different outcomes later on. The team found that the sudden spike in complexity during an attack was associated with weakly chaotic dynamics rather than pure biological noise. This dynamic instability suggests that the intense neural storm of a migraine attack might act as a biological reset switch.
An attack aligns with a temporary break from the brain’s excessively rigid holding pattern, allowing a brief return to a more chaotic, flexible state. The specific symptoms an individual experienced also mapped onto entirely different brain entropy patterns. Participants who felt highly sensitive to sound during their recent attacks exhibited elevated complexity in the regions that mix incoming sensory information.
This underlying acoustic irregularity might explain why everyday noises suddenly feel overwhelming and impossible to tune out. Similarly, individuals who experienced severe nausea showed higher entropy in the default mode network. This network is heavily linked to processing internal bodily sensations and maintaining a baseline sense of physical normalcy, meaning disrupted communication in this area could explain the profound physical sickness that accompanies headache pain.
To ensure their measurements were precise, the researchers accounted for multiple outside variables that could muddy the data. They adjusted their mathematical models for the age and sex of the participants, as these factors naturally influence brain activity. The team also verified that minor head movements during the scanning process did not artificially distort the entropy readings.
Additional tests confirmed that the overall severity of depressive symptoms did not explain the primary brain differences they observed across the varying groups. However, the study does involve a few methodological limitations. The total number of participants was modest, which makes it challenging to draw sweeping conclusions about all migraine variations.
In addition, the project only captured a single snapshot in time for each participant, rather than tracking their brain waves continuously. Because the study did not follow the exact same individuals all the way through the onset, peak, and resolution of a single migraine, the exact sequence of events remains somewhat abstract. The results associated with specific symptoms were also exploratory.
The researchers did not find the differences between groups related to symptoms to be statistically significant enough to withstand certain rigorous mathematical corrections, meaning these specific links require independent validation. The investigators hope to conduct repeated assessments that track patients over an extended period. By watching the brain transition in real time, they aim to map exactly how these chaotic states arise and eventually fade away.
Such work might eventually illuminate new targets for treatments that safely restore brain flexibility without triggering the agonizing pain of a full migraine episode.
The study, “Reduced brain entropy in migraine with partial restoration during attacks: A resting-state fMRI study,” was authored by Majid Saberi, Dajung J. Kim, Xiao-Su Hu, and Alexandre F. DaSilva.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MigraineBrainEntropy #BrainEntropy #MigraineAttack #NeuralFlexibility #RestingStatefMRI #ChaoticDynamics #MultisensoryProcessing #DefaultModeNetwork #CNSMarketers #NeuroimageStudy
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DATE: June 27, 2026 at 10:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: An international brain imaging analysis reveals how psychedelics rewire neural circuits
An international analysis combining brain imaging data from multiple independent studies has identified a common pattern in how psychedelic drugs alter communication between different brain networks. The researchers found that substances such as psilocybin and LSD reliably increase functional connections between brain regions responsible for sensory input and those involved in abstract, associative thought. The findings were published in the journal Nature Medicine.
In recent years, classic psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, LSD, and DMT have reentered mainstream psychiatric research as experimental treatments for conditions such as depression and anxiety. These substances all reliably bind to a specific type of serotonin receptor in the brain, initiating profound shifts in perception and consciousness.
To understand how these altered states physically manifest, researchers often use functional magnetic resonance imaging. This noninvasive scanning technique measures spontaneous, coordinated blood flow in the brain. When people simply rest inside a scanner, their brain activity naturally synchronizes into distinct, large scale networks. Some of these networks handle basic sensory and motor tasks, while others manage higher level cognitive functions like memory recall, self-reflection, and goal planning.
Past brain imaging studies of psychedelics have painted a fragmented picture of these network changes. Because collecting data on individuals under the influence of powerful psychoactive drugs is difficult and expensive, most studies rely on small sample sizes. Different research groups also apply different statistical methodologies to their individual datasets. This unchecked variability has caused conflicting reports, with some laboratories finding that specific brain connections increase while others observe opposite effects altogether.
To resolve these inconsistencies, a global team of scientists formed a collaborative consortium to pool existing brain imaging data into a single, standardized analysis. The project was led by neuroscientist Manesh Girn at the University of California, San Francisco and Danilo Bzdok at McGill University, who worked with dozens of independent researchers across three continents.
The research team gathered 11 independent datasets originally collected by different laboratories from five different countries. In total, the analysis included scans from 273 healthy adults who received one of five psychedelic substances: psilocybin, LSD, DMT, ayahuasca, or mescaline.
Instead of looking at each dataset in isolation, the researchers applied a uniform processing pipeline to all the brain scans. This standardization helped eliminate variations caused by different laboratories using disparate software programs to clean and prepare their raw imaging data.
The team then analyzed the structural data using a statistical framework known as Bayesian hierarchical modeling. Traditional frequentist statistics often rely on arbitrary numerical thresholds to declare a biological effect as either present or entirely absent. In contrast, the Bayesian approach calculates a continuous probability that a specific change occurred. This method directly accounts for the variability across different participants, drugs, and original study designs, allowing the scientists to pinpoint the most reliable brain changes while maintaining a graded measurement of uncertainty.
The pooled analysis identified a consistent brain signature operating across the different psychedelic substances. The researchers found robust increases in functional connectivity between the brain’s sensory networks and its association networks.
Sensory networks, sometimes called unimodal networks, handle direct, incoming information from the environment, such as visual processing and physical touch. Association networks, often referred to as transmodal networks, are systems like the default mode network and the frontoparietal network. These systems synthesize raw data to support complex thought, memory building, and the brain’s baseline resting state.
Under normal circumstances, these sensory and association systems operate with a heavy degree of separation, maintaining a strict processing hierarchy that keeps basic perception distinct from abstract thought. Under the influence of psychedelics, the lines of communication between them flatten out. The scans showed that these distinct networks synchronize and integrate much more freely during the drug experience.
The researchers also mapped changes deep within the brain’s subcortical structures. Specifically, they looked at the dorsal striatum, a region made up of the caudate and putamen. This area is primarily involved in action selection and linking sensory input to behavioral output. The analysis showed a high probability that the striatum strongly increases its communication with the sensory systems of the cortex during the psychedelic state.
In measuring different drugs against one another, the researchers noted that LSD and psilocybin displayed virtually identical brain network alterations. This overlap aligns with their comparable pharmacological properties and the large number of participants included for both substances in the pooled data. Mescaline exhibited a broadly similar pattern to LSD and psilocybin in terms of network merging.
The substance DMT caused similar architectural shifts but with even stronger network perturbations. Ayahuasca presented an idiosyncratic pattern in the statistical models, which the authors attribute to its complex pharmacology and the extremely small number of participants who were scanned using that exact substance.
The collective data also challenged a popular idea in the neuroimaging field. Previous single laboratory studies frequently reported that psychedelics cause the brain’s individual functional networks to break down internally, a phenomenon often described as within-network disintegration. When the researchers averaged the data across all the pooled studies, this effect proved incredibly weak. The Bayesian analysis revealed very little statistical certainty for reductions in connectivity within specific networks, putting those earlier network breakdown claims into question.
Expanding on the biological findings requires consideration of several limitations inherent in combining historical data. The original studies were conducted over a span of several years and used different magnetic resonance imaging scanners, which varied heavily in their magnetic field strengths, recording intervals, and technical specifications.
The participants across the different datasets also received varying drug dosages, encountered different administration methods, and were scanned at wildly different chronological points during their respective drug experiences. Some participants received intravenous injections, while others swallowed capsules. Some researchers began brain scans immediately after administration, while other scientists waited up to two hours for the subjective effects to peak.
Differences in simple study design play a role in interpretation as well. The vast majority of the datasets relied on trials that actively compared the drug experience to a placebo control session. However, one dataset lacked a placebo entirely, and another study used a fixed-order design in which the sequence of drug and placebo conditions was not randomized. Such differences can introduce small biases related to participant expectation and novelty.
Head motion remains a persistent challenge in this area of neuroscience. Individuals experiencing the subjective effects of psychedelics have a documented tendency to move around more inside the scanner than those sitting still after receiving a placebo. While the data processing pipelines were formulated to minimize the impact of participant movement on the results, residual visual noise in the imaging data remains unavoidable.
To build on this foundational map, the scientists suggest that future research should abandon retrospective pooling and move toward prospectively harmonized trials. In these future projects, multiple laboratories would agree to use identical protocols for drug dosing, participant selection parameters, and brain scanning machine configurations before any data is even gathered.
The study, “An international mega-analysis of psychedelic drug effects on brain circuit function,” was authored by Manesh Girn, Manoj K. Doss, Leor Roseman, Katrin H. Preller, Fernanda Palhano-Fontes, Lorenzo Pasquini, Frederick S. Barrett, Pablo Mallaroni, Natasha L. Mason, Christopher Timmermann, Drummond E. McCulloch, Patrick M. Fisher, Brian S. Winston, Flora Moujaes, Felix Muller, Matthias E. Liechti, Franz X. Vollenweider, Johannes G. Ramaekers, Kim Kuypers, Draulio B. Araujo, Olaf Sporns, Joshua Siegel, Nico Dosenbach, David J. Nutt, Robin L. Carhart-Harris, Emmanuel A. Stamatakis, and Danilo Bzdok.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PsychedelicsBrainNetworks #PsilocybinLSDConnectivity #FunctionalConnectivity #BrainImagingPsychedelics #SensoryToAssociationIntegration #NeuralCircuitsRewiring #BayesianNeuroimaging #DefaultModeNetwork #DorsalStriatumConnectivity #NatureMedicineStudy
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DATE: June 27, 2026 at 10:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: An international brain imaging analysis reveals how psychedelics rewire neural circuits
An international analysis combining brain imaging data from multiple independent studies has identified a common pattern in how psychedelic drugs alter communication between different brain networks. The researchers found that substances such as psilocybin and LSD reliably increase functional connections between brain regions responsible for sensory input and those involved in abstract, associative thought. The findings were published in the journal Nature Medicine.
In recent years, classic psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, LSD, and DMT have reentered mainstream psychiatric research as experimental treatments for conditions such as depression and anxiety. These substances all reliably bind to a specific type of serotonin receptor in the brain, initiating profound shifts in perception and consciousness.
To understand how these altered states physically manifest, researchers often use functional magnetic resonance imaging. This noninvasive scanning technique measures spontaneous, coordinated blood flow in the brain. When people simply rest inside a scanner, their brain activity naturally synchronizes into distinct, large scale networks. Some of these networks handle basic sensory and motor tasks, while others manage higher level cognitive functions like memory recall, self-reflection, and goal planning.
Past brain imaging studies of psychedelics have painted a fragmented picture of these network changes. Because collecting data on individuals under the influence of powerful psychoactive drugs is difficult and expensive, most studies rely on small sample sizes. Different research groups also apply different statistical methodologies to their individual datasets. This unchecked variability has caused conflicting reports, with some laboratories finding that specific brain connections increase while others observe opposite effects altogether.
To resolve these inconsistencies, a global team of scientists formed a collaborative consortium to pool existing brain imaging data into a single, standardized analysis. The project was led by neuroscientist Manesh Girn at the University of California, San Francisco and Danilo Bzdok at McGill University, who worked with dozens of independent researchers across three continents.
The research team gathered 11 independent datasets originally collected by different laboratories from five different countries. In total, the analysis included scans from 273 healthy adults who received one of five psychedelic substances: psilocybin, LSD, DMT, ayahuasca, or mescaline.
Instead of looking at each dataset in isolation, the researchers applied a uniform processing pipeline to all the brain scans. This standardization helped eliminate variations caused by different laboratories using disparate software programs to clean and prepare their raw imaging data.
The team then analyzed the structural data using a statistical framework known as Bayesian hierarchical modeling. Traditional frequentist statistics often rely on arbitrary numerical thresholds to declare a biological effect as either present or entirely absent. In contrast, the Bayesian approach calculates a continuous probability that a specific change occurred. This method directly accounts for the variability across different participants, drugs, and original study designs, allowing the scientists to pinpoint the most reliable brain changes while maintaining a graded measurement of uncertainty.
The pooled analysis identified a consistent brain signature operating across the different psychedelic substances. The researchers found robust increases in functional connectivity between the brain’s sensory networks and its association networks.
Sensory networks, sometimes called unimodal networks, handle direct, incoming information from the environment, such as visual processing and physical touch. Association networks, often referred to as transmodal networks, are systems like the default mode network and the frontoparietal network. These systems synthesize raw data to support complex thought, memory building, and the brain’s baseline resting state.
Under normal circumstances, these sensory and association systems operate with a heavy degree of separation, maintaining a strict processing hierarchy that keeps basic perception distinct from abstract thought. Under the influence of psychedelics, the lines of communication between them flatten out. The scans showed that these distinct networks synchronize and integrate much more freely during the drug experience.
The researchers also mapped changes deep within the brain’s subcortical structures. Specifically, they looked at the dorsal striatum, a region made up of the caudate and putamen. This area is primarily involved in action selection and linking sensory input to behavioral output. The analysis showed a high probability that the striatum strongly increases its communication with the sensory systems of the cortex during the psychedelic state.
In measuring different drugs against one another, the researchers noted that LSD and psilocybin displayed virtually identical brain network alterations. This overlap aligns with their comparable pharmacological properties and the large number of participants included for both substances in the pooled data. Mescaline exhibited a broadly similar pattern to LSD and psilocybin in terms of network merging.
The substance DMT caused similar architectural shifts but with even stronger network perturbations. Ayahuasca presented an idiosyncratic pattern in the statistical models, which the authors attribute to its complex pharmacology and the extremely small number of participants who were scanned using that exact substance.
The collective data also challenged a popular idea in the neuroimaging field. Previous single laboratory studies frequently reported that psychedelics cause the brain’s individual functional networks to break down internally, a phenomenon often described as within-network disintegration. When the researchers averaged the data across all the pooled studies, this effect proved incredibly weak. The Bayesian analysis revealed very little statistical certainty for reductions in connectivity within specific networks, putting those earlier network breakdown claims into question.
Expanding on the biological findings requires consideration of several limitations inherent in combining historical data. The original studies were conducted over a span of several years and used different magnetic resonance imaging scanners, which varied heavily in their magnetic field strengths, recording intervals, and technical specifications.
The participants across the different datasets also received varying drug dosages, encountered different administration methods, and were scanned at wildly different chronological points during their respective drug experiences. Some participants received intravenous injections, while others swallowed capsules. Some researchers began brain scans immediately after administration, while other scientists waited up to two hours for the subjective effects to peak.
Differences in simple study design play a role in interpretation as well. The vast majority of the datasets relied on trials that actively compared the drug experience to a placebo control session. However, one dataset lacked a placebo entirely, and another study used a fixed-order design in which the sequence of drug and placebo conditions was not randomized. Such differences can introduce small biases related to participant expectation and novelty.
Head motion remains a persistent challenge in this area of neuroscience. Individuals experiencing the subjective effects of psychedelics have a documented tendency to move around more inside the scanner than those sitting still after receiving a placebo. While the data processing pipelines were formulated to minimize the impact of participant movement on the results, residual visual noise in the imaging data remains unavoidable.
To build on this foundational map, the scientists suggest that future research should abandon retrospective pooling and move toward prospectively harmonized trials. In these future projects, multiple laboratories would agree to use identical protocols for drug dosing, participant selection parameters, and brain scanning machine configurations before any data is even gathered.
The study, “An international mega-analysis of psychedelic drug effects on brain circuit function,” was authored by Manesh Girn, Manoj K. Doss, Leor Roseman, Katrin H. Preller, Fernanda Palhano-Fontes, Lorenzo Pasquini, Frederick S. Barrett, Pablo Mallaroni, Natasha L. Mason, Christopher Timmermann, Drummond E. McCulloch, Patrick M. Fisher, Brian S. Winston, Flora Moujaes, Felix Muller, Matthias E. Liechti, Franz X. Vollenweider, Johannes G. Ramaekers, Kim Kuypers, Draulio B. Araujo, Olaf Sporns, Joshua Siegel, Nico Dosenbach, David J. Nutt, Robin L. Carhart-Harris, Emmanuel A. Stamatakis, and Danilo Bzdok.
-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: June 27, 2026 at 10:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: An international brain imaging analysis reveals how psychedelics rewire neural circuits
An international analysis combining brain imaging data from multiple independent studies has identified a common pattern in how psychedelic drugs alter communication between different brain networks. The researchers found that substances such as psilocybin and LSD reliably increase functional connections between brain regions responsible for sensory input and those involved in abstract, associative thought. The findings were published in the journal Nature Medicine.
In recent years, classic psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, LSD, and DMT have reentered mainstream psychiatric research as experimental treatments for conditions such as depression and anxiety. These substances all reliably bind to a specific type of serotonin receptor in the brain, initiating profound shifts in perception and consciousness.
To understand how these altered states physically manifest, researchers often use functional magnetic resonance imaging. This noninvasive scanning technique measures spontaneous, coordinated blood flow in the brain. When people simply rest inside a scanner, their brain activity naturally synchronizes into distinct, large scale networks. Some of these networks handle basic sensory and motor tasks, while others manage higher level cognitive functions like memory recall, self-reflection, and goal planning.
Past brain imaging studies of psychedelics have painted a fragmented picture of these network changes. Because collecting data on individuals under the influence of powerful psychoactive drugs is difficult and expensive, most studies rely on small sample sizes. Different research groups also apply different statistical methodologies to their individual datasets. This unchecked variability has caused conflicting reports, with some laboratories finding that specific brain connections increase while others observe opposite effects altogether.
To resolve these inconsistencies, a global team of scientists formed a collaborative consortium to pool existing brain imaging data into a single, standardized analysis. The project was led by neuroscientist Manesh Girn at the University of California, San Francisco and Danilo Bzdok at McGill University, who worked with dozens of independent researchers across three continents.
The research team gathered 11 independent datasets originally collected by different laboratories from five different countries. In total, the analysis included scans from 273 healthy adults who received one of five psychedelic substances: psilocybin, LSD, DMT, ayahuasca, or mescaline.
Instead of looking at each dataset in isolation, the researchers applied a uniform processing pipeline to all the brain scans. This standardization helped eliminate variations caused by different laboratories using disparate software programs to clean and prepare their raw imaging data.
The team then analyzed the structural data using a statistical framework known as Bayesian hierarchical modeling. Traditional frequentist statistics often rely on arbitrary numerical thresholds to declare a biological effect as either present or entirely absent. In contrast, the Bayesian approach calculates a continuous probability that a specific change occurred. This method directly accounts for the variability across different participants, drugs, and original study designs, allowing the scientists to pinpoint the most reliable brain changes while maintaining a graded measurement of uncertainty.
The pooled analysis identified a consistent brain signature operating across the different psychedelic substances. The researchers found robust increases in functional connectivity between the brain’s sensory networks and its association networks.
Sensory networks, sometimes called unimodal networks, handle direct, incoming information from the environment, such as visual processing and physical touch. Association networks, often referred to as transmodal networks, are systems like the default mode network and the frontoparietal network. These systems synthesize raw data to support complex thought, memory building, and the brain’s baseline resting state.
Under normal circumstances, these sensory and association systems operate with a heavy degree of separation, maintaining a strict processing hierarchy that keeps basic perception distinct from abstract thought. Under the influence of psychedelics, the lines of communication between them flatten out. The scans showed that these distinct networks synchronize and integrate much more freely during the drug experience.
The researchers also mapped changes deep within the brain’s subcortical structures. Specifically, they looked at the dorsal striatum, a region made up of the caudate and putamen. This area is primarily involved in action selection and linking sensory input to behavioral output. The analysis showed a high probability that the striatum strongly increases its communication with the sensory systems of the cortex during the psychedelic state.
In measuring different drugs against one another, the researchers noted that LSD and psilocybin displayed virtually identical brain network alterations. This overlap aligns with their comparable pharmacological properties and the large number of participants included for both substances in the pooled data. Mescaline exhibited a broadly similar pattern to LSD and psilocybin in terms of network merging.
The substance DMT caused similar architectural shifts but with even stronger network perturbations. Ayahuasca presented an idiosyncratic pattern in the statistical models, which the authors attribute to its complex pharmacology and the extremely small number of participants who were scanned using that exact substance.
The collective data also challenged a popular idea in the neuroimaging field. Previous single laboratory studies frequently reported that psychedelics cause the brain’s individual functional networks to break down internally, a phenomenon often described as within-network disintegration. When the researchers averaged the data across all the pooled studies, this effect proved incredibly weak. The Bayesian analysis revealed very little statistical certainty for reductions in connectivity within specific networks, putting those earlier network breakdown claims into question.
Expanding on the biological findings requires consideration of several limitations inherent in combining historical data. The original studies were conducted over a span of several years and used different magnetic resonance imaging scanners, which varied heavily in their magnetic field strengths, recording intervals, and technical specifications.
The participants across the different datasets also received varying drug dosages, encountered different administration methods, and were scanned at wildly different chronological points during their respective drug experiences. Some participants received intravenous injections, while others swallowed capsules. Some researchers began brain scans immediately after administration, while other scientists waited up to two hours for the subjective effects to peak.
Differences in simple study design play a role in interpretation as well. The vast majority of the datasets relied on trials that actively compared the drug experience to a placebo control session. However, one dataset lacked a placebo entirely, and another study used a fixed-order design in which the sequence of drug and placebo conditions was not randomized. Such differences can introduce small biases related to participant expectation and novelty.
Head motion remains a persistent challenge in this area of neuroscience. Individuals experiencing the subjective effects of psychedelics have a documented tendency to move around more inside the scanner than those sitting still after receiving a placebo. While the data processing pipelines were formulated to minimize the impact of participant movement on the results, residual visual noise in the imaging data remains unavoidable.
To build on this foundational map, the scientists suggest that future research should abandon retrospective pooling and move toward prospectively harmonized trials. In these future projects, multiple laboratories would agree to use identical protocols for drug dosing, participant selection parameters, and brain scanning machine configurations before any data is even gathered.
The study, “An international mega-analysis of psychedelic drug effects on brain circuit function,” was authored by Manesh Girn, Manoj K. Doss, Leor Roseman, Katrin H. Preller, Fernanda Palhano-Fontes, Lorenzo Pasquini, Frederick S. Barrett, Pablo Mallaroni, Natasha L. Mason, Christopher Timmermann, Drummond E. McCulloch, Patrick M. Fisher, Brian S. Winston, Flora Moujaes, Felix Muller, Matthias E. Liechti, Franz X. Vollenweider, Johannes G. Ramaekers, Kim Kuypers, Draulio B. Araujo, Olaf Sporns, Joshua Siegel, Nico Dosenbach, David J. Nutt, Robin L. Carhart-Harris, Emmanuel A. Stamatakis, and Danilo Bzdok.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PsychedelicsBrainNetworks #PsilocybinLSDConnectivity #FunctionalConnectivity #BrainImagingPsychedelics #SensoryToAssociationIntegration #NeuralCircuitsRewiring #BayesianNeuroimaging #DefaultModeNetwork #DorsalStriatumConnectivity #NatureMedicineStudy
-
DATE: June 27, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Scientists discover deep brain stimulation physically reshapes the brain’s information superhighway
Deep brain stimulation is an emerging treatment for severe depression, but exactly how it alters the brain to relieve symptoms has remained somewhat of a mystery. A recent study published in Nature Neuroscience provides evidence that this therapy reshapes the physical structure of the brain’s wiring and alters communication across major neural networks. These findings suggest that the long-term benefits of the treatment might stem from physical remodeling of the brain rather than just immediate changes in electrical activity.
Deep brain stimulation is a surgical procedure that involves implanting small wires, called electrodes, into specific areas of the brain. These electrodes connect to a device placed in the chest, which sends mild electrical impulses to the brain. Doctors frequently use this therapy to manage movement conditions like Parkinson’s disease. In recent years, the medical field has adapted the procedure to treat psychiatric conditions, particularly depression that does not respond to medication or therapy.
When treating movement conditions, the electrodes target gray matter, which is the brain tissue made mostly of cell bodies. For depression, doctors instead target white matter. White matter consists of the bundles of nerve fibers, or axons, that connect different parts of the brain and allow them to communicate. You can think of white matter as the brain’s information superhighway, carrying signals rapidly from one region to another.
The authors designed this study to see if electrical stimulation could physically change the microscopic structure of white matter. They also wanted to understand how these potential physical changes might influence how different regions of the brain communicate with one another.
“The idea for the project came when Dr. Helen Mayberg joined Mount Sinai about eight years ago,” explained Peter H. Rudebeck, a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Satoka H. Fujimoto, a researcher at the institution. “Dr. Mayberg works with patients with depression who have not been helped by any of the other treatments that are available such as anti-depressants and cognitive behavioral therapy.”
“Twenty years ago she pioneered a new approach to help treat these patients where deep brain stimulation (DBS) was directed to a part of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) called the subcallosal ACC,” the researchers noted. “DBS works by focally delivering electrical impulses to a piece of the brain, causing activity in that area to be altered.”
“In recent clinical trials, DBS to the subcallosal ACC is effective at improving 70 to 80 percent of patients’ depression and in some cases people were completely free from depression,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto said. “Dr. Mayberg noticed that in her patients that had been successfully treated with DBS, that their recovery from depression was not immediate. Instead, after an initial rapid improvement there was a prolonged period of improvement that spanned many weeks or months.”
“The rapid improvement made sense in light of what was known about how electrical impulses change brain activity, but the longer term improvement was not,” the researchers explained. “Thus, the study was motivated by a desire to figure out what mechanisms in the brain underlie these fast and slow responses to DBS and how these help people to recover from depression.”
To carry out the experiment, the scientists worked with macaque monkeys. The main experimental group included three adult male monkeys between seven and nine years old. Two of the animals received the active deep brain stimulation treatment, while the third monkey underwent the surgery but did not receive any electrical stimulation, acting as a control subject.
The team also used functional brain imaging data from three additional monkeys that did not undergo any surgery. This second control group helped the authors verify that any changes in brain communication over time were genuinely linked to the electrical stimulation. Including these unoperated animals provided a baseline for normal brain network fluctuations.
For the two monkeys in the active treatment group, the researchers implanted a miniaturized electrode into a specific intersection of three white matter pathways. One of these pathways is the cingulum bundle, which serves as a major communication route for the brain’s emotional centers. Identifying the precise convergence of these three tracts requires advanced mapping techniques, as individual brain anatomy can vary.
After a four-week recovery period, the treatment group monkeys received continuous electrical stimulation for six weeks. This timeline mirrors the approach taken in human clinics. It also matches the period when human patients typically begin to show significant symptom improvement.
The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging, commonly known as MRI, to scan the monkeys’ brains before the electrode implantation and immediately after the six weeks of stimulation. They specifically looked at a measure called fractional anisotropy. This metric helps scientists evaluate the physical integrity and organization of white matter tracts in a living brain.
Fractional anisotropy is a mathematical value derived from how water molecules diffuse through tissue. In healthy, well-organized white matter, water tends to move smoothly along the direction of the nerve fibers. An increase in this metric suggests that the nerve fibers have become more structurally sound, densely packed, or better insulated.
The MRI data revealed that six weeks of stimulation led to a distinct increase in white matter integrity in the cingulum bundle. This pathway connects different areas of the brain involved in emotion and mood regulation. Interestingly, this physical change occurred in a section of the pathway that was somewhat distant from the actual stimulation site.
Following the MRI scans, the team examined the brain tissue at a microscopic level. They used specialized microscopes to look at the cellular structure of the white matter fibers. The scientists specifically counted the number of oligodendrocytes, which are specialized cells that produce myelin.
Myelin is a fatty substance that wraps around nerve fibers, acting like insulation on an electrical wire to help signals travel faster. The researchers found a higher number of myelin-producing oligodendrocytes in the exact same region where the MRI showed increased white matter integrity.
They also used an advanced technique called electron microscopy to measure the exact thickness of this myelin sheath in the targeted brain regions. The myelin sheaths surrounding the nerve fibers in this area were thicker compared to the unstimulated side of the brain. This allowed them to see structural changes that are invisible to a standard MRI.
“We were surprised to find evidence of white matter remodeling after a relatively short period of stimulation, only six weeks,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto said. “In particular, we found that myelin, the insulating sheath around neural fibers that supports efficient information transfer, had become thicker as a result of DBS.”
“What made this especially interesting was where this change occurred,” they noted. “The structural change was localized to the mid-cingulate bundle, a white matter pathway located away from the stimulation site. Importantly, this pathway helps link the stimulation site with key regions of the default mode network, a brain network strongly implicated in depression.”
“This was unexpected because it suggests that DBS may influence not only local brain activity near the electrode, but also the structure of distant, connected brain pathways,” the researchers explained. “One way to think about this is that DBS may not only adjust the activity of important ‘cities’ in the brain, but may also help reshape the ‘roads’ that connect those cities, allowing the broader network to function more effectively.”
The researchers also monitored the animals’ basic behaviors to ensure the stimulation was having a biological effect. They found that the stimulated monkeys spent more time moving and foraging in their home cages after the treatment started. They did not observe any negative neurological deficits or signs of motor impairment.
The control monkey that received the implant without any stimulation did not show these behavioral or structural improvements. In fact, the surgical insertion of the electrode without electrical stimulation tended to cause a slight decrease in white matter integrity. This detail indicates that the physical remodeling of the brain was a direct result of the electrical impulses.
Beyond the physical changes, the authors examined functional connectivity, which refers to how well different parts of the brain synchronize their activity. They found that the localized white matter changes were accompanied by widespread shifts in communication across the entire brain. The deep brain stimulation tended to decrease overall communication between outer cortical areas while increasing communication between deeper subcortical regions.
Most notably, the stimulation altered how the targeted area communicated with the default mode network. The default mode network is a group of interconnected brain regions that becomes highly active when a person is resting, daydreaming, or ruminating. In humans, depression is often associated with hyperactivity and altered connectivity in this specific network.
The deep brain stimulation tended to decrease the communication between the stimulation site and the default mode network. This suggests a potential rebalancing of brain activity in pathways that manage mood and attention. At the same time, the treatment increased communication between the stimulation site and sensory and motor networks.
Brain networks are known to dynamically rebalance themselves to optimize inputs and outputs between different areas. The localized structural changes in the white matter appear to support much larger functional shifts across the whole brain. This fits with previous evidence that a small number of structural connections can maintain wide-reaching communication networks.
“The main takeaway is that DBS may do more than adjust brain activity, it actually rewires the brain,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto summarized. “Specifically, our study provides evidence that stimulation of brain circuits relevant to depression can induce structural changes in white matter, the fiber pathways that connect different brain regions and transmit neural information.”
“These changes were accompanied by functional changes in brain networks, particularly in the default mode network, which has been strongly implicated in depression,” they said. “This means that our findings indicate that the recovery from depression requires rewiring the brain to promote recovery.”
While the study provides strong evidence for brain remodeling, it does have some limitations. The research relied on a small sample size of monkeys, which is common in non-human primate studies but requires caution when applying the findings to larger human populations. Additionally, the subjects were healthy animals without depression.
“Our study was not conducted in the human brain but used healthy animals so that we could uncover the cellular mechanisms that are engaged by DBS in the absence of pathology related to depression,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto explained. “Such a level of analysis could not have been obtained in patients who received DBS.”
A brain affected by a psychiatric condition might respond to stimulation differently, or on a different timeline, than a healthy brain. The researchers also conducted the MRI scans while the animals were under mild anesthesia to prevent movement. Although they used a low dose designed to preserve normal brain network activity, anesthesia can still subtly alter functional connectivity patterns.
Another limitation involves the removal of the electrode before the final MRI scans. The researchers had to extract the device to prevent it from distorting the brain images and causing tissue damage in the scanner. Removing the device meant the stimulation was turned off during the scan, which could have allowed some brain networks to experience a rapid rebound effect.
Future research will need to explore whether these exact structural changes occur in human patients undergoing the therapy for depression. Scientists also plan to study how different stimulation frequencies or intensities might impact white matter remodeling. Understanding these biological mechanisms could help doctors optimize treatment settings and perhaps develop new, non-surgical methods to encourage the brain to repair its own white matter.
“Now, Dr. Mayberg and her team at the Center for Advanced Circuit Therapeutics are now working to see if fMRI measures of white matter structure are changed in people who receive DBS,” the researchers added. “This has been made possible by new approaches that allow people with implanted DBS devices to be scanned using MRI.”
“One of the things that still puzzles us about the results is that the location in the brain that shows the biggest change in response to DBS is not close to the location where stimulation is delivered,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto said. “We don’t know why this is, but it is probably important.”
“We are now working to figure that out with a number of different approaches in animals,” they noted. “If we can figure that out it may be possible to make DBS even better than it is as well as potentially unlock new ways to try to treat depression.”
The study, “Deep brain stimulation induces white matter remodeling and functional changes to brain-wide networks,” was authored by Satoka H. Fujimoto, Atsushi Fujimoto, Catherine Elorette, Adela Seltzer, Emma Andraka, Keondre Herbert, Gaurav Verma, William G. M. Janssen, Lazar Fleysher, Davide Folloni, Ki Sueng Choi, Brian E. Russ, Helen S. Mayberg, and Peter H. Rudebeck.
-------------------------------------------------
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DeepBrainStimulation #WhiteMatterRemodeling #BrainNetworks #DefaultModeNetwork #Neuroscience #BrainImaging #MyelinRemodeling #MD-to-BrainConnections #DepressionTreatment #Neurotech
-
DATE: June 27, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Scientists discover deep brain stimulation physically reshapes the brain’s information superhighway
Deep brain stimulation is an emerging treatment for severe depression, but exactly how it alters the brain to relieve symptoms has remained somewhat of a mystery. A recent study published in Nature Neuroscience provides evidence that this therapy reshapes the physical structure of the brain’s wiring and alters communication across major neural networks. These findings suggest that the long-term benefits of the treatment might stem from physical remodeling of the brain rather than just immediate changes in electrical activity.
Deep brain stimulation is a surgical procedure that involves implanting small wires, called electrodes, into specific areas of the brain. These electrodes connect to a device placed in the chest, which sends mild electrical impulses to the brain. Doctors frequently use this therapy to manage movement conditions like Parkinson’s disease. In recent years, the medical field has adapted the procedure to treat psychiatric conditions, particularly depression that does not respond to medication or therapy.
When treating movement conditions, the electrodes target gray matter, which is the brain tissue made mostly of cell bodies. For depression, doctors instead target white matter. White matter consists of the bundles of nerve fibers, or axons, that connect different parts of the brain and allow them to communicate. You can think of white matter as the brain’s information superhighway, carrying signals rapidly from one region to another.
The authors designed this study to see if electrical stimulation could physically change the microscopic structure of white matter. They also wanted to understand how these potential physical changes might influence how different regions of the brain communicate with one another.
“The idea for the project came when Dr. Helen Mayberg joined Mount Sinai about eight years ago,” explained Peter H. Rudebeck, a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Satoka H. Fujimoto, a researcher at the institution. “Dr. Mayberg works with patients with depression who have not been helped by any of the other treatments that are available such as anti-depressants and cognitive behavioral therapy.”
“Twenty years ago she pioneered a new approach to help treat these patients where deep brain stimulation (DBS) was directed to a part of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) called the subcallosal ACC,” the researchers noted. “DBS works by focally delivering electrical impulses to a piece of the brain, causing activity in that area to be altered.”
“In recent clinical trials, DBS to the subcallosal ACC is effective at improving 70 to 80 percent of patients’ depression and in some cases people were completely free from depression,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto said. “Dr. Mayberg noticed that in her patients that had been successfully treated with DBS, that their recovery from depression was not immediate. Instead, after an initial rapid improvement there was a prolonged period of improvement that spanned many weeks or months.”
“The rapid improvement made sense in light of what was known about how electrical impulses change brain activity, but the longer term improvement was not,” the researchers explained. “Thus, the study was motivated by a desire to figure out what mechanisms in the brain underlie these fast and slow responses to DBS and how these help people to recover from depression.”
To carry out the experiment, the scientists worked with macaque monkeys. The main experimental group included three adult male monkeys between seven and nine years old. Two of the animals received the active deep brain stimulation treatment, while the third monkey underwent the surgery but did not receive any electrical stimulation, acting as a control subject.
The team also used functional brain imaging data from three additional monkeys that did not undergo any surgery. This second control group helped the authors verify that any changes in brain communication over time were genuinely linked to the electrical stimulation. Including these unoperated animals provided a baseline for normal brain network fluctuations.
For the two monkeys in the active treatment group, the researchers implanted a miniaturized electrode into a specific intersection of three white matter pathways. One of these pathways is the cingulum bundle, which serves as a major communication route for the brain’s emotional centers. Identifying the precise convergence of these three tracts requires advanced mapping techniques, as individual brain anatomy can vary.
After a four-week recovery period, the treatment group monkeys received continuous electrical stimulation for six weeks. This timeline mirrors the approach taken in human clinics. It also matches the period when human patients typically begin to show significant symptom improvement.
The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging, commonly known as MRI, to scan the monkeys’ brains before the electrode implantation and immediately after the six weeks of stimulation. They specifically looked at a measure called fractional anisotropy. This metric helps scientists evaluate the physical integrity and organization of white matter tracts in a living brain.
Fractional anisotropy is a mathematical value derived from how water molecules diffuse through tissue. In healthy, well-organized white matter, water tends to move smoothly along the direction of the nerve fibers. An increase in this metric suggests that the nerve fibers have become more structurally sound, densely packed, or better insulated.
The MRI data revealed that six weeks of stimulation led to a distinct increase in white matter integrity in the cingulum bundle. This pathway connects different areas of the brain involved in emotion and mood regulation. Interestingly, this physical change occurred in a section of the pathway that was somewhat distant from the actual stimulation site.
Following the MRI scans, the team examined the brain tissue at a microscopic level. They used specialized microscopes to look at the cellular structure of the white matter fibers. The scientists specifically counted the number of oligodendrocytes, which are specialized cells that produce myelin.
Myelin is a fatty substance that wraps around nerve fibers, acting like insulation on an electrical wire to help signals travel faster. The researchers found a higher number of myelin-producing oligodendrocytes in the exact same region where the MRI showed increased white matter integrity.
They also used an advanced technique called electron microscopy to measure the exact thickness of this myelin sheath in the targeted brain regions. The myelin sheaths surrounding the nerve fibers in this area were thicker compared to the unstimulated side of the brain. This allowed them to see structural changes that are invisible to a standard MRI.
“We were surprised to find evidence of white matter remodeling after a relatively short period of stimulation, only six weeks,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto said. “In particular, we found that myelin, the insulating sheath around neural fibers that supports efficient information transfer, had become thicker as a result of DBS.”
“What made this especially interesting was where this change occurred,” they noted. “The structural change was localized to the mid-cingulate bundle, a white matter pathway located away from the stimulation site. Importantly, this pathway helps link the stimulation site with key regions of the default mode network, a brain network strongly implicated in depression.”
“This was unexpected because it suggests that DBS may influence not only local brain activity near the electrode, but also the structure of distant, connected brain pathways,” the researchers explained. “One way to think about this is that DBS may not only adjust the activity of important ‘cities’ in the brain, but may also help reshape the ‘roads’ that connect those cities, allowing the broader network to function more effectively.”
The researchers also monitored the animals’ basic behaviors to ensure the stimulation was having a biological effect. They found that the stimulated monkeys spent more time moving and foraging in their home cages after the treatment started. They did not observe any negative neurological deficits or signs of motor impairment.
The control monkey that received the implant without any stimulation did not show these behavioral or structural improvements. In fact, the surgical insertion of the electrode without electrical stimulation tended to cause a slight decrease in white matter integrity. This detail indicates that the physical remodeling of the brain was a direct result of the electrical impulses.
Beyond the physical changes, the authors examined functional connectivity, which refers to how well different parts of the brain synchronize their activity. They found that the localized white matter changes were accompanied by widespread shifts in communication across the entire brain. The deep brain stimulation tended to decrease overall communication between outer cortical areas while increasing communication between deeper subcortical regions.
Most notably, the stimulation altered how the targeted area communicated with the default mode network. The default mode network is a group of interconnected brain regions that becomes highly active when a person is resting, daydreaming, or ruminating. In humans, depression is often associated with hyperactivity and altered connectivity in this specific network.
The deep brain stimulation tended to decrease the communication between the stimulation site and the default mode network. This suggests a potential rebalancing of brain activity in pathways that manage mood and attention. At the same time, the treatment increased communication between the stimulation site and sensory and motor networks.
Brain networks are known to dynamically rebalance themselves to optimize inputs and outputs between different areas. The localized structural changes in the white matter appear to support much larger functional shifts across the whole brain. This fits with previous evidence that a small number of structural connections can maintain wide-reaching communication networks.
“The main takeaway is that DBS may do more than adjust brain activity, it actually rewires the brain,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto summarized. “Specifically, our study provides evidence that stimulation of brain circuits relevant to depression can induce structural changes in white matter, the fiber pathways that connect different brain regions and transmit neural information.”
“These changes were accompanied by functional changes in brain networks, particularly in the default mode network, which has been strongly implicated in depression,” they said. “This means that our findings indicate that the recovery from depression requires rewiring the brain to promote recovery.”
While the study provides strong evidence for brain remodeling, it does have some limitations. The research relied on a small sample size of monkeys, which is common in non-human primate studies but requires caution when applying the findings to larger human populations. Additionally, the subjects were healthy animals without depression.
“Our study was not conducted in the human brain but used healthy animals so that we could uncover the cellular mechanisms that are engaged by DBS in the absence of pathology related to depression,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto explained. “Such a level of analysis could not have been obtained in patients who received DBS.”
A brain affected by a psychiatric condition might respond to stimulation differently, or on a different timeline, than a healthy brain. The researchers also conducted the MRI scans while the animals were under mild anesthesia to prevent movement. Although they used a low dose designed to preserve normal brain network activity, anesthesia can still subtly alter functional connectivity patterns.
Another limitation involves the removal of the electrode before the final MRI scans. The researchers had to extract the device to prevent it from distorting the brain images and causing tissue damage in the scanner. Removing the device meant the stimulation was turned off during the scan, which could have allowed some brain networks to experience a rapid rebound effect.
Future research will need to explore whether these exact structural changes occur in human patients undergoing the therapy for depression. Scientists also plan to study how different stimulation frequencies or intensities might impact white matter remodeling. Understanding these biological mechanisms could help doctors optimize treatment settings and perhaps develop new, non-surgical methods to encourage the brain to repair its own white matter.
“Now, Dr. Mayberg and her team at the Center for Advanced Circuit Therapeutics are now working to see if fMRI measures of white matter structure are changed in people who receive DBS,” the researchers added. “This has been made possible by new approaches that allow people with implanted DBS devices to be scanned using MRI.”
“One of the things that still puzzles us about the results is that the location in the brain that shows the biggest change in response to DBS is not close to the location where stimulation is delivered,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto said. “We don’t know why this is, but it is probably important.”
“We are now working to figure that out with a number of different approaches in animals,” they noted. “If we can figure that out it may be possible to make DBS even better than it is as well as potentially unlock new ways to try to treat depression.”
The study, “Deep brain stimulation induces white matter remodeling and functional changes to brain-wide networks,” was authored by Satoka H. Fujimoto, Atsushi Fujimoto, Catherine Elorette, Adela Seltzer, Emma Andraka, Keondre Herbert, Gaurav Verma, William G. M. Janssen, Lazar Fleysher, Davide Folloni, Ki Sueng Choi, Brian E. Russ, Helen S. Mayberg, and Peter H. Rudebeck.
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DATE: June 27, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Scientists discover deep brain stimulation physically reshapes the brain’s information superhighway
Deep brain stimulation is an emerging treatment for severe depression, but exactly how it alters the brain to relieve symptoms has remained somewhat of a mystery. A recent study published in Nature Neuroscience provides evidence that this therapy reshapes the physical structure of the brain’s wiring and alters communication across major neural networks. These findings suggest that the long-term benefits of the treatment might stem from physical remodeling of the brain rather than just immediate changes in electrical activity.
Deep brain stimulation is a surgical procedure that involves implanting small wires, called electrodes, into specific areas of the brain. These electrodes connect to a device placed in the chest, which sends mild electrical impulses to the brain. Doctors frequently use this therapy to manage movement conditions like Parkinson’s disease. In recent years, the medical field has adapted the procedure to treat psychiatric conditions, particularly depression that does not respond to medication or therapy.
When treating movement conditions, the electrodes target gray matter, which is the brain tissue made mostly of cell bodies. For depression, doctors instead target white matter. White matter consists of the bundles of nerve fibers, or axons, that connect different parts of the brain and allow them to communicate. You can think of white matter as the brain’s information superhighway, carrying signals rapidly from one region to another.
The authors designed this study to see if electrical stimulation could physically change the microscopic structure of white matter. They also wanted to understand how these potential physical changes might influence how different regions of the brain communicate with one another.
“The idea for the project came when Dr. Helen Mayberg joined Mount Sinai about eight years ago,” explained Peter H. Rudebeck, a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Satoka H. Fujimoto, a researcher at the institution. “Dr. Mayberg works with patients with depression who have not been helped by any of the other treatments that are available such as anti-depressants and cognitive behavioral therapy.”
“Twenty years ago she pioneered a new approach to help treat these patients where deep brain stimulation (DBS) was directed to a part of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) called the subcallosal ACC,” the researchers noted. “DBS works by focally delivering electrical impulses to a piece of the brain, causing activity in that area to be altered.”
“In recent clinical trials, DBS to the subcallosal ACC is effective at improving 70 to 80 percent of patients’ depression and in some cases people were completely free from depression,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto said. “Dr. Mayberg noticed that in her patients that had been successfully treated with DBS, that their recovery from depression was not immediate. Instead, after an initial rapid improvement there was a prolonged period of improvement that spanned many weeks or months.”
“The rapid improvement made sense in light of what was known about how electrical impulses change brain activity, but the longer term improvement was not,” the researchers explained. “Thus, the study was motivated by a desire to figure out what mechanisms in the brain underlie these fast and slow responses to DBS and how these help people to recover from depression.”
To carry out the experiment, the scientists worked with macaque monkeys. The main experimental group included three adult male monkeys between seven and nine years old. Two of the animals received the active deep brain stimulation treatment, while the third monkey underwent the surgery but did not receive any electrical stimulation, acting as a control subject.
The team also used functional brain imaging data from three additional monkeys that did not undergo any surgery. This second control group helped the authors verify that any changes in brain communication over time were genuinely linked to the electrical stimulation. Including these unoperated animals provided a baseline for normal brain network fluctuations.
For the two monkeys in the active treatment group, the researchers implanted a miniaturized electrode into a specific intersection of three white matter pathways. One of these pathways is the cingulum bundle, which serves as a major communication route for the brain’s emotional centers. Identifying the precise convergence of these three tracts requires advanced mapping techniques, as individual brain anatomy can vary.
After a four-week recovery period, the treatment group monkeys received continuous electrical stimulation for six weeks. This timeline mirrors the approach taken in human clinics. It also matches the period when human patients typically begin to show significant symptom improvement.
The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging, commonly known as MRI, to scan the monkeys’ brains before the electrode implantation and immediately after the six weeks of stimulation. They specifically looked at a measure called fractional anisotropy. This metric helps scientists evaluate the physical integrity and organization of white matter tracts in a living brain.
Fractional anisotropy is a mathematical value derived from how water molecules diffuse through tissue. In healthy, well-organized white matter, water tends to move smoothly along the direction of the nerve fibers. An increase in this metric suggests that the nerve fibers have become more structurally sound, densely packed, or better insulated.
The MRI data revealed that six weeks of stimulation led to a distinct increase in white matter integrity in the cingulum bundle. This pathway connects different areas of the brain involved in emotion and mood regulation. Interestingly, this physical change occurred in a section of the pathway that was somewhat distant from the actual stimulation site.
Following the MRI scans, the team examined the brain tissue at a microscopic level. They used specialized microscopes to look at the cellular structure of the white matter fibers. The scientists specifically counted the number of oligodendrocytes, which are specialized cells that produce myelin.
Myelin is a fatty substance that wraps around nerve fibers, acting like insulation on an electrical wire to help signals travel faster. The researchers found a higher number of myelin-producing oligodendrocytes in the exact same region where the MRI showed increased white matter integrity.
They also used an advanced technique called electron microscopy to measure the exact thickness of this myelin sheath in the targeted brain regions. The myelin sheaths surrounding the nerve fibers in this area were thicker compared to the unstimulated side of the brain. This allowed them to see structural changes that are invisible to a standard MRI.
“We were surprised to find evidence of white matter remodeling after a relatively short period of stimulation, only six weeks,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto said. “In particular, we found that myelin, the insulating sheath around neural fibers that supports efficient information transfer, had become thicker as a result of DBS.”
“What made this especially interesting was where this change occurred,” they noted. “The structural change was localized to the mid-cingulate bundle, a white matter pathway located away from the stimulation site. Importantly, this pathway helps link the stimulation site with key regions of the default mode network, a brain network strongly implicated in depression.”
“This was unexpected because it suggests that DBS may influence not only local brain activity near the electrode, but also the structure of distant, connected brain pathways,” the researchers explained. “One way to think about this is that DBS may not only adjust the activity of important ‘cities’ in the brain, but may also help reshape the ‘roads’ that connect those cities, allowing the broader network to function more effectively.”
The researchers also monitored the animals’ basic behaviors to ensure the stimulation was having a biological effect. They found that the stimulated monkeys spent more time moving and foraging in their home cages after the treatment started. They did not observe any negative neurological deficits or signs of motor impairment.
The control monkey that received the implant without any stimulation did not show these behavioral or structural improvements. In fact, the surgical insertion of the electrode without electrical stimulation tended to cause a slight decrease in white matter integrity. This detail indicates that the physical remodeling of the brain was a direct result of the electrical impulses.
Beyond the physical changes, the authors examined functional connectivity, which refers to how well different parts of the brain synchronize their activity. They found that the localized white matter changes were accompanied by widespread shifts in communication across the entire brain. The deep brain stimulation tended to decrease overall communication between outer cortical areas while increasing communication between deeper subcortical regions.
Most notably, the stimulation altered how the targeted area communicated with the default mode network. The default mode network is a group of interconnected brain regions that becomes highly active when a person is resting, daydreaming, or ruminating. In humans, depression is often associated with hyperactivity and altered connectivity in this specific network.
The deep brain stimulation tended to decrease the communication between the stimulation site and the default mode network. This suggests a potential rebalancing of brain activity in pathways that manage mood and attention. At the same time, the treatment increased communication between the stimulation site and sensory and motor networks.
Brain networks are known to dynamically rebalance themselves to optimize inputs and outputs between different areas. The localized structural changes in the white matter appear to support much larger functional shifts across the whole brain. This fits with previous evidence that a small number of structural connections can maintain wide-reaching communication networks.
“The main takeaway is that DBS may do more than adjust brain activity, it actually rewires the brain,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto summarized. “Specifically, our study provides evidence that stimulation of brain circuits relevant to depression can induce structural changes in white matter, the fiber pathways that connect different brain regions and transmit neural information.”
“These changes were accompanied by functional changes in brain networks, particularly in the default mode network, which has been strongly implicated in depression,” they said. “This means that our findings indicate that the recovery from depression requires rewiring the brain to promote recovery.”
While the study provides strong evidence for brain remodeling, it does have some limitations. The research relied on a small sample size of monkeys, which is common in non-human primate studies but requires caution when applying the findings to larger human populations. Additionally, the subjects were healthy animals without depression.
“Our study was not conducted in the human brain but used healthy animals so that we could uncover the cellular mechanisms that are engaged by DBS in the absence of pathology related to depression,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto explained. “Such a level of analysis could not have been obtained in patients who received DBS.”
A brain affected by a psychiatric condition might respond to stimulation differently, or on a different timeline, than a healthy brain. The researchers also conducted the MRI scans while the animals were under mild anesthesia to prevent movement. Although they used a low dose designed to preserve normal brain network activity, anesthesia can still subtly alter functional connectivity patterns.
Another limitation involves the removal of the electrode before the final MRI scans. The researchers had to extract the device to prevent it from distorting the brain images and causing tissue damage in the scanner. Removing the device meant the stimulation was turned off during the scan, which could have allowed some brain networks to experience a rapid rebound effect.
Future research will need to explore whether these exact structural changes occur in human patients undergoing the therapy for depression. Scientists also plan to study how different stimulation frequencies or intensities might impact white matter remodeling. Understanding these biological mechanisms could help doctors optimize treatment settings and perhaps develop new, non-surgical methods to encourage the brain to repair its own white matter.
“Now, Dr. Mayberg and her team at the Center for Advanced Circuit Therapeutics are now working to see if fMRI measures of white matter structure are changed in people who receive DBS,” the researchers added. “This has been made possible by new approaches that allow people with implanted DBS devices to be scanned using MRI.”
“One of the things that still puzzles us about the results is that the location in the brain that shows the biggest change in response to DBS is not close to the location where stimulation is delivered,” Rudebeck and Fujimoto said. “We don’t know why this is, but it is probably important.”
“We are now working to figure that out with a number of different approaches in animals,” they noted. “If we can figure that out it may be possible to make DBS even better than it is as well as potentially unlock new ways to try to treat depression.”
The study, “Deep brain stimulation induces white matter remodeling and functional changes to brain-wide networks,” was authored by Satoka H. Fujimoto, Atsushi Fujimoto, Catherine Elorette, Adela Seltzer, Emma Andraka, Keondre Herbert, Gaurav Verma, William G. M. Janssen, Lazar Fleysher, Davide Folloni, Ki Sueng Choi, Brian E. Russ, Helen S. Mayberg, and Peter H. Rudebeck.
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Scientists Say This 1 Vitamin May Protect Your Brain as You Age
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Scientists Say This 1 Vitamin May Protect Your Brain as You Age
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DATE: June 16, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Psychedelic users process emotional expressions differently than nonusers
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-scans-reveal-how-regular-psychedelic-users-process-emotional-threats/
People who regularly use psychedelic drugs outside of clinical settings appear to process emotional information differently than those who abstain. A recent brain imaging study found that experienced psychedelic consumers process threatening facial expressions more efficiently and display altered neural responses to various emotions. The research was published in the journal Human Brain Mapping.
Classic psychedelics like psilocybin mushrooms and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) profoundly alter sensory perception, mood, and self-awareness. In recent years, medical trials have reported that these substances might offer long-lasting psychological benefits. Patients in these medical trials often experience reduced symptoms of depression, decreased anxiety regarding terminal illness, and an increased ability to regulate their emotions. These clinical settings provide safe, highly controlled environments with psychological support to guide the patient through the intense acute drug experience.
The majority of psychedelic use worldwide happens outside of controlled laboratories. This naturalistic use involves variable doses, unpredictable environments, and differing personal motivations. Because these varied conditions can heavily influence the drug experience, researchers wanted to find out if the emotional benefits seen in strict clinical trials hold true for people using psychedelics in the real world.
Paweł Orłowski, a researcher at the Centre for Brain Research at Jagiellonian University in Poland, led the investigation. Orłowski and his colleagues, Aleksandra Domagalik and Michał Bola, aimed to map the brain activity of experienced psychedelic users and see how they react to everyday emotional triggers compared to people who have never taken the drugs.
The researchers started by surveying more than 2,500 individuals. From this large pool, they selected 33 experienced psychedelic users who reported taking the substances at least ten times in their lives. They paired this group with 34 nonusers who expressed a willingness to try psychedelics in the future.
To isolate the specific effects of psychedelics, the research team matched the two groups based on several demographic and lifestyle factors. The users and nonusers were matched based on age, sex, education level, and the size of their home city. They were also matched for their history of meditation and their use of other psychoactive substances like alcohol, cannabis, and stimulants. All participants were required to abstain from using psychedelics for at least 30 days before the experiment.
To observe how the participants processed emotions, the researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging. This technology measures blood flow in the brain to estimate which neural areas are most active at any given moment. While inside the brain scanner, participants completed a facial expression recognition task.
During the task, participants viewed a series of faces displaying anger, fear, happiness, or a neutral expression. Each image flashed on the screen for just a fraction of a second. The participants then used a button pad to identify the emotion they had just seen as quickly and accurately as possible.
The behavioral data produced a notable difference between the two cohorts. Psychedelic users correctly identified angry facial expressions faster and with a higher degree of accuracy than their nonuser counterparts. When it came to recognizing fearful, happy, or neutral faces, the performance of the two groups was remarkably similar.
The research team interpreted this high performance as a sign of enhanced processing efficiency for threat-related information. Often, encountering a threatening stimulus like an angry face triggers a brief freezing response that slows down cognitive reactions. The regular psychedelic users seemed to bypass this typical delay, processing the emotional information and pressing the correct button without hesitation or impulsive errors.
The brain scans supported these behavioral observations. When viewing angry faces, the psychedelic users registered lower activation in brain regions associated with raw emotional reactivity and threat detection. These areas included the insula and the supplementary motor area, which are typically engaged when a person is reacting to negative or alarming stimuli.
The opposite pattern emerged when participants looked at happy faces. In response to positive emotional expressions, the psychedelic users displayed heightened activity across various sensorimotor and parietal brain regions. These specific neural areas help process external sensory information and integrate bodily sensations, matching clinical reports of heightened positive moods following psychedelic therapy.
The researchers also focused their attention on areas of the brain that make up the default mode network. This brain network is typically highly active when a person is resting, daydreaming, or reflecting on their own internal thoughts. An overactive default mode network is often associated with the repetitive negative thinking seen in depressive disorders.
In certain regions of this network, nonusers showed very distinct, varied patterns of brain activation depending on which specific emotion they were viewing. They exerted heavy cognitive effort to process the negative emotions. By contrast, the psychedelic users exhibited a much flatter and less differentiated neural response across the different emotional categories.
The authors suggest this flattened response might fit into a concept known as predictive processing. This theory proposes that the brain constantly uses rigid expectations based on past experiences to navigate the world. These strong assumptions can sometimes force people into maladaptive defensive habits when they encounter a perceived threat.
Psychedelics are thought to relax these rigid expectations. This relaxation forces the brain to rely more heavily on raw sensory data coming in from the eyes and ears, rather than filtering the world through strict assumptions. By sidestepping heavy-handed mental filtering, psychedelic users might process defensive triggers like anger more smoothly and automatically.
One unexpected result involved the amygdala, a small structure deep inside the brain that acts as an alarm system for fear and negative emotions. Prior clinical trials often report that psychedelic therapy calms amygdala reactivity for days or weeks after a dosing session. Yet, this naturalistic study found that differences in amygdala activation between users and nonusers were not statistically significant.
The scientists offered a few explanations for this discrepancy. Because participants abstained from psychedelics for at least a month prior to the scan, it is possible that any biological calming effect on the amygdala is temporary and fades over several weeks. Alternatively, the specific type of brain scan sequence used in the setup might not have been sensitive enough to capture subtle changes in such a small, deep brain structure.
The study carries a few caveats that prevent definitive conclusions. Because it was a cross-sectional study capturing a single moment in time, it cannot prove that the psychedelic drugs caused the brain changes. It remains entirely possible that people who naturally possess a highly efficient style of emotional processing are simply more inclined to seek out and stick with psychedelic substances.
The sample also comes with an inherent self-selection bias. By choosing participants who had used psychedelics ten or more times, the researchers likely gathered a group of people who consistently enjoy the drugs. Individuals who had terrifying or uncomfortable early psychological experiences likely quit using them and would not have made it into the study cohort.
Future investigations will need to track people over a long period from before they start using psychedelics until well after they have established a naturalistic routine. Tracking brain scans over months or years could help scientists determine exactly how these potent substances alter emotional perception in the real world.
The study, “Investigating Emotional Reactivity in Experienced Users of Psychedelics: A Cross-Sectional fMRI Study”, was authored by Paweł Orłowski, Aleksandra Domagalik, and Michał Bola.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-scans-reveal-how-regular-psychedelic-users-process-emotional-threats/
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
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DATE: June 16, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Psychedelic users process emotional expressions differently than nonusers
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-scans-reveal-how-regular-psychedelic-users-process-emotional-threats/
People who regularly use psychedelic drugs outside of clinical settings appear to process emotional information differently than those who abstain. A recent brain imaging study found that experienced psychedelic consumers process threatening facial expressions more efficiently and display altered neural responses to various emotions. The research was published in the journal Human Brain Mapping.
Classic psychedelics like psilocybin mushrooms and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) profoundly alter sensory perception, mood, and self-awareness. In recent years, medical trials have reported that these substances might offer long-lasting psychological benefits. Patients in these medical trials often experience reduced symptoms of depression, decreased anxiety regarding terminal illness, and an increased ability to regulate their emotions. These clinical settings provide safe, highly controlled environments with psychological support to guide the patient through the intense acute drug experience.
The majority of psychedelic use worldwide happens outside of controlled laboratories. This naturalistic use involves variable doses, unpredictable environments, and differing personal motivations. Because these varied conditions can heavily influence the drug experience, researchers wanted to find out if the emotional benefits seen in strict clinical trials hold true for people using psychedelics in the real world.
Paweł Orłowski, a researcher at the Centre for Brain Research at Jagiellonian University in Poland, led the investigation. Orłowski and his colleagues, Aleksandra Domagalik and Michał Bola, aimed to map the brain activity of experienced psychedelic users and see how they react to everyday emotional triggers compared to people who have never taken the drugs.
The researchers started by surveying more than 2,500 individuals. From this large pool, they selected 33 experienced psychedelic users who reported taking the substances at least ten times in their lives. They paired this group with 34 nonusers who expressed a willingness to try psychedelics in the future.
To isolate the specific effects of psychedelics, the research team matched the two groups based on several demographic and lifestyle factors. The users and nonusers were matched based on age, sex, education level, and the size of their home city. They were also matched for their history of meditation and their use of other psychoactive substances like alcohol, cannabis, and stimulants. All participants were required to abstain from using psychedelics for at least 30 days before the experiment.
To observe how the participants processed emotions, the researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging. This technology measures blood flow in the brain to estimate which neural areas are most active at any given moment. While inside the brain scanner, participants completed a facial expression recognition task.
During the task, participants viewed a series of faces displaying anger, fear, happiness, or a neutral expression. Each image flashed on the screen for just a fraction of a second. The participants then used a button pad to identify the emotion they had just seen as quickly and accurately as possible.
The behavioral data produced a notable difference between the two cohorts. Psychedelic users correctly identified angry facial expressions faster and with a higher degree of accuracy than their nonuser counterparts. When it came to recognizing fearful, happy, or neutral faces, the performance of the two groups was remarkably similar.
The research team interpreted this high performance as a sign of enhanced processing efficiency for threat-related information. Often, encountering a threatening stimulus like an angry face triggers a brief freezing response that slows down cognitive reactions. The regular psychedelic users seemed to bypass this typical delay, processing the emotional information and pressing the correct button without hesitation or impulsive errors.
The brain scans supported these behavioral observations. When viewing angry faces, the psychedelic users registered lower activation in brain regions associated with raw emotional reactivity and threat detection. These areas included the insula and the supplementary motor area, which are typically engaged when a person is reacting to negative or alarming stimuli.
The opposite pattern emerged when participants looked at happy faces. In response to positive emotional expressions, the psychedelic users displayed heightened activity across various sensorimotor and parietal brain regions. These specific neural areas help process external sensory information and integrate bodily sensations, matching clinical reports of heightened positive moods following psychedelic therapy.
The researchers also focused their attention on areas of the brain that make up the default mode network. This brain network is typically highly active when a person is resting, daydreaming, or reflecting on their own internal thoughts. An overactive default mode network is often associated with the repetitive negative thinking seen in depressive disorders.
In certain regions of this network, nonusers showed very distinct, varied patterns of brain activation depending on which specific emotion they were viewing. They exerted heavy cognitive effort to process the negative emotions. By contrast, the psychedelic users exhibited a much flatter and less differentiated neural response across the different emotional categories.
The authors suggest this flattened response might fit into a concept known as predictive processing. This theory proposes that the brain constantly uses rigid expectations based on past experiences to navigate the world. These strong assumptions can sometimes force people into maladaptive defensive habits when they encounter a perceived threat.
Psychedelics are thought to relax these rigid expectations. This relaxation forces the brain to rely more heavily on raw sensory data coming in from the eyes and ears, rather than filtering the world through strict assumptions. By sidestepping heavy-handed mental filtering, psychedelic users might process defensive triggers like anger more smoothly and automatically.
One unexpected result involved the amygdala, a small structure deep inside the brain that acts as an alarm system for fear and negative emotions. Prior clinical trials often report that psychedelic therapy calms amygdala reactivity for days or weeks after a dosing session. Yet, this naturalistic study found that differences in amygdala activation between users and nonusers were not statistically significant.
The scientists offered a few explanations for this discrepancy. Because participants abstained from psychedelics for at least a month prior to the scan, it is possible that any biological calming effect on the amygdala is temporary and fades over several weeks. Alternatively, the specific type of brain scan sequence used in the setup might not have been sensitive enough to capture subtle changes in such a small, deep brain structure.
The study carries a few caveats that prevent definitive conclusions. Because it was a cross-sectional study capturing a single moment in time, it cannot prove that the psychedelic drugs caused the brain changes. It remains entirely possible that people who naturally possess a highly efficient style of emotional processing are simply more inclined to seek out and stick with psychedelic substances.
The sample also comes with an inherent self-selection bias. By choosing participants who had used psychedelics ten or more times, the researchers likely gathered a group of people who consistently enjoy the drugs. Individuals who had terrifying or uncomfortable early psychological experiences likely quit using them and would not have made it into the study cohort.
Future investigations will need to track people over a long period from before they start using psychedelics until well after they have established a naturalistic routine. Tracking brain scans over months or years could help scientists determine exactly how these potent substances alter emotional perception in the real world.
The study, “Investigating Emotional Reactivity in Experienced Users of Psychedelics: A Cross-Sectional fMRI Study”, was authored by Paweł Orłowski, Aleksandra Domagalik, and Michał Bola.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-scans-reveal-how-regular-psychedelic-users-process-emotional-threats/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PsychedelicsAndEmotion #EmotionalProcessing #PsychedelicResearch #FMRIScience #AngerRecognition #ThreatProcessing #DefaultModeNetwork #AmygdalaInsight #ClinicalTrialsVsRealWorld #Neuroplasticity #PsychedelicTherapy
-
DATE: June 16, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Psychedelic users process emotional expressions differently than nonusers
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-scans-reveal-how-regular-psychedelic-users-process-emotional-threats/
People who regularly use psychedelic drugs outside of clinical settings appear to process emotional information differently than those who abstain. A recent brain imaging study found that experienced psychedelic consumers process threatening facial expressions more efficiently and display altered neural responses to various emotions. The research was published in the journal Human Brain Mapping.
Classic psychedelics like psilocybin mushrooms and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) profoundly alter sensory perception, mood, and self-awareness. In recent years, medical trials have reported that these substances might offer long-lasting psychological benefits. Patients in these medical trials often experience reduced symptoms of depression, decreased anxiety regarding terminal illness, and an increased ability to regulate their emotions. These clinical settings provide safe, highly controlled environments with psychological support to guide the patient through the intense acute drug experience.
The majority of psychedelic use worldwide happens outside of controlled laboratories. This naturalistic use involves variable doses, unpredictable environments, and differing personal motivations. Because these varied conditions can heavily influence the drug experience, researchers wanted to find out if the emotional benefits seen in strict clinical trials hold true for people using psychedelics in the real world.
Paweł Orłowski, a researcher at the Centre for Brain Research at Jagiellonian University in Poland, led the investigation. Orłowski and his colleagues, Aleksandra Domagalik and Michał Bola, aimed to map the brain activity of experienced psychedelic users and see how they react to everyday emotional triggers compared to people who have never taken the drugs.
The researchers started by surveying more than 2,500 individuals. From this large pool, they selected 33 experienced psychedelic users who reported taking the substances at least ten times in their lives. They paired this group with 34 nonusers who expressed a willingness to try psychedelics in the future.
To isolate the specific effects of psychedelics, the research team matched the two groups based on several demographic and lifestyle factors. The users and nonusers were matched based on age, sex, education level, and the size of their home city. They were also matched for their history of meditation and their use of other psychoactive substances like alcohol, cannabis, and stimulants. All participants were required to abstain from using psychedelics for at least 30 days before the experiment.
To observe how the participants processed emotions, the researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging. This technology measures blood flow in the brain to estimate which neural areas are most active at any given moment. While inside the brain scanner, participants completed a facial expression recognition task.
During the task, participants viewed a series of faces displaying anger, fear, happiness, or a neutral expression. Each image flashed on the screen for just a fraction of a second. The participants then used a button pad to identify the emotion they had just seen as quickly and accurately as possible.
The behavioral data produced a notable difference between the two cohorts. Psychedelic users correctly identified angry facial expressions faster and with a higher degree of accuracy than their nonuser counterparts. When it came to recognizing fearful, happy, or neutral faces, the performance of the two groups was remarkably similar.
The research team interpreted this high performance as a sign of enhanced processing efficiency for threat-related information. Often, encountering a threatening stimulus like an angry face triggers a brief freezing response that slows down cognitive reactions. The regular psychedelic users seemed to bypass this typical delay, processing the emotional information and pressing the correct button without hesitation or impulsive errors.
The brain scans supported these behavioral observations. When viewing angry faces, the psychedelic users registered lower activation in brain regions associated with raw emotional reactivity and threat detection. These areas included the insula and the supplementary motor area, which are typically engaged when a person is reacting to negative or alarming stimuli.
The opposite pattern emerged when participants looked at happy faces. In response to positive emotional expressions, the psychedelic users displayed heightened activity across various sensorimotor and parietal brain regions. These specific neural areas help process external sensory information and integrate bodily sensations, matching clinical reports of heightened positive moods following psychedelic therapy.
The researchers also focused their attention on areas of the brain that make up the default mode network. This brain network is typically highly active when a person is resting, daydreaming, or reflecting on their own internal thoughts. An overactive default mode network is often associated with the repetitive negative thinking seen in depressive disorders.
In certain regions of this network, nonusers showed very distinct, varied patterns of brain activation depending on which specific emotion they were viewing. They exerted heavy cognitive effort to process the negative emotions. By contrast, the psychedelic users exhibited a much flatter and less differentiated neural response across the different emotional categories.
The authors suggest this flattened response might fit into a concept known as predictive processing. This theory proposes that the brain constantly uses rigid expectations based on past experiences to navigate the world. These strong assumptions can sometimes force people into maladaptive defensive habits when they encounter a perceived threat.
Psychedelics are thought to relax these rigid expectations. This relaxation forces the brain to rely more heavily on raw sensory data coming in from the eyes and ears, rather than filtering the world through strict assumptions. By sidestepping heavy-handed mental filtering, psychedelic users might process defensive triggers like anger more smoothly and automatically.
One unexpected result involved the amygdala, a small structure deep inside the brain that acts as an alarm system for fear and negative emotions. Prior clinical trials often report that psychedelic therapy calms amygdala reactivity for days or weeks after a dosing session. Yet, this naturalistic study found that differences in amygdala activation between users and nonusers were not statistically significant.
The scientists offered a few explanations for this discrepancy. Because participants abstained from psychedelics for at least a month prior to the scan, it is possible that any biological calming effect on the amygdala is temporary and fades over several weeks. Alternatively, the specific type of brain scan sequence used in the setup might not have been sensitive enough to capture subtle changes in such a small, deep brain structure.
The study carries a few caveats that prevent definitive conclusions. Because it was a cross-sectional study capturing a single moment in time, it cannot prove that the psychedelic drugs caused the brain changes. It remains entirely possible that people who naturally possess a highly efficient style of emotional processing are simply more inclined to seek out and stick with psychedelic substances.
The sample also comes with an inherent self-selection bias. By choosing participants who had used psychedelics ten or more times, the researchers likely gathered a group of people who consistently enjoy the drugs. Individuals who had terrifying or uncomfortable early psychological experiences likely quit using them and would not have made it into the study cohort.
Future investigations will need to track people over a long period from before they start using psychedelics until well after they have established a naturalistic routine. Tracking brain scans over months or years could help scientists determine exactly how these potent substances alter emotional perception in the real world.
The study, “Investigating Emotional Reactivity in Experienced Users of Psychedelics: A Cross-Sectional fMRI Study”, was authored by Paweł Orłowski, Aleksandra Domagalik, and Michał Bola.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-scans-reveal-how-regular-psychedelic-users-process-emotional-threats/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #PsychedelicsAndEmotion #EmotionalProcessing #PsychedelicResearch #FMRIScience #AngerRecognition #ThreatProcessing #DefaultModeNetwork #AmygdalaInsight #ClinicalTrialsVsRealWorld #Neuroplasticity #PsychedelicTherapy
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https://www.europesays.com/ie/532804/ The surprising benefit of vitamin C in old age #BloodPlasma #BrainHealth #BrainStructure #CognitiveDecline #CognitiveFunction #connectivity #DefaultModeNetwork #Éire #GrayMatter #Health #HirosakiUniversity #IE #Ireland #Nutrition #OlderAdults #VitaminC #VitaminCLevels #WhiteBrainMatter
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https://www.europesays.com/ie/532171/ The surprising benefit of vitamin C in old age #BloodPlasma #BrainHealth #BrainStructure #CognitiveDecline #CognitiveFunction #connectivity #DefaultModeNetwork #Éire #GrayMatter #Health #HirosakiUniversity #IE #Ireland #Nutrition #OlderAdults #VitaminC #VitaminCLevels #WhiteBrainMatter
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https://www.europesays.com/at/210744/ Plasma-Vitamin-C und Hirnnetzwerke: Studie verknüpft Werte mit grauer Substanz und DMN-Connectivity #AT #Austria #Biomarker #Brain #CohortStudy #Connectivity #DefaultModeNetwork #Gehirn #Geist #Gesundheit #GrayMatter #Health #Mri #Neurologie #Neuroscience #Neurowissenschaften #Österreich #OxidativeStress #Plasma #Spm #VitaminC
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In both mindfulness and meditation practice, in my limited experience so far, the general advice regarding the mind's activity is to let thoughts come and go without adhesion to them, and to bring one's focus back to eg. breathing whenever it's naturally wandered off.
This makes me wonder: is the way we generally think, somehow a bit faulty? If so, what's the best way to view the phenomenal world?
Thanks, feedback welcome :)
#meditation #mindfulness #defaultmodenetwork #focus #mentalhealth
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In both mindfulness and meditation practice, in my limited experience so far, the general advice regarding the mind's activity is to let thoughts come and go without adhesion to them, and to bring one's focus back to eg. breathing whenever it's naturally wandered off.
This makes me wonder: is the way we generally think, somehow a bit faulty? If so, what's the best way to view the phenomenal world?
Thanks, feedback welcome :)
#meditation #mindfulness #defaultmodenetwork #focus #mentalhealth
-
In both mindfulness and meditation practice, in my limited experience so far, the general advice regarding the mind's activity is to let thoughts come and go without adhesion to them, and to bring one's focus back to eg. breathing whenever it's naturally wandered off.
This makes me wonder: is the way we generally think, somehow a bit faulty? If so, what's the best way to view the phenomenal world?
Thanks, feedback welcome :)
#meditation #mindfulness #defaultmodenetwork #focus #mentalhealth
-
In both mindfulness and meditation practice, in my limited experience so far, the general advice regarding the mind's activity is to let thoughts come and go without adhesion to them, and to bring one's focus back to eg. breathing whenever it's naturally wandered off.
This makes me wonder: is the way we generally think, somehow a bit faulty? If so, what's the best way to view the phenomenal world?
Thanks, feedback welcome :)
#meditation #mindfulness #defaultmodenetwork #focus #mentalhealth
-
In both mindfulness and meditation practice, in my limited experience so far, the general advice regarding the mind's activity is to let thoughts come and go without adhesion to them, and to bring one's focus back to eg. breathing whenever it's naturally wandered off.
This makes me wonder: is the way we generally think, somehow a bit faulty? If so, what's the best way to view the phenomenal world?
Thanks, feedback welcome :)
#meditation #mindfulness #defaultmodenetwork #focus #mentalhealth
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Robert Walser und das wandernde Bewusstsein
#DefaultModeNetwork #Kreativität #KünstlicheIntelligenz
Hier gibts Text und Denkwerkzeug: https://www.matthiaszehnder.ch/wochenkommentar/robert-walser-und-das-wandernde-bewusstsein/
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Robert Walser und das wandernde Bewusstsein
#DefaultModeNetwork #Kreativität #KünstlicheIntelligenz
Hier gibts Text und Denkwerkzeug: https://www.matthiaszehnder.ch/wochenkommentar/robert-walser-und-das-wandernde-bewusstsein/
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https://www.europesays.com/ie/505633/ Is the Dutch Art of Niksen the Answer to Our Modern Burnout Crisis? #boredom #BrainScience #burnout #creativity #DefaultModeNetwork #Éire #Health #IE #Ireland #MentalHealth #MentalHealth #Neuroscience #niksen #relaxation #Stress #wellbeing #WorkStress
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https://www.europesays.com/es/549547/ Investigadores españoles detectan alteraciones cerebrales tempranas en adolescentes con trastorno límite de la personalidad | Líder en Información Social #Cibersam #DefaultModeNetwork #Discamedia #Discapacidad #ES #España #Fidmag #GermanesHospitalàries #Health #MarcFerrerVinardell #PilarSalgadoPineda #Salud #Sociedad #Spain #VallD’HebronInstitutoDeInvestigación
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"Receiver-like regions, biased toward afferent input, show stronger heteromodal connectivity, whereas sender-like regions, biased toward efferent projections, show stronger coupling with distributed sensorimotor systems. This work offers an organizational framework linking DMN architecture with internal and external cognition, providing insight into flexible human thought."
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"Receiver-like regions, biased toward afferent input, show stronger heteromodal connectivity, whereas sender-like regions, biased toward efferent projections, show stronger coupling with distributed sensorimotor systems. This work offers an organizational framework linking DMN architecture with internal and external cognition, providing insight into flexible human thought."
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"Receiver-like regions, biased toward afferent input, show stronger heteromodal connectivity, whereas sender-like regions, biased toward efferent projections, show stronger coupling with distributed sensorimotor systems. This work offers an organizational framework linking DMN architecture with internal and external cognition, providing insight into flexible human thought."
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"Receiver-like regions, biased toward afferent input, show stronger heteromodal connectivity, whereas sender-like regions, biased toward efferent projections, show stronger coupling with distributed sensorimotor systems. This work offers an organizational framework linking DMN architecture with internal and external cognition, providing insight into flexible human thought."
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"Receiver-like regions, biased toward afferent input, show stronger heteromodal connectivity, whereas sender-like regions, biased toward efferent projections, show stronger coupling with distributed sensorimotor systems. This work offers an organizational framework linking DMN architecture with internal and external cognition, providing insight into flexible human thought."
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The #DefaultModeNetwork constructs our sense of continuous self through autobiographical narrative and self-referential processing. #Buddhist #meditation practices reduce #DMN activity, correlating with experiences of #anattā (#NonSelf). This convergence between #contemplative insight and #neuroscience reveals the constructed, dynamic nature of ego. Here's a brief overview:
🌍 https://www.fabriziomusacchio.com/weekend_stories/told/2025/2025-11-16-default_mode_network/
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The #DefaultModeNetwork constructs our sense of continuous self through autobiographical narrative and self-referential processing. #Buddhist #meditation practices reduce #DMN activity, correlating with experiences of #anattā (#NonSelf). This convergence between #contemplative insight and #neuroscience reveals the constructed, dynamic nature of ego. Here's a brief overview:
🌍 https://www.fabriziomusacchio.com/weekend_stories/told/2025/2025-11-16-default_mode_network/
-
The #DefaultModeNetwork constructs our sense of continuous self through autobiographical narrative and self-referential processing. #Buddhist #meditation practices reduce #DMN activity, correlating with experiences of #anattā (#NonSelf). This convergence between #contemplative insight and #neuroscience reveals the constructed, dynamic nature of ego. Here's a brief overview:
🌍 https://www.fabriziomusacchio.com/weekend_stories/told/2025/2025-11-16-default_mode_network/
-
The #DefaultModeNetwork constructs our sense of continuous self through autobiographical narrative and self-referential processing. #Buddhist #meditation practices reduce #DMN activity, correlating with experiences of #anattā (#NonSelf). This convergence between #contemplative insight and #neuroscience reveals the constructed, dynamic nature of ego. Here's a brief overview:
🌍 https://www.fabriziomusacchio.com/weekend_stories/told/2025/2025-11-16-default_mode_network/
-
The #DefaultModeNetwork constructs our sense of continuous self through autobiographical narrative and self-referential processing. #Buddhist #meditation practices reduce #DMN activity, correlating with experiences of #anattā (#NonSelf). This convergence between #contemplative insight and #neuroscience reveals the constructed, dynamic nature of ego. Here's a brief overview:
🌍 https://www.fabriziomusacchio.com/weekend_stories/told/2025/2025-11-16-default_mode_network/
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https://www.europesays.com/uk/415150/ Happiness researcher explains why we need to be bored more #addiction #boredom #DefaultModeNetwork #happiness #Harvard #Health #MentalHealth #Neurological #PhoneAddiction #Phones #Psychology #Research #ScreenTime #SocialMedia #Technology #UK #UnitedKingdom #Youth
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It’s the key to all things. #brain #defaultModeNetwork #bored
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It’s the key to all things. #brain #defaultModeNetwork #bored
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It’s the key to all things. #brain #defaultModeNetwork #bored
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It’s the key to all things. #brain #defaultModeNetwork #bored
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It’s the key to all things. #brain #defaultModeNetwork #bored
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Applying skills gained in one context to different situations enables efficient #learning, even from limited data. This Primer explores a @PLOSBiology study which shows that the #DefaultModeNetwork plays a key role in this ability. Paper: https://plos.io/41LOAWf Primer: https://plos.io/417aTpd
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Applying skills gained in one context to different situations enables efficient #learning, even from limited data. This Primer explores a @PLOSBiology study which shows that the #DefaultModeNetwork plays a key role in this ability. Paper: https://plos.io/41LOAWf Primer: https://plos.io/417aTpd
-
Applying skills gained in one context to different situations enables efficient #learning, even from limited data. This Primer explores a @PLOSBiology study which shows that the #DefaultModeNetwork plays a key role in this ability. Paper: https://plos.io/41LOAWf Primer: https://plos.io/417aTpd
-
Applying skills gained in one context to different situations enables efficient #learning, even from limited data. This Primer explores a @PLOSBiology study which shows that the #DefaultModeNetwork plays a key role in this ability. Paper: https://plos.io/41LOAWf Primer: https://plos.io/417aTpd
-
Applying skills gained in one context to different situations enables efficient #learning, even from limited data. This Primer explores a @PLOSBiology study which shows that the #DefaultModeNetwork plays a key role in this ability. Paper: https://plos.io/41LOAWf Primer: https://plos.io/417aTpd
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Unlocking the Brain’s Social Circuitry: Self, Memory, and Empathy
#Neuroscience #BrainScience #DefaultModeNetwork #SelfAwareness #Empathy #SocialCognition #MirrorNeurons #Memory #MentalHealth #BrainConnectivity #SelfReflection #SocialNeuroscience #MindAndBrain #Neuropsychology #UnderstandingOthers
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Unlocking the Brain’s Social Circuitry: Self, Memory, and Empathy
#Neuroscience #BrainScience #DefaultModeNetwork #SelfAwareness #Empathy #SocialCognition #MirrorNeurons #Memory #MentalHealth #BrainConnectivity #SelfReflection #SocialNeuroscience #MindAndBrain #Neuropsychology #UnderstandingOthers
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Unlocking the Brain’s Social Circuitry: Self, Memory, and Empathy
#Neuroscience #BrainScience #DefaultModeNetwork #SelfAwareness #Empathy #SocialCognition #MirrorNeurons #Memory #MentalHealth #BrainConnectivity #SelfReflection #SocialNeuroscience #MindAndBrain #Neuropsychology #UnderstandingOthers
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Unlocking the Brain’s Social Circuitry: Self, Memory, and Empathy
#Neuroscience #BrainScience #DefaultModeNetwork #SelfAwareness #Empathy #SocialCognition #MirrorNeurons #Memory #MentalHealth #BrainConnectivity #SelfReflection #SocialNeuroscience #MindAndBrain #Neuropsychology #UnderstandingOthers
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How Brain Circuits Influence Mood, Behavior, and Social Skills
#BrainCircuits #Neuroscience #MentalHealth #BrainNetworks #EmotionAndDecision #DefaultModeNetwork #BasalGanglia #LimbicSystem #Neurobiology #CognitiveScience
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How Brain Circuits Influence Mood, Behavior, and Social Skills
#BrainCircuits #Neuroscience #MentalHealth #BrainNetworks #EmotionAndDecision #DefaultModeNetwork #BasalGanglia #LimbicSystem #Neurobiology #CognitiveScience
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How Brain Circuits Influence Mood, Behavior, and Social Skills
#BrainCircuits #Neuroscience #MentalHealth #BrainNetworks #EmotionAndDecision #DefaultModeNetwork #BasalGanglia #LimbicSystem #Neurobiology #CognitiveScience
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How Brain Circuits Influence Mood, Behavior, and Social Skills
#BrainCircuits #Neuroscience #MentalHealth #BrainNetworks #EmotionAndDecision #DefaultModeNetwork #BasalGanglia #LimbicSystem #Neurobiology #CognitiveScience