Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
September 1, 2022
Michiel van Elk, David Bryce Yaden
214 citations
This critical review examines multiple levels of mechanisms behind psychedelics' effects and therapeutic potential. At the biochemical level, they primarily act on 5-HT2A receptors, increase neuroplasticity, open a critical period for social reward learning, and have anti-inflammatory properties. At the neural level, they reduce thalamo-cortical filtering efficacy, loosen top-down predictive signaling, increase sensitivity to bottom-up prediction errors, and activate the claustro-cortical circuit. At the psychological level, they induce altered and affective states, affect cognition, change beliefs, exert social effects, and produce lasting behavioral changes. The authors contrast a potential unifying account with pluralistic causation and propose a research agenda for better understanding causal-mechanistic pathways to enable targeted therapies.
Consciousness and cognition
August 1, 2019
Michael Lifshitz, Michiel van Elk, T M Luhrmann
162 citations
A general tendency called 'absorption'—the capacity to become deeply immersed in sensory and imaginative experiences—underlies a broad proclivity for spiritual experiences. People high in absorption readily sense supernatural presences, receive messages from God, and feel self-transcendence, awe, and wonder. High scorers on the Tellegen Absorption Scale report vivid experiences such as hearing God's voice during prayer, intense mystical states from psychedelics or placebo brain-stimulation, and strong feelings of presence and transcendence when encountering natural beauty, virtual reality, or music. Absorption appears to intensify inner and outer sensory experience, blending prior expectation with novel engagement, making imagined things feel more real.
Religion Brain & Behavior
June 5, 2018
Neil Van Leeuwen, Michiel van Elk
91 citations
A new model, the Interactive Religious Experience Model (IREM), proposes that general religious beliefs (e.g., God exists) are mostly acquired from culture, while personal religious beliefs (e.g., God appeared to me last night) arise from agency-detection intuitions and other low-level experiences. IREM inverts the standard Hyperactive Agency-Detection Device Theory: rather than agency-intuitions causing general religious belief, general belief in supernatural agents leads people to seek situations that trigger such intuitions, enabling personal beliefs. The model incorporates philosophical work on indexical belief, addresses empirical and conceptual problems with earlier theories, and suggests future research directions.
ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science
July 16, 2021
Joost J. Breeksema, Michiel van Elk
69 citations
The authors argue that the concept of mystical experience should remain central to psychedelic science, countering a recent call to abandon it. They emphasize the need to recognize the diversity and strangeness of psychedelic experiences, drawing on a rich tradition and scientific tools for studying mystical-type experiences. These experiences are relevant for understanding the therapeutic effects of psychedelics. The authors also call for greater diversity in both the types of experiences and the participants included in future research.
Psychopharmacology
September 1, 2020
Valerie Van Mulukom, Ruairi E Patterson, Michiel van Elk
61 citations
Classical serotonergic psychedelic (CSP) experiences that induce awe, but not ego dissolution, are linked to lower maladaptive narcissism through increased feelings of connectedness and affective empathetic drive. In a survey of 414 participants describing their most awe-inspiring psychedelic experience, those reporting more awe showed higher connectedness and empathy, which in turn predicted reduced exploitative-entitled narcissism. This relationship persisted after controlling for sensation-seeking. No evidence was found that ego dissolution produced the same effects. The findings suggest CSPs may have therapeutic potential for disorders involving deficits in connectedness and empathy, such as pathological narcissism, with awe-driven connectedness as a key mechanism.
Frontiers in psychology
January 1, 2010
Michiel van Elk, Marc Slors, Harold Bekkering
46 citations
The paper argues that criticisms of embodied cognition—such as whether sensorimotor brain activation is necessary for language comprehension and how we understand language for which we lack relevant experiences—stem from interpreting embodiment through a cognitivist lens. Instead, the authors propose an enactivist, non-representationalist model: language comprehension is procedural knowledge (knowing how, not knowing that) that enables interaction with others in a shared physical world. On this view, activation in modality-specific brain areas reflects the use of sensorimotor skills, and comprehension is context-bound. The enactivist approach thus supports an embodied view of language while avoiding the problems faced by cognitivist interpretations.
Religion Brain & Behavior
December 22, 2017
David L. R. Maij, Michiel van Elk, Uffe Schjoedt
32 citations
In a field study at a Dutch festival, 193 participants were led to believe a placebo brain stimulation device (the God Helmet) could induce mystical experiences. Participants reported a range of extraordinary experiences, including out-of-body sensations, involuntary movements, and sensing invisible beings. Self-identified spiritualism predicted these experiences, but neither objective nor subjective alcohol intoxication increased susceptibility to the suggestion. The authors discuss methodological limitations that may explain the lack of an alcohol effect and explore the God Helmet's usefulness for studying extraordinary experiences.
Psychiatr Res Clin Pract
February 11, 2025
Jules Evans, Marc Aixalà, Brian T. Anderson et al.
18 citations
Thirty psychedelic researchers identified critical gaps in knowledge about harms from psychedelic use, including how to define those harms, predict them, and treat them effectively. They recommend better online information, peer support groups, affordable therapy, and psychiatric consultation for people experiencing post-psychedelic difficulties. The researchers also call for improved funding for a psychedelic safety net, suggesting that psychedelic philanthropists, investors, and companies commit 1% of their investment to support safety measures such as research and support services. The article outlines practical steps to make the field of psychedelic medicine safer.
Philosophical Psychology
November 30, 2025
Julian Kiverstein, Hüseyin Beyköylü, Michiel van Elk
3 citations
Psychedelic experiences are shaped by the interaction of the drug, the user's psychological state (set), and the environment (setting), not just by pharmacology. A causal pluralist theory holds that multiple valid explanations—pharmacological, neural, psychological, social, political, and historical—can account for how set and setting influence the experience. Concepts from enactive cognitive science help clarify how higher-level causes like psychological states and cultural practices work, but enactive science has not yet produced testable models. Predictive processing theory may fill that gap. A pluralist synthesis of enactive cognitive science and predictive processing could provide the best conceptual tools for understanding the psychedelic experience scientifically.
Neuropharmacology
November 2, 2025
Luisa Prochazkova, Josephine Marschall, Michiel van Elk et al.
2 citations
Microdosing psilocybin from truffles modestly improved the quality of divergent thinking—specifically the ratio of original responses to total responses—in a pooled analysis of three double-blind, placebo-controlled trials with 171 participants. The effect on unadjusted originality was significant only when dosage relative to body weight was considered, and it remained after controlling for dose guess and demographic biases. No effects were found on other measures of divergent thinking or on convergent thinking. The findings underscore the need to account for placebo effects and prior psychedelic experience when evaluating microdosing claims.
L. J. Flameling, Jacob S. Aday, Michiel van Elk
1 citation
preprint
A commentary on a phase 3 trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD raises concerns about expectancy effects. The trial reported positive results, but most participants correctly guessed their treatment assignment, and expectations were not measured. The authors argue these effects were minimal, but the commentary contends that without measuring expectations, it remains possible that placebo or nocebo effects contributed to the observed outcomes.
Philosophical Psychology
April 27, 2026
Michiel van Elk
Mystical experiences are characterized by ineffability, noetic quality, transiency, and passivity, as outlined by William James. The abstract discusses the long-standing scholarly interest in these experiences within religious studies, noting that they have been a focus of research since James's foundational work. The text describes the key features of such experiences but does not present new empirical findings or a specific argument beyond acknowledging the historical and ongoing academic attention to the topic.
Sci Rep
November 25, 2025
Laura C. Carvalho, Jorge Encantado, Michiel van Elk et al.
Psychedelic experiences may help people adopt healthier behaviors like improved diet, more exercise, and regular meditation, according to a survey of 96 practitioners working in legal and underground settings. Practitioners reported perceived positive changes in clients' contemplative practices (61.4%), time in nature (60.1%), eating patterns (56.9%), and diet and nutrition (56%). The findings suggest that practitioners often see psychedelic experiences as linked to beneficial health behavior changes, though further research is needed to confirm these results and understand their long-term sustainability.
Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition
October 30, 2025
Anastasia Ruban, Michiel van Elk
Psychedelic experiences are shaped by culturally prevalent narratives rather than revealing unmediated insights. Psychedelics operate as non-specific amplifiers that magnify pre-existing beliefs within cultural feedback loops linking cultural set and setting, individual expectations, experience, and its articulation back into culture. This view reinterprets apparent disruptive effects as context-dependent intensifications. The authors identify methodological and ideological obstacles to studying culture in psychedelic science and propose a mixed-methods program including reflexivity, discourse analytics, neurophenomenology, and naturalistic cohort comparisons to operationalize cultural variables. Recognizing culture's constitutive role has ethical and epistemic consequences, including caution regarding metaphysical claims and attention to how psychedelics induce change in clinical settings.
The Oxford Handbook of Psychedelic, Religious, Spiritual, and Mystical Experiences
November 19, 2024
Géraldine Carranante, Michiel van Elk
Scientific study of altered states of consciousness (ASCs) has been hampered by disagreements over measurement tools and by conceptual problems with existing typologies—trigger-based, phenomenology-based, attribution-based, neurobiological, and psychopathological—which struggle to clearly demarcate different states. The authors propose a network-based classification method that treats ASCs as a network of nodes, where clusters of states can be identified. This approach offers flexibility: nodes can include experiential, contextual, social, and biological features. Network models allow calculation of properties like centrality and outperform current conceptual frameworks for organizing research, enabling more precise results and better interdisciplinary communication.
Frontiers in psychology
January 1, 2014
Paul Lodder, Mark Rotteveel, Michiel van Elk
Within social cognition, some researchers argue that understanding others relies on dynamic, second-person interactions rather than detached observation. This enactivist view splits over whether such intersubjective processes are innate. Nativist enactivists cite neonatal imitation as evidence that infants possess an embodied form of understanding others from birth, while empiricist enactivists claim these processes are learned through social interaction. A critical examination of studies on neonate imitation finds that only tongue protrusion imitation is consistently replicated across studies; evidence for other gestures is mixed. If neonates imitate only one gesture, a simpler explanation for tongue protrusion is possible. Thus, the nativist claim that second-person interactive processes are present at birth appears unsupported. The evidence aligns with the empiricist position, suggesting that such interactive understanding develops over time.