Psychological Medicine
October 1, 2012
Zerrin Atakan, Sagnik Bhattacharyya, Paul Allen et al.
54 citations
A double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 21 healthy men with minimal cannabis experience found that oral administration of 10 mg THC induced transient psychotic symptoms in 11 participants but not in the other 10. Those who became transiently psychotic made more inhibition errors and showed opposite patterns of brain activation in the left parahippocampal gyrus, left and right middle temporal gyri, and right cerebellum compared to the non-psychotic group. The findings suggest that variability in sensitivity to THC's psychotogenic effects is linked to differential activation in ventral and medial temporal cortex and cerebellum.
Scientific reports
April 25, 2025
Oscar Perez-Diaz, Sergio Elías Hernández, Lucy L Brown et al.
1 citation
Long-term practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation show altered functional connectivity of the striatum, a brain region involved in cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes. During meditation, compared to their own resting state, meditators had altered connectivity between the striatum and parietal, sensorimotor, and cerebellar regions. In resting state, meditators had reduced connectivity between the left accumbens and the mid cingulate compared to non-meditators, and this reduction correlated with better performance on a task measuring interference inhibition. The striatum may play a key role in meditation by shifting attention, self-referencing, and bodily sensations, and long-term practice may produce lasting changes in striatal connectivity.
bioRxiv Preprint Server
February 22, 2026
Sergio Elías Hernández, Katya Rubia, Oscar Perez-Diaz et al.
preprint
Praying to a God perceived as immanent (inside oneself) versus transcendent (outside oneself) activates different brain regions. In a comparison of brain scans, Christians praying to a transcendent God showed thalamus activation, whereas practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation praying to an immanent God showed thalamus deactivation. The thalamus relays sensory information, so its deactivation during immanent prayer likely reflects reduced attention to external stimuli to focus inward, while its activation during transcendent prayer may support a perceived dialogue with an external divine presence.