Aesthetic chills—pleasurable bodily sensations paired with self-transcendent emotions—are linked to greater psychological insight and emotional awareness. In 94 participants exposed to music designed to induce chills, those who experienced chills reported significantly higher insight and emotional awareness than those who did not. The intensity of chills correlated positively with these cognitive-emotional measures. The findings suggest that bodily signals may trigger shifts in cognitive and emotional processing, pointing to the potential role of interoception in such experiences.
A 7-day retreat combining meditation, reconceptualization, and open-label placebo healing rituals produced broad short-term neural and molecular changes in 20 healthy participants. Meditation reduced functional integration in the default mode and salience networks and decreased whole-brain modularity. Post-intervention plasma increased neurite outgrowth, enhanced glycolytic metabolism, and induced upregulation of BDNF, inflammatory, anti-inflammatory, and endogenous opioid pathways, while modulating tryptophan metabolism and neurotransmission-associated exosome miRNA transcripts. These changes suggest enhanced neuroplasticity, metabolic reprogramming, and modulation of functional cell signaling pathways, highlighting the potential of mind-body techniques to affect neural circuits and pathways important to health and well-being.