Preprints.org
June 22, 2026
Andrzej Günther, Barbara Bednarczyk-Cwynar
preprint
The ratio of ibotenic acid to muscimol in Amanita muscaria mushrooms may be a dynamic marker influenced by environmental and post-harvest conditions, rather than a fixed species trait. Ibotenic acid has excitatory glutamatergic effects, while muscimol is a potent GABAergic compound, and ibotenic acid can convert to muscimol through decarboxylation. Abiotic stressors like temperature, drought, and soil chemistry, along with biotic factors such as microbial interactions and host-tree physiology, may affect the biosynthesis and transformation of these compounds. Post-harvest processes like drying, heating, and storage can further alter their ratio, potentially shifting neurotoxicological outcomes between excitatory and inhibitory effects. Direct controlled studies linking specific stressors to ibotenic acid biosynthesis remain limited.
Preprints.org
June 17, 2026
Daniel Holguin
preprint
Four clinical approaches—psychedelic-assisted therapy, accelerated transcranial magnetic stimulation, closed-loop deep brain stimulation, and reconsolidation-based trauma therapy—each produce lasting change from brief, often single-session interventions in conditions that standard care has not resolved. The convergence is not procedural: each modality transiently induces a high-plasticity brain state, a window rooted in critical-period biology, memory reconsolidation, and the critical-brain literature. The experience delivered into that state, not the intervention that opens it, produces the durable change; stimulus and experience are co-equal active ingredients. Treatments that open the window without controlling what enters it, or deliver the right experience outside it, fail due to timing and context. Naming the window as a measurable variable turns these scattered results into a unified framework with testable predictions for trial design and clinical practice.
Preprints.org
June 10, 2026
Marcelo Kuna
preprint
The essay argues that the Afro-Brazilian spirit Pombagira—a female enchantress associated with healing and sex, often cast as evil in patriarchal narratives—functions as a decolonial emblem that queers rigid binary categories of womanhood. Drawing on occulture and decolonial theory, the author shows how this figure appears in opera, musical theatre, and film, including Verdi's La forza del destino, Bizet's Carmen, and cinematic Lola characters. The analysis connects Gloria Anzaldúa's queer feminist spiritual mestizaje to Pombagira as an anti-patriarchal force, challenging Western gendered impositions and the epistemicide of Afro-Brazilian traditions.
Preprints.org
June 9, 2026
Karthik Murugadoss, A.J. Venkatakrishnan, Venky Soundararajan
preprint
In routine care, many patients taking semaglutide or tirzepatide do not reach recommended maintenance doses. Using electronic health records from 29 million patients, researchers identified 814 individuals who sustained very low doses of semaglutide (0.25 mg) or tirzepatide (2.5 mg) for at least six months. Over 24 months, low-dose tirzepatide showed a worse adverse event profile than low-dose semaglutide, including higher rates of constipation (32.6% vs 22.4%), acute kidney injury (2.7% vs 0.4%), and muscle cramps (8.3% vs 4%). Low-dose tirzepatide also led to greater weight loss. Low-dose semaglutide was associated with broad cardiometabolic benefits despite minimal weight change, and better tolerability than low-dose tirzepatide.
Preprints.org
April 29, 2026
Stefano Marini, Domenico de Berardis
preprint
Psychedelic drugs, both natural and synthetic, act on serotonin receptors and may enhance cognition, brain connectivity, neuroplasticity, and neuronal regeneration. Autism spectrum disorder involves social communication difficulties and repetitive behaviors, with no approved drugs for core symptoms. Current treatments for co-occurring conditions often have uncertain efficacy and tolerability. This review reports studies indicating that psychedelics could be therapeutically useful for some autism-related symptoms, suggesting a potential role in treatment.
Preprints.org
April 27, 2026
Luis Miguel Gallardo
preprint
Ancient contemplative traditions provide methods for cultivating stable states of consciousness that support sustainable well-being. This integrative review synthesizes empirical and theoretical literature on Patañjali's Sanyam—the integrated practice of Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditative absorption), and Samadhi (non-dual awareness)—and its Zen parallel, Joriki (concentration power), with contemporary research on consciousness neuroscience, hypnosis, transpersonal psychology, and happiness science.
Preprints.org
April 20, 2026
Octavian Victor Brinzei
preprint
Medical regulation of psilocybin-assisted therapy has expanded internationally in the past year, with new or clarified regulatory pathways in New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and at the U.S. federal level. Within the United States, Utah and New Mexico have joined Oregon and Colorado in establishing lawful medical access pathways. These developments build on earlier reforms in Alberta, Canada, and Australia, where structured psychiatric prescribing frameworks were implemented. This update consolidates recent statutory amendments and regulatory decisions to provide a current comparative overview of jurisdictions permitting lawful medical use of psilocybin, distinguishing comprehensive medical regulation from restricted or exceptional access schemes.
Preprints.org
April 15, 2026
Marta Jóźwiak-Bębenista, Anna Stasiak, Monika Sienkiewicz et al.
preprint
This review examines the potential therapeutic use of psilocybin in older adults for inflammation-driven disorders of aging, including depression and neurodegeneration. It discusses how psilocybin may modulate inflammatory pathways and promote neuroplasticity, offering benefits for age-related conditions where inflammation plays a key role. The authors suggest that psilocybin-assisted therapy could address both mood disorders and cognitive decline in this population, though they note the need for further research to establish safety and efficacy in older adults.
Preprints.org
April 10, 2026
Harald Bentz Høgseth
preprint
Memory is not stored solely in human minds but is distributed across people, materials, tools, and environments, particularly in historic wooden neighborhoods. Drawing on the WoodiSH project, the article proposes expanding the concept of terroir—originally from viticulture—to describe how landscape, materials, craft traditions, and human practices shape the character and memory of place. Combining material culture studies, phenomenology, and 4E cognition with Tim Ingold's meshwork and wayfaring, the authors argue that knowledge about built heritage emerges through movement and practical interaction with material environments. Historic wooden neighborhoods in Trondheim, Vilnius, and Pori are living archives where traces of use, repair, and everyday life accumulate. Heritage environments should be understood as pedagogical and cognitive landscapes, not merely objects of preservation.
Preprints.org
April 7, 2026
Luis Miguel Gallardo
preprint
Altered states of consciousness (ASC) are a universal human capacity for accessing and transforming the subconscious mind, employed through diverse contemplative, somatic, pharmacological, ritual, and technological modalities. This review synthesizes evidence from over 25 disciplines, finding converging neurobiological mechanisms including default mode network suppression, autonomic regulation, and neuroplasticity. Clinical evidence is strongest for MDMA-assisted therapy in PTSD (67% response rate in Phase 3 RCTs), psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression (60-70% response), EMDR for trauma, mindfulness for depression relapse and anxiety, and neurofeedback for ADHD and anxiety. Transpersonal modalities like Life Between Lives hypnotherapy show preliminary evidence for existential distress but lack rigorous controlled trials. The review proposes an integrative framework positioning ASC as a spectrum from subconscious to superconscious, with diverse modalities as complementary vehicles for consciousness transformation.
Preprints.org
March 31, 2026
Luis Escobar L.-Dellamary
preprint
The paper argues that Integrated Information Theory (IIT 4.0) errs by treating the quantity Φ (integrated information) as a single number, which leads to the exclusion postulate—the claim that only one spatiotemporal grain of maximum Φ is conscious, making all other grains non-existent. This creates the combination problem, the grain problem, and an untenable view of physical reality. The author proposes reinterpreting Φ as grain diversity over dissociative awareness: the number of nested levels of self-resolution a system sustains simultaneously. The topological condition for this diversity is a transition from open, feed-forward architectures (genus-0) to closed, recurrent architectures (genus-≥1, tori).
Preprints.org
March 17, 2026
Yuki Ueda
preprint
Oxytocin, a hormone involved in social bonding, may help create the brain conditions for non-dual awareness—a state of consciousness without intentional content. The review proposes that oxytocin down-regulates the amygdala and modulates the Default Mode Network, reducing self-referential processing and supporting ego-dissolution. This neuro-chemical substrate could explain how contemplative traditions achieve pure consciousness. The authors discuss ethical concerns about using neuro-pharmacology to influence meditative states and suggest future clinical applications for psychiatric disorders involving rigid self-narratives.
Preprints.org
March 16, 2026
Gerd Leidig
preprint
Arthur Schopenhauer's metaphysics of the will, when stripped of its ontological commitments, offers rich descriptions of embodied agency and selfhood that align with contemporary cognitive science. This paper reconstructs Schopenhauer's ideas in four stages: interpreting his unity of body and will through the Free Energy Principle; situating his fragmented self within Gallagher's Pattern Theory of Self; framing his ethics of compassion as a precursor to a Pattern Theory of Compassion; and explaining his pessimism as predictive dysregulation. The approach uses cognitive models as a functional grammar for phenomenal experience without reducing its metaphysical depth.
Preprints.org
March 5, 2026
Kyrylo Somkin
preprint
Human consciousness can be understood as two functional brain states: the personal mode, which is motivationally and socially embedded, oriented toward adaptation, identity maintenance, and ego-relevant concerns, and the meta-reflective mode, where cognition turns upon itself, enabling abstraction, self-objectification, and existential evaluation. The model does not posit metaphysical dualism or strictly separable neural systems; both modes may recruit overlapping brain regions, differing in dominant functional orientation and hierarchical organization. Tensions between these modes may account for identity-based crises (emerging within the personal mode) and existential crises (from intensified meta-reflective activation). The development of civilization reflects the structural coexistence of adaptive engagement and reflective distancing. Empirical validation remains limited.
Preprints.org
March 4, 2026
Oscar Arias-Carrión, Emmanuel Ortega‐Robles, Manjarrez Elias
preprint
Consciousness presents a structural puzzle: a unified, context-sensitive, globally integrated mode of experience emerging from distributed neural dynamics. This review examines whether quantum principles offer explanatory leverage as formal mathematical frameworks for modeling contextual cognition and as mechanistic hypotheses proposing biologically instantiated non-classical states. It surveys empirical and theoretical developments spanning zero-quantum-coherence in MRI signals, entanglement-structured learning paradigms, quantum-inspired computational models, and proposed neural substrates including microtubules, nuclear spins, and photonic architectures. Although certain findings have been interpreted as consistent with a non-classical structure, no study to date has demonstrated entanglement, long-lived coherence, or collapse dynamics in neural tissue under operational criteria comparable to those used in controlled quantum systems. The decisive question is whether brain dynamics exceed the explanatory reach of rigorously defined classical models.
Preprints.org
February 27, 2026
Luis Miguel Gallardo
preprint
Transpersonal psychology, psychotherapy, and hypnotherapy have developed from their 1960s origins into a 'fourth force' that integrates spiritual and consciousness dimensions into psychological practice. Based on 283 scholarly sources, the field evolved from studying altered states to addressing human transcendence and wholeness across cultures. Key contributions include experiential therapies, consciousness research methods, and models bridging Eastern and Western traditions. Opportunities exist in neuroscience, cross-cultural work, and evidence-based practice, while challenges remain in empirical validation, theoretical coherence, and mainstream acceptance.
Preprints.org
February 26, 2026
Gerd Leidig
preprint
Awakening is redefined not as a final, irreversible state described in Asian traditions but as an ongoing recognition of reality's structure—a moment when consciousness becomes aware of itself, entering meta-awareness. Within a framework called processual perspectivism, a 'Witnessing-Space' is the central, metastable configuration of an enactive inference system. Awakening involves a radical reorganization of this space: moving from fragmented, emotionally dysregulated patterns to an integrated perspective where the system sees its own generative architecture. This Witnessing-Space connects process-ontological philosophy, brain dynamics, and existential spiritual self-realization. The study of awakening may offer a key to resolving the mind-body problem by revealing how phenomenal appearance is generated.
Preprints.org
February 9, 2026
Philippe Henry
preprint
A novel treatment approach for treatment-resistant depression and chronic anxiety combines the rapid neuroplastic effects of the psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT with the anxiolytic properties of the cannabinoid THCV, delivered via a precision vaporization device. The THCV acts as a 'cushion' to prevent the panic and acute activity increase often triggered by high-potency psychedelics, while allowing the tryptamine to promote synaptic growth and reset the Default Mode Network. This synergistic combination aims to provide more effective and tolerable relief than existing antidepressants, which require weeks to work and do not address synaptic atrophy.
Preprints.org
January 30, 2026
Luis Miguel Gallardo, Saamdu Chetri
preprint
Hypnosis, traditionally seen as a clinical technique for symptom reduction, may more fundamentally function as a mechanism of emotion regulation and self-integration. This integrative review proposes that hypnotic states reorganize emotional experience and self-referential processing by modulating large-scale brain networks—the default mode network, executive control network, and salience network. The authors introduce a formal model in which hypnotic induction enhances experiential plasticity through coordinated network reconfiguration, enabling adaptive emotion regulation and reduced dissociative fragmentation. Central to this framework is the construct of Fundamental Peace, a dynamic neuro-experiential state involving flexible attentional control, emotional coherence across self-states, reduced self-referential rigidity, and compassionate self-awareness, distinct from equanimity or well-being. The framework is evaluated against alternative theories, and testable predictions are specified.
Preprints.org
January 15, 2026
A. Guffanti, Matteo Leonardi, Natascia Brondino et al.
preprint
Intranasal Esketamine, when added to standard antidepressants, reduced depressive symptoms in three young adults with both treatment-resistant depression and autism spectrum disorder. Two patients achieved full remission and one showed partial remission over six months, with no major side effects. Suicidal thoughts decreased, but abilities related to understanding others' mental states improved only slightly. Quality of life scores rose substantially for all three patients. The authors note the small sample prevents statistical conclusions and call for larger, randomized studies.
Preprints.org
January 13, 2026
Gerd Leidig
preprint
Spirituality can be understood as the brain's highest-order regulatory pattern, operating on the slowest intrinsic neural timescales to integrate sensory and emotional information over long periods. This 'spiritual self-pattern' functions as a long-term prior that modulates the balance between predictive confidence and corrective sensitivity, maintaining mental health. Meaning arises from successfully integrating sensory chaos into these temporal models, preserving consciousness against existential entropy. Spiritual resonance involves metastable synchronization, while spiritual dissonance results from pathological precision leading to fanaticism or despair. The model provides a mechanism for spiritually integrated psychotherapy, where the therapist manages criticality to restore self-organization.
Preprints.org
January 12, 2026
Moninder Singh Modgil, Dnyandeo Dattatray Patil
preprint
Consciousness in its unconditioned state can be mathematically described as a limit condition of cognitive curvature, analogous to a zero-curvature manifold in differential geometry, where perception is no longer mediated by temporal differentiation. This zero-curvature condition finds empirical support in neuroscientific studies of the Default Mode Network, where meditative absorption produces near-zero entropy. The framework integrates contemplative insights with neurogeometric and physical models, drawing parallels between meditative silence and harmonic equilibrium in sound. The paper extends this analysis to symbolic expressions in 20th-century rock music, interpreting Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" as an acoustic meditation on presence, and Pink Floyd's "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse" as reflections of cognitive noise collapsing into inner quietude.
Preprints.org
January 5, 2026
Deyan Shopin
preprint
Emotional body mapping, which links bodily sensations to feelings, has been organized into a framework of physiological, motor, and conceptual signals. Current models lack a formal way to use functional lateralization—differences between the brain's left and right hemispheres—as a predictor of a person's cognitive stance. This paper integrates the Subjectica model, which distinguishes a Personally-Oriented Left Side (PO-LS) from a Socially-Oriented Right Side (SO-RS) of the body, to interpret asymmetric neurobehavioral signals. The concept of Sensory Circulation (SC) describes a continuous flow of sensory signals that determines somatic awareness. This approach treats body maps not as static reports of emotion but as dynamic indicators of cognitive orientation, linking hemispheric specialization to observable body kinematics and providing a neurophenomenological foundation for cognitive science.
Preprints.org
December 19, 2025
Elena Koning, Susan Gamberg, Aaron Keshen
preprint
Eating disorders remain difficult to treat, with high dropout and low remission rates in cognitive-behavioral therapy. Psilocybin treatment may enhance this therapy by producing neurobiological, psychological, and experiential effects such as antidepressant action, increased neuroplasticity, and emotional openness, which are hypothesized to improve engagement, reduce dropout, and boost clinical outcomes. This article consolidates existing theoretical evidence for combining psilocybin with cognitive-behavioral therapy for eating disorders, proposes considerations for a concurrent intervention protocol, and presents clinical and research considerations for testing its feasibility, safety, and efficacy. This line of inquiry aims to advance approaches that improve eating disorder treatment outcomes and the study of psychedelics as tools to enhance evidence-based psychotherapy.
Preprints.org
December 5, 2025
Salar Yousefzadeh
preprint
Consciousness is argued to be identical to whatever neural or mnemonic representation is momentarily the most accessible, given the brain's history and current context. Drawing on Tulving's availability-accessibility distinction and evidence from working memory, attentional blink, priming, and neuromodulation, the authors propose that the stream of consciousness is a deterministic sequence of state transitions governed by relative accessibility. This stream is not a by-product but a continuation of the same dynamic operating across evolutionary, developmental, and cultural timescales, now unfolding at psychological speed. The account reframes the hard problem of consciousness as a tractable question about accessibility mechanisms and generates testable predictions about priming, mind-wandering, and clinical disruptions.