NeuroImage
September 1, 2017
Remko Van Lutterveld, Edwin Van Dellen, Prasanta Pal et al.
85 citations
During meditation, experienced meditators show more integrated brain networks in the alpha frequency band (8-13 Hz) than novice meditators. EEG measures of network integration—maximum betweenness centrality and leaf fraction—were higher in experienced meditators, while diameter and average eccentricity were lower, indicating more efficient network topology. No differences were found in theta or beta bands. The findings suggest that long-term meditation practice is associated with greater functional integration of alpha-band brain networks.
NeuroImage
April 4, 2019
Ottavia Dipasquale, Pierluigi Selvaggi, Mattia Veronese et al.
79 citations
A double-blind, placebo-controlled study combined resting-state fMRI with a molecular atlas of serotonin receptors to examine how MDMA alters functional connectivity. Using the REACT method, the researchers found that MDMA-induced connectivity changes were specifically linked to brain regions rich in the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) and the 5-HT1A receptor, the drug's primary targets. Changes in 5-HT1A-enriched maps correlated with MDMA blood levels, while changes in 5-HT2A-enriched maps correlated with spiritual experiences reported by participants. The approach shows that MDMA's effects on brain connectivity can be explained by the distribution of its serotonergic targets, offering a new way to characterize psychoactive compounds.
NeuroImage
May 1, 2020
Matthew I Banks, Bryan M Krause, Christopher M Endemann et al.
78 citations
Disruption of cortical connectivity likely contributes to loss of consciousness during sleep and general anesthesia, but the degree of overlap in mechanisms is unclear. Using intracranial recordings from five adult neurosurgical patients, alpha-band connectivity (measured by weighted phase lag index) was compared across natural sleep stages and propofol anesthesia. In wake states, alpha-band connectivity within the temporal lobe was dominant, a pattern largely unchanged in light sleep (N1, REM) and sedated states. Transitions into states of reduced consciousness (deep sleep N2/N3 and anesthesia-induced unresponsiveness) showed dramatic shifts, with dominant connections moving to prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest common mechanisms of loss of consciousness in sleep and anesthesia.
NeuroImage
May 1, 2021
Pengmin Qin, Xuehai Wu, Changwei Wu et al.
51 citations
Consciousness depends on a network of brain regions that integrate sensory and motor information. Analyzing fMRI data from people in preserved (awake, fully conscious brain-injury survivors), reduced (N1-sleep, minimally conscious), and lost (N3-sleep, anesthesia, unresponsive wakefulness) states, plus a unique rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep group, researchers identified key hubs whose degree centrality—a measure of network importance—dropped significantly when consciousness was reduced or absent. These hubs included the supplementary motor area, bilateral supramarginal gyrus, supragenual/dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and left middle temporal gyrus. A higher-order sensorimotor circuit connecting these regions showed functional connectivity that correlated with consciousness levels across groups and remained active in REM sleep, suggesting this circuit supports consciousness and offers new targets for treating disorders of consciousness.
NeuroImage
June 1, 2023
Rui Dai, Tony E Larkin, Zirui Huang et al.
49 citations
Three different psychedelics—nitrous oxide, ketamine, and lysergic acid diethylamide—produce a common pattern of brain network changes despite having distinct molecular mechanisms and delivery methods. Each drug reduced connectivity within brain networks and enhanced connectivity between networks. Specifically, all three increased connections between the right temporoparietal junction and bilateral intraparietal sulcus, and between the precuneus and left intraparietal sulcus. These regions lie within the posterior cortical "hot zone," an area thought to mediate the qualitative aspects of experience. The findings identify a biologically plausible candidate for the subjective effects of both classical and non-classical psychedelics.
NeuroImage
October 27, 2022
Anders Lykkebo-Valløe, Brice Ozenne, Sophia Armand et al.
44 citations
Psilocybin's acute perceptual psychedelic effects may arise from drug-level decreases in the occurrence and duration of lateral and medial frontoparietal connectivity motifs. The authors apply and argue for a modified approach to modeling eigenvectors from LEiDA that more fully acknowledges their underlying structure. These findings contribute to a more comprehensive neurobiological framework underlying acute effects of serotonergic psychedelics.
NeuroImage
October 15, 2022
Andrew Gaddis, Daniel E Lidstone, Mary Beth Nebel et al.
38 citations
Psilocybin alters the functional organization of distinct thalamic subregions and their connections to cortical networks, particularly the mediodorsal and pulvinar nuclei. Using a novel ICA-based approach in 18 healthy meditators, psilocybin-induced changes in intrathalamic spatial organization correlated with subjective drug effects. Thalamocortical connectivity predominantly decreased with visual and default mode networks. In contrast, treating the thalamus as a single unit showed a non-significant numerical increase in connectivity, suggesting that whole-thalamus analyses may mask focal decreases in specific nuclei that express serotonin 2A receptors.
NeuroImage
July 1, 2015
Manish Saggar, Anthony P Zanesco, Brandon G King et al.
31 citations
Intensive meditation training alters brain dynamics by increasing the delay between cortical and thalamic cells and reducing inhibitory connections within the thalamus. These changes, identified through computational modeling of EEG data from two 3-month meditation retreats, provide a neural mechanism for the previously observed slowing of individual alpha frequency. The reduced thalamic inhibition enhances dynamical stability in the model. This is the first computational approach incorporating anatomical and physiological constraints to formally model brain processes underlying intensive meditation, offering testable hypotheses for attention training and potential clinical applications.
NeuroImage
December 1, 2023
Stefano Delli Pizzi, Piero Chiacchiaretta, Carlo Sestieri et al.
27 citations
LSD selectively alters the functional connectivity between specific thalamic nuclei and sensory and associative cortical areas. Using structural and resting-state functional MRI in healthy volunteers under acute LSD administration, researchers found increased coupling of the ventral complex, pulvinar, and non-specific thalamic nuclei with somatosensory and auditory cortices, as well as with associative cortex regions rich in serotonin 2A receptors. At subcortical levels, LSD increased connectivity among these thalamic nuclei but decreased striatal-thalamic connectivity. These nucleus-specific changes help explain LSD's modulation of subcortical-cortical circuits and associated behavioral effects.
NeuroImage
November 1, 2022
Hardik Rajpal, Pedro A M Mediano, Fernando E Rosas et al.
23 citations
Schizophrenia and drug-induced states from LSD and ketamine both increase neural signal diversity, but they differ in brain connectivity: schizophrenia shows increased information flow from front to back of the brain, while the drugs reduce it. These differences can be modeled by altering Bayesian inference in a predictive processing framework: drug effects correspond to reduced precision of prior beliefs, whereas schizophrenia involves increased precision of sensory information. The findings clarify similarities and differences between these altered states, with implications for understanding consciousness and developing mental health treatments.
NeuroImage
August 15, 2024
Bianca Ventura, Yasir Çatal, Angelika Wolman et al.
22 citations
Meditation practices with a wider attentional focus, such as Shoonya meditation, are associated with longer intrinsic neural timescales (INTs) in the brain, measured as the autocorrelation window (ACW) of EEG signals, compared to practices with a narrower focus like Mantra or Vipassana meditation. The study compared three groups of highly proficient practitioners from different traditions and a meditation-naïve control group. The results indicate a correspondence between the width of attentional scope and the duration of neural temporal windows, suggesting that subjective attentional width relates to objective neural activity patterns.
NeuroImage
June 1, 2024
Pradeep Kumar G, Rajanikant Panda, Kanishka Sharma et al.
20 citations
High-order interactions between brain regions, measured as synergistic and redundant information, change differently across three non-ordinary states of consciousness. During Rajyoga meditation, synergy increased across the whole brain in delta and theta brainwave bands, while redundancy decreased in frontal, central, and posterior electrodes in delta and beta bands. During hypnosis, synergy decreased in mid-frontal, temporal, and mid-centro-parietal electrodes in the delta band, and in left frontal and right parietal electrodes in the beta2 band. During auto-induced cognitive trance, synergy decreased in delta and theta bands in left-frontal, right-frontocentral, and posterior electrodes, and at the whole brain level in the alpha band. Redundancy changes during hypnosis and auto-induced cognitive trance were not significant. Subjective reports of absorption, dissociation, and mystical experience did not correlate with the high-order measures.
NeuroImage
January 1, 2024
Pablo Mallaroni, Natasha L Mason, Lilian Kloft et al.
17 citations
Brain functional connectomes are unique fingerprints that persist across mental states, but their stability under altered states is unknown. After collective ayahuasca intake in 21 Santo Daime members, 7T fMRI showed reduced idiosyncrasy in static and dynamic functional connectivity, with a spatiotemporal reallocation of keypoint edges. Interindividual differences in higher-order connectivity motifs predicted perceptual drug effects, demonstrating that individualized connectivity markers can trace a subject's functional connectome across altered states of consciousness.
NeuroImage
January 1, 2025
Winson F Z Yang, Avijit Chowdhury, Terje Sparby et al.
12 citations
The stages of insight (SoI) are a series of psychological realizations experienced during advanced investigative insight meditation (AIIM). In a case study of one adept meditator who underwent 4 hours of 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) across 26 runs with concurrent phenomenological reports, distinct whole-brain activity patterns were identified for specific SoI, differing from non-meditative control states. SoI consistently deactivated brain regions involved in self-related processing, such as the medial prefrontal cortex and temporal poles, while activating areas linked to awareness and perception, including parietal and visual cortices, caudate, brainstem nuclei, and cerebellum. Patterns of brain activity related to affective processing and SoI phenomenology were also observed. This provides the first neurophenomenological evidence that SoI shifts and deconstructs self-related perception and conceptualization, increasing general awareness and perceptual sensitivity.
NeuroImage
September 1, 2024
Charlotte Martial, Andrea Piarulli, Olivia Gosseries et al.
10 citations
During fainting, some people have dream-like experiences with extraordinary, mystical features similar to near-death experiences. In 22 healthy volunteers who fainted under controlled conditions, eight reported such near-death-like features. Their brain activity showed higher electrical activity in delta, theta, and beta2 frequency bands in temporal and frontal regions, including the insula, right temporoparietal junction, and cingulate cortex. The richer the experience, the stronger the activity in these areas. The brains of those with near-death-like experiences also showed more complex, more connected, and more integrated neural networks compared to those without such experiences. These surges of neural activity may mark disconnected consciousness during fainting.
NeuroImage
August 15, 2024
Marta Lapo Pais, Marta Teixeira, Carla Soares et al.
8 citations
Inhaled DMT, a psychedelic acting on 5-HT2A serotonin receptors, increases the size of neural population receptive fields (pRFs) in the peripheral visual field of the primary visual cortex (V1). This change, measured with MRI and pRF mapping in a within-subject design, occurred during visual effects documented by the Hallucinogen Rating Scale and was not explained by differences in eye or head movements. The enlarged pRFs may underlie perceptual distortions such as field blurring, tunnel vision, and enlargement of nearby visual space. The findings suggest that 5-HT2A receptor activation controls gain in visual cortex, linking neural population responses to psychedelic visual phenomena.
NeuroImage
July 1, 2025
Hang Yang, Bruno Herbelin, Chuong Ngo et al.
6 citations
Experienced meditators often report feeling detached from their body and current concerns. This study used virtual reality to manipulate perspective during meditation in 23 participants, comparing a third-person perspective (3PP) with a first-person perspective (1PP). The 3PP condition produced stronger feelings of detachment and disconnection, reduced awareness of body boundaries, and less identification with the body. Neural recordings showed a more negative heartbeat-evoked potential in the 3PP condition, linked to activity in the posterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex. These results connect changes in the sense of self during meditation to brain processes underlying bodily self-awareness, suggesting VR could help cultivate self-transcendent experiences.
NeuroImage
May 15, 2025
Aya Khalaf, Erick Lopez, Jian Li et al.
6 citations
Subcortical arousal systems help control sustained changes in attention and conscious awareness, and recent studies suggest they also influence short-term dynamic modulation of visual attention, but their role across sensory modalities is unclear. Analyzing fMRI data from 1561 participants performing visual, auditory, tactile, and taste perception tasks, a shared circuit of subcortical arousal systems was identified. This circuit shows early transient increases in activity in the midbrain reticular formation and central thalamus across all sensory modalities, with less consistent increases in the pons, hypothalamus, basal forebrain, and basal ganglia. Identifying these networks is critical for understanding normal attention and consciousness and may aid subcortical targeting for therapeutic neuromodulation.
NeuroImage
April 15, 2025
Dmitri Filimonov, Saana Lenkkeri, Mika Koivisto et al.
6 citations
The neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) for auditory awareness include auditory awareness negativity (AAN) and late positivity (LP), but it is unclear which is the true NCC. By inducing simple auditory hallucinations through a Pavlovian conditioning paradigm, where participants rated near-threshold tones and stimulus-absent trials, AAN appeared as an early event-related potential difference between aware and unaware stimuli, suggesting it is a genuine NCC for auditory consciousness. Late positivity was absent in these hallucinations, indicating it may not be essential for auditory awareness.
NeuroImage
June 1, 2025
Dila Suay, Helena D Aicher, Micheal Kometer et al.
4 citations
A psychedelic formulation combining DMT and harmine, inspired by ayahuasca, altered brain responses to faces in 30 healthy men. It increased early visual reactivity (P1 wave) and disrupted face-structural encoding (N170 wave) for all face types. Crucially, it reduced the neural distinction between self and other faces in the P300 wave, while familiar-face processing remained stable. Harmine alone did not produce these effects. The findings suggest psychedelics can reorganize self-related neural dynamics, potentially promoting cognitive flexibility and offering therapeutic benefits for conditions involving rigid self-focus, such as depression and social anxiety.
NeuroImage
July 1, 2025
Daniel Suchý, Roozbeh Behroozmand, Henry Railo
3 citations
Vocal responses to unexpected changes in auditory feedback occur even when speakers are unaware of the change. In 30 participants, individually calibrated pitch shifts were applied during vocalization, and after each trial participants reported whether they consciously detected the shift. Compensatory vocal adjustments were present on trials where the shift went unnoticed. Conscious detection of the shift led to larger vocal responses roughly 500-700 milliseconds later and was associated with early (auditory awareness negativity) and late (late positivity) brain signals. Source localization linked conscious detection to increased activity in temporal, frontal, and parietal cortical networks involved in speech motor control. The findings suggest that consciousness modulates the magnitude and neural correlates of speech feedback control.
NeuroImage
November 19, 2025
Sebastian Ehmann, Idil Sezer, Arielle S Keller et al.
2 citations
Attention regulation is a core mechanism of mindfulness meditation. Long-term meditation enhances trait-level improvements in executive attention, sustained attention, orienting, and reduces the attentional blink. Preliminary evidence also shows improvements in response inhibition, alertness, and less mind-wandering. Alertness benefits most from long-term and intensive practice. Attention-based techniques outperform non-attention-based ones, while observe-and-release techniques aid orienting and detection of closely spaced stimuli. These findings suggest that meditation enhances attention according to training specificity, but meditative development is non-linear and multidimensional, requiring balanced cultivation of multiple faculties. Methodological limitations, such as heterogeneous designs and insufficient state-trait differentiation, complicate interpretations.
NeuroImage
July 18, 2025
Xin Wen, Yu Chang, Sijie Li et al.
1 citation
A new measure called Φcopula, which uses a Gaussian copula approach to estimate integrated information, outperforms common estimators by maintaining the lowest bias and mean squared error even in non-Gaussian high-dimensional systems. Applied to electroencephalographic data across awake, propofol-induced unresponsive, and NREM sleep states, alpha-band Φcopula significantly decreased during both anesthesia and sleep. Φcopula-based classifiers distinguished arousal states more accurately than functional connectivity and network efficiency measures. The dorsal attention network and default mode network contributed most to Φcopula, with the cingulate and posterior cortices showing the greatest contributions. The posterior cortex, especially the posterior cingulate cortex, appears critical for arousal-related information integration and consciousness.
NeuroImage
January 1, 2025
Jisub Bae, Koeun Jung, Oliver James et al.
1 citation
Perceptual integration of an illusory triangle from pacman-shaped inducers depends on how consciously the inducers are perceived. Using electroencephalography and multivariate pattern analysis, the authors found that posterior and central brain areas initially used a dynamic neural code and later switched to a stable one. The transition to stable coding occurred later and eventually disappeared as conscious access decreased. Anterior areas primarily used stable neural coding, which weakened with decreasing conscious access but increased at below-median visibility and persisted even when stimulus awareness was minimal. These results show distinct spatiotemporal neural dynamics for perceptual integration based on conscious access, with anterior areas uniquely processing integrated shape information especially under low subjective visibility.
NeuroImage
June 10, 2026
Fran Hancock, Rachael Kee, Fernando Rosas et al.
Flow—a state of effortless immersion often experienced during video games—shows a moderate inverse relationship with global brain entropy, meaning the brain is less disordered during flow than during boredom or frustration. Synchronization and metastability do not explain flow. Boredom and frustration each display distinct patterns of brain dynamics. These findings integrate earlier observations about prefrontal activity and network synchrony into a single dynamical-systems framework, identifying complexity-based markers that could help map the neural basis of media-related benefits.