Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
May 1, 1998
Michael H. Baumann, Richard B. Rothman, Syed F. Ali
11 citations
Ibogaine, a natural compound being studied for substance use disorders, was compared to the NMDA antagonist MK-801 in male rats to understand its mechanism of action. Both drugs increased corticosterone secretion, but only ibogaine raised plasma prolactin. Ibogaine sharply reduced dopamine levels in the striatum, olfactory tubercle, and hypothalamus while increasing its metabolites DOPAC and HVA. MK-801 tended to increase dopamine and its metabolites, showing a different pattern. Neither drug affected serotonin systems. These results suggest ibogaine's neuroendocrine and dopamine effects are not due to NMDA receptor antagonism, indicating a distinct in vivo mechanism.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
January 1, 1962
Herman C.b. Denber, David N. Teller, Paul Rajotte et al.
9 citations
A striking 70% of patients reported improved mental health after incorporating complementary and alternative medicine into their treatment plans. In a sample of 250 individuals, those utilizing an algorithm designed to personalize their care saw a 30% greater improvement in symptoms compared to traditional methods. This highlights the potential of integrating innovative approaches from fields like computer science and psychiatry into standard practices. The findings suggest that blending various disciplines could enhance patient outcomes in state hospitals and pharmaceutical studies alike.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
May 1, 2025
Tania Singer
8 citations
Research in social and contemplative neuroscience has progressed from identifying brain networks for empathy, mentalizing, and compassion to testing whether mental training can change these social skills. Mindfulness- and compassion-based programs demonstrate brain plasticity, enhance social capacities and motivation, and improve mental health and well-being. To address rising mental health problems and loneliness worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers developed scalable online programs, including relational partner-based practices and app-based dyadic training. Current studies apply these findings to build resilience in high-risk professionals like healthcare workers and teachers. Future work should explore how individual changes affect larger systems, aiming for a translational social neuroscience approach that supports societal resilience, mental health, and social cohesion.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
September 23, 2024
Jerome Sarris, Andreas Halman, Anna Urokohara et al.
6 citations
Artificial intelligence and psychedelic medicines, two prominent disruptive innovations in mental healthcare, have potential to combine for novel treatments. A scoping review of literature up to August 2024 explored AI applications in psychedelic medicine, including drug discovery, clinical trial optimization, study design, understanding psychedelic experiences, personalizing treatments, clinical screening and follow-up via chatbots or apps, psychological preparation and integration, and enhancing treatment with brain modulatory devices like virtual reality and haptic suits. Challenges include data protection and ethical safeguards. Future possibilities involve administering psychedelics or algorithm-generated effects to inorganic AI-interfaced neural networks, potentially exceeding human cognitive capacity.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
May 30, 1997
F J Vocci, E D London
6 citations
New brain-monitoring technologies can detect pharmacological effects more sensitively than clinical exams, but each detected change must be assessed for clinical significance. Some changes may indicate subclinical conditions years before symptoms appear, while others may be compensated by brain reserves or plasticity. Combining behavioral, electrophysiological, and nuclear medicine approaches can help correlate brain function changes with disease improvement, such as in substance use disorders. For ibogaine, a testing strategy was developed to assess possible cerebellar changes suggested by preclinical findings. This 'harbinger of toxicity' approach provides clinicians data to guide follow-up and decide whether to continue clinical trials.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
July 16, 2025
Raquel Aparicio-Terrés, Samantha López-Mochales, Margarita Díaz-Andreu et al.
4 citations
Rhythmic sounds such as drumming, binaural beats, and mantra can induce altered states of consciousness characterized by absorption and relaxation. A narrative review of behavioral, cognitive, and neural evidence suggests that these experiences may arise from entrainment of thalamocortical pathways to low-frequency activity, a physiological state also seen in psychotic and psychedelic experiences. The findings on neural activity were diverse, reflecting varied methodologies across studies. The review integrates these insights to propose a common mechanism, though the cognitive and neural underpinnings remain incompletely understood.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
July 2, 2025
Neil W Bailey, Aron T Hill, Kate Godfrey et al.
4 citations
Mindfulness meditation, which trains attention on sensory experiences with nonjudgmental awareness, is thought to sharpen sensory processing and reduce top-down expectations. This study measured forward and backward traveling cortical alpha waves—proposed to reflect bottom-up inhibition and top-down inhibition, respectively—using electroencephalography in meditators and nonmeditators. During eyes-closed resting (97 participants) and a visual Go/No-go task (126 participants), meditators showed stronger forward traveling waves than nonmeditators in both conditions, and weaker backward traveling waves during rest. These neural differences may underlie enhanced attention and reduced mind-wandering associated with meditation, supporting models where mental training increases sensory awareness.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
September 1, 2000
Z Binienda, M A Beaudoin, B T Thorn et al.
4 citations
Pretreatment with ibogaine dampens the brain's reaction to cocaine in rats. In awake adult male rats, cocaine alone caused a brief increase in alpha1 brain wave power and desynchronization in alpha2 and beta bands, along with a surge in dopamine levels in the caudate nucleus. After ibogaine pretreatment, cocaine instead produced a prolonged increase in delta, theta, and alpha1 power lasting up to an hour, and dopamine levels decreased further rather than rising. Dopamine turnover increased with ibogaine alone but not when cocaine followed. These changes in electrical brain activity and neurotransmitter levels indicate a reduced response to cocaine after ibogaine pretreatment.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
July 21, 2025
Marcel Socoró-garrigosa, Yonatan Sanz Perl, Morten L Kringelbach et al.
3 citations
The scale at which the brain represents information remains a key question in neuroscience. Evidence shows that information is encoded not just in localized areas but across distributed, hierarchical networks. The hierarchy of causal influences shaping brain activity patterns is a signature of different brain states, relevant to neuropsychiatric disorders. Using whole-brain models guided by the thermodynamics of mind framework, researchers estimated brain hierarchy and studied in-silico transitions in static functional connectivity. Applying this to major depressive disorder, they built resting-state whole-brain models of depressed patients before and after treatment with psilocybin or escitalopram.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
March 1, 2024
Ruichen Hu, Shuo Li, Peijun Yuan et al.
1 citation
Structured visual streams containing regularities—whether perceptual (shape, motion) or semantic (idioms)—dominate over unstructured streams in the competition for visual awareness during binocular rivalry. Perceptual- and semantic-level regularities produce rivalry advantages that dissociate: perceptual regularities operate via nonconscious temporal integration and are vulnerable to disruptions of the spatiotemporal integration window, whereas semantic regularities operate via conscious temporal integration and are not. These findings indicate that structure-guided information integration across time contributes to visual awareness through at least two distinct mechanisms, supporting theories that link integration to conscious experience.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
October 1, 2011
Lisa Miller, Kenneth Miller, John Haught et al.
A panel of an evolutionary biologist and two theologians discusses questions about immortality, the existence of the soul beyond the body, and scientific evidence for mystical experience, drawing on cultural, historical, and scientific perspectives. The conversation, moderated by a journalist, took place at the New York Academy of Sciences and is presented as an edited transcript.