Very interesting sounding paper on the role of the default mode network in visual perception by Ujhelyi, Korda & Zaretskaya. The authors propose that the DMN provides top-down information from memory and semantic knowledge to guide perception. #neuroskyence
For those interested in the history of psychedelic research…
I wrote a narrative piece describing studies of psychedelic effects on serotonergic neurons in the dorsal raphe, from late 1960s to 1980s:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
I don't use Google search — the AI summaries are not good enough
however, simple question: how accurate of answers do you think the average Google user would get from reading the top search results? how much higher than 91% do you think they would be?
Now that my media relations are done for the evening, have a good week all.
MDMA may facilitate positive social contact and disrupt the negative self modelling prominent in C-PTSD. Importantly though, this likely depends on the therapeutic context, the drug alone isn't doing the work
MDMA (again, tentatively) appears to change insula activation and connectivity. In addition to the fact that MDMA can make one more sociable and less fearful of social interaction.....
These extra components make trauma focused therapy difficult here because the foundation needed (i.e., a stable self model and how trauma impacted it) to process trauma was not able to be formed. For those more inclined toward predictive processing, I attached another figure to show the difference.
C-PTSD, by contrast, often arises from prolonged interpersonal adversity, particularly in childhood. The problem isn't a disrupted self-model. It's that a stable one never fully formed in the first place, leading to emotional dysregulation, disrupted self-concept, and deep interpersonal mistrust.
In this figure we are showing what distinguishes complex-PTSD to PTSD. A main difference being the fact that complex PTSD impacts the ability to effectively model one's self given alterations to the insula cortex (a hub which allows for self-modelling).
Good to see this paper out. We propose a novel (and I must say speculative) neurocognitive account of complex PTSD using predictive processing, and discuss why MDMA therapy may be well suited to complex PTSD.
It's seen three US presidencies, is older than my kindergartener, but it's finally out there. Great to see this published and it was a lot of fun working on it with some great friends 🎉
doi.org/10.1177/1029...
Almost 5 years ago now, when we were little PhD students, a group of us had a paper idea. We huddled together in our cramped office meeting room to write an early version of this paper. MANY iterations later, we're all now postdocs, and the paper is now out!
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
🧵 First clinical trial ever conducted in a state-regulated psychedelic program just published. Oregon's psilocybin program has served 20,000+ people but the majority are wealthy out-of-state travelers. This study targeted low-income participants to test feasibility. #psychedelicscience
It's really good to see AE's being reported right in the abstract, alongside benefits. From leading Australian psychedelic researchers 🙂
Such a beautifully written piece about how medical hyper-specialisation makes it difficult to connect the dots as a complex systems approach would require.
Looks like we have a 7th placebo controlled trial on microdosing psychedelics showing microdosing did not outperform placebo, this time for depression. #psychedelicscience www.linkedin.com/posts/justin...
People always conflate a lot of other things with consciousness that can be logically separated from it
black and white photo of to cats wearing small round sunglasses in the window of a "lunetterie"
You may be cool, but you'll never be as cool as these two cats wearing sunglasses in the window of an optician's Boulevard St Germain in 1925
this one is for #dragontuesday
very much enjoyed being involved in this thought-provoking work led by @htmcgovern.bsky.social with @robincarhartharris.bsky.social and Selen Atasoy :)
Hope that you enjoy, or at least find it interesting, whether or not you agree. This was a pleasure to work on with great co-authors, very fun and deeply thought provoking.
This is part of a slightly broader effort I am interested in of discussing depth psychology from the perspective of modern neuroscience. I've shared a few snippets, but I probably can't fully do it justice or explain the motivations for all the arguments made without reading the full paper!
As such, archetypes continue not because they are eternal, but because brains keep recursively reinstantiating the same broad motifs in local context. This is one example which describes this type of mechanism of how archetypal stories may emerge.
We also suggest a reconceptualisation of the notion of the “collective unconscious.” From our view, it can be understood as shared statistical structure, in that patterns brains learn and transmit similar kinds of information across generations through language, culture, and story.
REBUS effects from psychedelics, in loosening classical constraints imposed from the default mode network, permits the type of archetypal imagery often reported under psychedelics to enter conscious awareness.
....subcortical affective systems, low level sensory imagery, and higher level narrative cognition. It is the interplay between these systems that given rise to (in order) archetypes as such, archetypal imagery, and archetypal stories.
We attempt to lend construct validity to Jungian archetypes in the language of modern neuroscience, of course borrowing from the framework of predictive processing. We propose a model of archetypes as a 'trilogical interplay' between....
New paper in @nconsc.bsky.social with @marcoaqil.bsky.social, Selen Atasoy, and @robincarhartharris.bsky.social. An ambitious one to be sure.....
doi.org/10.1093/nc/n...
If you need a brief doomscroll break (you do) then watch this very precious little baby bear having a tantrum because his mama needed a minute to herself 🥹🐻
(Via melbird3 on TikTok)
