States Of Consciousness In Humans Research Articles

Ketamine’s acute effects on negative brain states are mediated through distinct altered states of consciousness in humans

Ketamine commonly and rapidly induces dissociative and other altered states of consciousness (ASCs) in humans. However, the neural mechanisms that contribute to these experiences remain unknown. We used functional neuroimaging to engage key regions of the brain’s affective circuits during acute ketamine-induced ASCs within a randomized, multi-modal, placebo-controlled design examining placebo, 0.05 mg/kg ketamine, and 0.5 mg/kg ketamine in nonclinical adult participants (NCT03475277). Licensed clinicians monitored infusions for safety. Linear mixed effects models, analysis of variance, t-tests, and mediation models were used for statistical analyses. Our design enabled us to test our pre-specified primary and secondary endpoints, which were met: effects of ketamine across dose conditions on (1) emotional task-evoked brain activity, and (2) sub-components of dissociation and other ASCs. With this design, we also could disentangle which ketamine-induced affective brain states are dependent upon specific aspects of ASCs. Differently valenced ketamine-induced ASCs mediated opposing effects on right anterior insula activity. Participants experiencing relatively higher depersonalization induced by 0.5 mg/kg of ketamine showed relief from negative brain states (reduced task-evoked right anterior insula activity, 0.39 SD). In contrast, participants experiencing dissociative amnesia showed an exacerbation of insula activity (0.32 SD). These results in nonclinical participants may shed light on the mechanisms by which specific dissociative states predict response to ketamine in depressed individuals.

An in-depth analysis of parameter settings and probability distributions of specific ordinal patterns in the Shannon permutation entropy during different states of consciousness in humans

As electrical activity in the brain has complex and dynamic properties, the complexity measure permutation entropy (PeEn) has proven itself to reliably distinguish consciousness states recorded by the EEG. However, it has been shown that the focus on specific ordinal patterns instead of all of them produced similar results. Moreover, parameter settings influence the resulting PeEn value. We evaluated the impact of the embedding dimension m and the length of the EEG segment on the resulting PeEn. Moreover, we analysed the probability distributions of monotonous and non-occurring ordinal patterns in different parameter settings. We based our analyses on simulated data as well as on EEG recordings from volunteers, obtained during stable anaesthesia levels at defined, individualised concentrations. The results of the analysis on the simulated data show a dependence of PeEn on different influencing factors such as window length and embedding dimension. With the EEG data, we demonstrated that the probability P of monotonous patterns performs like PeEn in lower embedding dimension (m = 3, AUC = 0.88, [0.7, 1] in both), whereas the probability P of non-occurring patterns outperforms both methods in higher embedding dimensions (m = 5, PeEn: AUC = 0.91, [0.77, 1]; P(non-occurring patterns): AUC = 1, [1, 1]). We showed that the accuracy of PeEn in distinguishing consciousness states changes with different parameter settings. Furthermore, we demonstrated that for the purpose of separating wake from anaesthesia EEG solely pieces of information used for PeEn calculation, i.e., the probability of monotonous patterns or the number of non-occurring patterns may be equally functional.

Агресія та насильство: філософсько-правова кореляція дефініцій

In the article, on the basis of available scientific approaches, the philosophical and legal correlation of the definitions of "aggression" and "violence. It is noted that aggression is organically connected with violence and is its natural basis, as for human society - social matter is based on the natural environment, in particular, living matter, in which aggression is a mandatory attribute. However, aggression as a phenomenon is not identical to violence, just as living matter and social matter are not identical. It was found that aggression is a type of destruction at the level of biological matter (energy), which is characterized by expediency and limitation due to the process of evolutionary development of biological organisms. Violence is a type of destruction at the level of social matter (energy), caused by the mental nature of social interaction, a social action (phenomenon) that is associated with and is a consequence of only certain (distorted) states of human consciousness. Violence is a type of aggression of a special quality compared to aggression in nature and occurs only in human society. Violence is a special case in relation to the broader concept of "aggression", the basis of which is only the perceived distorted mental states of a person. The concept of "aggression" is broader than the concept of "violence", it includes the concept of "violence".

Effective connectivity changes in LSD-induced altered states of consciousness in humans

Psychedelics exert unique effects on human consciousness. The thalamic filter model suggests that core effects of psychedelics may result from gating deficits, based on a disintegration of information processing within cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) feedback loops. To test this hypothesis, we characterized changes in directed (effective) connectivity between selected CTSC regions after acute administration of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and after pretreatment with Ketanserin (a selective serotonin 2A receptor antagonist) plus LSD in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, cross-over study in 25 healthy participants. We used spectral dynamic causal modeling (DCM) for resting-state fMRI data. Fully connected DCM models were specified for each treatment condition to investigate the connectivity between the following areas: thalamus, ventral striatum, posterior cingulate cortex, and temporal cortex. Our results confirm major predictions proposed in the CSTC model and provide evidence that LSD alters effective connectivity within CSTC pathways that have been implicated in the gating of sensory and sensorimotor information to the cortex. In particular, LSD increased effective connectivity from the thalamus to the posterior cingulate cortex in a way that depended on serotonin 2A receptor activation, and decreased effective connectivity from the ventral striatum to the thalamus independently of serotonin 2A receptor activation. Together, these results advance our mechanistic understanding of the action of psychedelics in health and disease. This is important for the development of new pharmacological therapeutics and also increases our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the potential clinical efficacy of psychedelics.

Subanaesthetic ketamine and altered states of consciousness in humans

BackgroundDespite its designation as a ‘dissociative anaesthetic,’ the dissociative and psychoactive effects of ketamine remain incompletely understood. The goal of this study was to characterise the subjective experiences and accompanying EEG changes with subanaesthetic doses of ketamine. MethodsHigh-density EEG was recorded in 15 human volunteers before, during, and after subanaesthetic ketamine infusion (0.5 mg kg−1 over 40 min), with self-reported measures of altered states of consciousness obtained after ketamine exposure. Sensor- and source-level EEG changes were analysed with a focus on spectral power and regional changes. ResultsKetamine-induced altered states were characterised predominantly by dissociative experiences such as disembodiment and ego transcendence; sensory disturbances were also common. Ketamine broadly decreased low-frequency power, with mean reductions largest at alpha (8–12 Hz) in parietal (−0.94 dB, P<0.001) and occipital (−1.8 dB, P<0.001) channel clusters. Significant decreases in alpha were identified in the precuneus and temporal-parietal junction. ConclusionsKetamine induces altered states of consciousness during periods of reduced alpha power in the precuneus and temporal-parietal junction. Modulation of these temporal-parietal loci are candidate mechanisms of the psychoactive effects of ketamine, given that this region is involved in multisensory integration, body representation, and consciousness.

Estimating the Integrated Information Measure Phi from High-Density Electroencephalography during States of Consciousness in Humans.

The integrated information theory (IIT) proposes a quantitative measure, denoted as Φ, of the amount of integrated information in a physical system, which is postulated to have an identity relationship with consciousness. IIT predicts that the value of Φ estimated from brain activities represents the level of consciousness across phylogeny and functional states. Practical limitations, such as the explosive computational demands required to estimate Φ for real systems, have hindered its application to the brain and raised questions about the utility of IIT in general. To achieve practical relevance for studying the human brain, it will be beneficial to establish the reliable estimation of Φ from multichannel electroencephalogram (EEG) and define the relationship of Φ to EEG properties conventionally used to define states of consciousness. In this study, we introduce a practical method to estimate Φ from high-density (128-channel) EEG and determine the contribution of each channel to Φ. We examine the correlation of power, frequency, functional connectivity, and modularity of EEG with regional Φ in various states of consciousness as modulated by diverse anesthetics. We find that our approximation of Φ alone is insufficient to discriminate certain states of anesthesia. However, a multi-dimensional parameter space extended by four parameters related to Φ and EEG connectivity is able to differentiate all states of consciousness. The association of Φ with EEG connectivity during clinically defined anesthetic states represents a new practical approach to the application of IIT, which may be used to characterize various physiological (sleep), pharmacological (anesthesia), and pathological (coma) states of consciousness in the human brain.

Organization of the habitat: the experience of feng shui

Feng Shui, as a system of organization of the environment, is quite popular with modern designers. There are schools and research centers that are keen to adapt the experience of this ancient Chinese system to modern conditions. In this article, feng shui is subjected to systematic psychological analysis, which allows us to determine its principles and methods of organizing the environment, fostering them with the states of human consciousness in different historical epochs and with channels of human perception of the environment. Their use makes it possible to increase the comfort of the habitat due to a purposeful influence on those channels of human interaction with the environment that remain unoccupied within the framework of actual styles, and at the expense of a common synergetic effect. Me-todologically, the article continues the previous publication devoted to the system-psychological analysis of another popular historical system - vastu and contains comparisons with the latter.

General relationship of global topology, local dynamics, and directionality in large-scale brain networks.

The balance of global integration and functional specialization is a critical feature of efficient brain networks, but the relationship of global topology, local node dynamics and information flow across networks has yet to be identified. One critical step in elucidating this relationship is the identification of governing principles underlying the directionality of interactions between nodes. Here, we demonstrate such principles through analytical solutions based on the phase lead/lag relationships of general oscillator models in networks. We confirm analytical results with computational simulations using general model networks and anatomical brain networks, as well as high-density electroencephalography collected from humans in the conscious and anesthetized states. Analytical, computational, and empirical results demonstrate that network nodes with more connections (i.e., higher degrees) have larger amplitudes and are directional targets (phase lag) rather than sources (phase lead). The relationship of node degree and directionality therefore appears to be a fundamental property of networks, with direct applicability to brain function. These results provide a foundation for a principled understanding of information transfer across networks and also demonstrate that changes in directionality patterns across states of human consciousness are driven by alterations of brain network topology.

Die ontwikkeling van die menslike bewussyn: Die postmoderne vraag na God

The development of the human consciousness: The postmodern quest for GodThis article critically reflects upon ‘emerging Christians’ – those who have departed from a premodern (theistic) and modernist (secular) view of reality, and have rather embraced postmodernity in response to the cognitive dissonance they experience due to a clash of epistemological paradigms. The article discusses psychological theories on the development of human consciousness, and describes seven levels or stages of such development, namely the archaic, magical, mythological, rational, pluralistic, holistic and transpersonal levels. The article focuses on Ken Wilber’s integral psychological theory, better known as AQAL (All Quadrants, All Levels and All Lines), which also covers the internal and external dimensions of human consciousness, including an integral view on the so-called ‘states of human consciousness’. In doing so, the article aims to contribute to that aspect of pastoral care that focuses on psychological theory.

Characterisation of a proposed internet synthesis of N, N-dimethyltryptamine using liquid chromatography/electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometry

The psychoactive properties of N, N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) are known to induce altered states of consciousness in humans. These properties attract great interest from clinical, neuroscientific, clandestine and forensic communities. The Breath of Hope Synthesis was reported on an internet website as a convenient two-step methodology for the preparation of DMT. The analytical characterisation of the first stage was the subject of previous publications by the authors and involved the thermal decarboxylation of tryptophan and the formation of tryptamine. The present study reports on the characterisation of the second step of this procedure which was based on the methylation of tryptamine. This employed methyl iodide and benzyltriethylammonium chloride/sodium hydroxide as a phase transfer catalyst. The reaction product was characterised by liquid chromatography/electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometry and orthogonal acceleration time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Quantitative evaluation was carried out in positive multiple reaction monitoring mode (MRM), which included synthesis of the identified reaction products. MRM screening of the product did not lead to the detection of DMT. Instead, 11.1% tryptamine starting material, 21.0% N, N, N-trimethyltryptammonium iodide (TMT) and 47.4% 1- N-methyl-TMT were detected. A 0.5% trace of the monomethylated N-methyltryptamine was also detected. This study demonstrated the impact on product purity of doubtful synthetic methodologies discussed on the internet.

Halogenated solvent interactions with N, N-dimethyltryptamine: Formation of quaternary ammonium salts and their artificially induced rearrangements during analysis

The psychoactive properties of N, N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) 1a are known to induce altered states of consciousness in humans. This particular attribute attracts great interest from a variety of scientific and also clandestine communities. Our recent research has confirmed that DMT reacts with dichloromethane (DCM), either as a result of work-up or storage to give a quaternary N-chloromethyl ammonium salt 2a. Furthermore, this was observed to undergo rearrangement during analysis using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) with products including 3-(2-chloroethyl)indole 3 and 2-methyltetrahydro-β-carboline 4 (2-Me-THBC). This study further investigates this so far unexplored area of solvent interactions by the exposure of DMT to other halogenated solvents including dibromomethane and 1,2-dichloroethane (DCE). The N-bromomethyl- and N-chloroethyl quaternary ammonium derivatives were subsequently characterised by ion trap GC–MS in electron and chemical ionisation tandem MS mode and by NMR spectroscopy. The DCE-derived derivative formed at least six rearrangement products in the total ion chromatogram. Identification of mass spectrometry generated by-products was verified by conventional or microwave-accelerated synthesis. The use of deuterated DCM and deuterated DMT 1b provided insights into the mechanism of the rearrangements. The presence of potentially characteristic marker molecules may allow the identification of solvents used during the manufacture of controlled substances, which is often neglected since these are considered inert.

The acid nature of CO2‐evoked adenosine release in the CNS

The acid nature of CO₂‐evoked adenosine release in the CNS

The States of Human Consciousness

The States of Human Consciousness

Book Reviews

Abstract Estabrooks, G. H., Editor. Hypnosis: Current Problems. New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1962, Pp. VIII + 285. $5.50. Reviewed by David Rubin, M.D. Yacorzynski, G. K. Frontiers of Psychology. New York: Philosophical Library, 1963. Pp. 229 + x. $5.00. Reviewed by Florence A. Sharp, Ph.D. Kline, M. V., Editor. Clinical Correlations of Experimental Hypnosis. Springfield, Ill.: C. C. Thomas, 1963, Pp. xv + 524. $15.75. Reviewed by Milton H. Erickson, M.D. Mason, A. A., M.B. Medical Hypnosis (with contributions by K. D. Watts and S. D. Perchard). New York: P. B. Hoeber, Inc., 1960. Pp. 223. $7.50. Reviewed by Rolf J. Krojanker, M.D. King, C. D. The States of Human Consciousness. New York: university Books, 1963. Pp. XIII + 167. $7.50. Reviewed by Stanley Abrams, Ph.D. Engle, G. L. Psychological Developments in Health and Disease. Philadelphia, Penn.: W. B. Saunders, Pp. XXXIV + 435. $7.50. Reviewed by John E. Carter, M.D. Rolo, C., Editor. Psychiatry In American Life. Boston, Little, Brown And Co., 1963. Pp. viii + 246. $5.00. Reviewed by John E. Carter, M.D.

The States of Human Consciousness

The States of Human Consciousness