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Reposted by Chris Timmermann

Richard 🎧 Ward @haunted.audio · Aug 21

NEW TEN-PART AUDIO SERIES about #PSYCHEDELICS
Out now on BBC Sounds - and other podcast spaces.

Co-written & presented by the beautifully curious @timhayward.bsky.social
Production, sound design and mix by me.

It's been a fascinating and challenging process to get here...

I do hope you'll listen.

BBC Radio 4 - Understand, The Trip

Tim Hayward looks at the science, culture, history - and future - of psychedelics.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Thomas Andrillon @thomasandrillon.bsky.social · Apr 24

With immense pleasure, here is our #TICS opinion paper on "mind blanking"!
@cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social

**Where is my mind?**
A neurocognitive investigation of mind blanking
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

With Jenny Windt, @antoinelutz.bsky.social and @ademertzi.bsky.social

ScienceDirect.com | Science, health and medical journals, full text articles and books.

authors.elsevier.com

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Apr 23

Thanks to our DMT Research Group members James Sanders, David Reydellet, Tommaso Barba Malin Uthaug et al. Currently following up this with a proper lab study of 5-MeO + experience sampling. Read the full paper here pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40260121/ n/n

Exploring 5-MeO-DMT as a pharmacological model for deconstructed consciousness - PubMed

5-MeO-DMT is a short-acting psychedelic that is anecdotally reported to induce a radical disruption of the self and a paradoxical quality of aroused, waking awareness that is nevertheless devoid of an...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Apr 23

How could a state of deconstructed consciousness correspond to cortical disinhibition? Working hypothesis: an overflooding of attentional/perceptual resources leads to the inability of the mind/brain to process such information and make meaningful ‘gestalts’. 7/n

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Apr 23

EEG revealed the 5-MeO experience to be characterised by a broad reduction of alpha and posterior beta power. These findings are consistent with those we have found in previous research with DMT and other psychedelics and point towards a state of cortical disinhibition. 6/n

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Apr 23

Doubling on the idea of 'deconstructed consciousness', analyses indeed revealed these peak experiences lacked embodied and narrative dimensions of the self, while also being devoid of thoughts and phenomenal distinctions while being disconnected from the environment. 5/n

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Apr 23

The often-used questionnaire ASC mostly did not capture these peak experiences (black dots below), confirming our previous call to employ advanced phenomenology in consciousness studies (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36566091/). 4/n

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Apr 23

We characterised the different phases of the experience and its transitions (whenever we could). For about 1/3 of experiences, we identified an ‘everything/nothing’ stage where no sense of self or other contents were reported but awareness was preserved. 3/n

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Apr 23

5-MeO is attractive for the science of consciousness as reports claim it dissolves time, space, self, and other contents resulting in so called ‘pure awareness’. We went to retreats in the Netherlands and Spain were participants had it and assessed EEG and phenomenology. 2/n

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Apr 23

Our new paper - the first peer-reviewed brain and phenomenological examination of 5-MeO-DMT is out in Neuro of Consciousness.

TLDR: We tested whether ‘the mount Everest’ of psychedelics could induce a complete state of consciousness deconstruction while preserving awareness. 1/n

#neuroskyence

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Natalie Peluso 🧠🫁😊 @nataliepeluso.com · Apr 1

Age-related differences in 1/f aperiodic EEG/MEG signals can be driven by cardiac rather than brain activity 👇

#interoception 🧠🫀 #neuroskyence

elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

elifesciences.org

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Mar 21

Check this out by Jeremy Skipper at @thelablab.bsky.social iai.tv/articles/lan...

Language creates an altered state of consciousness | Jeremy I Skipper

iai.tv

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Aitor Morales-Gregorio @aitormg.bsky.social · Jan 11

Maybe a good time to remember that mice have tiny hyperconnected brains. An estimated 97% of all possible connections between brain areas exist in mice, vs ~62% in macaques and marmosets.

No wonder everything is everywhere in mice, they have all-to-all connectivity!

doi.org/10.1093/cerc...

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Anil Seth @anilseth.bsky.social · Mar 10

2/ Our comment is a response to both the charge from 'IIT-concerned et al' that IIT is pseudoscientific (we disagree) www.nature.com/articles/s41... and to the response by Tononi et al www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Mar 10

Congrats to Lisa Luan for a successful PhD defence leading our extended DMT studies at @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social . Very proud to call her my first completed PhD student and in awe of how she managed to meticulously carry out some of the most extreme studies one could think of

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Anna Ciaunica @annaciaunica.bsky.social · Feb 20

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Loneliness and social isolation literally kills 👇🏼

Plasma proteomic signatures of social isolation and loneliness associated with morbidity and mortality - Nature Human Behaviour

Shen et al. characterize protein signatures in the blood associated with social isolation and loneliness, demonstrating how these link social isolation and loneliness to an increased risk of disease a...

www.nature.com

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Feb 7

Benny Shanon, one of the pioneers of modern psychedelic research, has recently passed away. If you haven't done so, check out his book Antipodes of the Mind, one of the most influential and beautiful books I have read. May his contributions carry forward in our work and explorations of consciousness

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Jan 31

Psychedelic-mediated Reversal of General Anesthesia and Restoration of Brain Dynamics in Rat

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

www.biorxiv.org

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Jan 31

If you have experience with psychedelics or meditation please consider participating and sharing

The LAB Lab 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @thelablab.bsky.social · Jan 22

⭐ Do you have experience with #psychedelics 🍄 or #meditation 🪷? ⭐

🆘 Please help us understand how these practices shape the experience of emotions in our bodies.

🔬 Contribute to science by taking part in a quick, 20-min anonymous online experiment.

🖱️ Click here to participate: bit.ly/3DYMEkb

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Chris Timmermann @christimmermann.bsky.social · Jan 31

'The narrative and embodied dimensions of psychedelic integration'

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Anthropology of Consciousness | AAA Journal | Wiley Online Library

Within recent years, an increasing number of people and researchers in the Global North have become interested in psychedelic substances and their therapeutic application. While much of the current m...

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Jonny Smallwood @themindwanders.bsky.social · Jan 28

Really excited about this paper out today in @natureneuro.bsky.social
If you are interested in how to characterise the role of the DMN in human cognition you really should check it out.
a 🧵

Boris Bernhardt @borismontreal.bsky.social · Jan 28

Out in @natureneuro.bsky.social today 🥂

Cytoarchitecture, wiring and signal flow of the human default mode network

Combining 3D histology, 7T MRI, and connectomics to explore DMN structure-function associations

Led by Casey Paquola, @themindwanders.bsky.social & a terrific team of colleagues 🙏

The architecture of the human default mode network explored through cytoarchitecture, wiring and signal flow - Nature Neuroscience

The default mode network (DMN) is implicated in cognition and behavior. Here, the authors show that the DMN is cytoarchitecturally heterogeneous, it contains regions receptive to input from the sensory cortex and a core relatively insulated from environmental input, and it uniquely balances its output across sensory hierarchies.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Chris Timmermann

Boris Bernhardt @borismontreal.bsky.social · Jan 28

Out in @natureneuro.bsky.social today 🥂

Cytoarchitecture, wiring and signal flow of the human default mode network

Combining 3D histology, 7T MRI, and connectomics to explore DMN structure-function associations

Led by Casey Paquola, @themindwanders.bsky.social & a terrific team of colleagues 🙏

The architecture of the human default mode network explored through cytoarchitecture, wiring and signal flow - Nature Neuroscience

The default mode network (DMN) is implicated in cognition and behavior. Here, the authors show that the DMN is cytoarchitecturally heterogeneous, it contains regions receptive to input from the sensory cortex and a core relatively insulated from environmental input, and it uniquely balances its output across sensory hierarchies.

www.nature.com

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Katrin Preller @katrinpreller.bsky.social · Dec 19

Hi everyone, we have published a new paper showing that #psilocybin increases emotional #empathy in patients living with depression for at least two weeks after a single administration. If you are interested in #psychedelics and #social cognition, take a look here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Psilocybin increases emotional empathy in patients with major depression - Molecular Psychiatry

Molecular Psychiatry - Psilocybin increases emotional empathy in patients with major depression

www.nature.com

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Dorsa Amir @dorsaamir.bsky.social · Jan 25

Does the culture you grow up in shape the way you see the world? In a new Psych Review paper, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I tackle this centuries-old question using the Müller-Lyer illusion as a case study. Come think through one of history's mysteries with us🧵(1/13):

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Amy Orsborn @neuroamyo.bsky.social · Jan 17

Is our brain infinitely flexible or constrained? Oby & colleagues cleverly uses BCIs to test what cortical activity can/can't be generated quickly. Highly recommend!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

And you can get a tl;dr + my takes on why this is exciting here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Dynamical constraints on neural population activity - Nature Neuroscience

Oby, Degenhart, Grigsby and colleagues used a brain–computer interface to challenge monkeys to override their natural time courses of neural activity. They found the time courses to be highly robust, ...

www.nature.com

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