News

Does the combination of psychedelics and meditation enhance mystical experiences?

Researchers assessed whether combining psychedelics with meditation increases mindfulness, compassion, insight, and mystical-type transcendence to a higher degree than meditation with a placebo.

Health professionals' responses to stress in critical care scenarios and the risk of burnout

A study assessed the psychobiological functioning of 27 Pre-Hospital Emergency Medical doctors and paramedics, stressing the importance of recovery periods.

Are psi researchers more like lay believers or sceptics?

A study shows that academics who work with psi differ from lay psi individuals, but not from sceptics, in actively open-minded thinking.

Could the healthcare provider's nonverbal behaviour modulate pain reports and placebo effects?

The effects of the nonverbal behaviour of healthcare providers on pain reports and placebo effects may differ in healthy males and females.

To what extent do the boundaries of our body seem to fade during focused-attention meditation?

An experimental study revealed that a 15-minute focused-attention meditation session blurred the boundary between the self and the environment.

Is it possible to regulate the feeling of disgust by imaginary placebo pill intake?

A study compared the effects of a placebo pill and an imaginary pill in reducing visually induced disgust.

Web-based mindfulness intervention improves memory and attention in the elderly

A research team assessed cognitive, psychological and physiological outcomes of a mindfulness-based intervention in healthy older adults.

Identification of a molecule involved in fear extinction opens avenues for new therapies for anxiety

The discovery of mediator responsible for altering fear memories could contribute to the creation of new therapies for the treatment of anxiety disorders.

Does blindness affect the way we perceive whether an emotion is authentic or posed?

The results showed that the late-blind participants performed worse in the assessment of emotional authenticity.

Ayahuasca-induced personal death subjective experiences

Researchers analysed studies on self-reported experiences related to the sensation of death during ayahuasca ceremonies.

Could we have psi abilities if our brains didn't inhibit them?

Research tests a novel neurobiological model and concludes that the frontal lobes of the brain act as a filter to inhibit humans' innate psi abilities.

The impact of after-death communication in bereavement

A study with 70 participants who experienced after-death communication with deceased partners reveals that the majority found it comforting and helpful in their bereavement.

Nuno Grande Doctoral Scholarship 2024: applications are open

Applications are now open for the Nuno Grande Doctoral Scholarship 2024, worth €25,000. Candidates must, at the time of application submission, be enrolled in the Doctoral Program in Medical Sciences at the Abel Salazar Institute of Biomedical Sciences (ICBAS). The applications are open until January 17, 2025.

How do psychedelics influence social cognition?

Psychedelics have sparked interest as potential treatments for social cognition deficits commonly associated with the autism spectrum and social anxiety. Previous studies have shown that psychedelics modulate social processing by altering emotion recognition in facial expressions, joint attention in social interactions, perspective-taking, and empathy. The evidence suggests that the effect may be linked to their impact on social cognition networks. However, the exact mechanisms underlying this impact remain poorly understood. The research team led by Miguel Castelo-Branco conducted a pharmacological study investigating the effects of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (psychedelic DMT) on functional connectivity in brain regions relevant to social cognition, using a within-subject design. The results supported the hypothesis that DMT induces changes in functional connectivity in brain regions relevant to social cognition, as well as in areas associated with emotion and affective value. Furthermore, changes in connectivity strength were correlated with increases in self-reported psychedelic effects. These correlations highlight the relationship between DMT’s neural effects on socioemotional circuits and subjective experiences. These findings offer insights into the effects of psychedelics on social behaviour, with implications for disorders like social anxiety and depression. Simultaneously, they suggest that increased connectivity, rather than reduced activity, plays a crucial role in psychedelic states. Thus, these results advance our understanding of the therapeutic potential of psychedelics and their effects on the "social brain". This study was supported by the BIAL Foundation, in the scope of the research project 252/18 - Spiritual states induced by ayahuasca, and the involvement of the reward system, and published in Frontiers in Pharmacology, in the article Increased functional connectivity between brain regions involved in social cognition, emotion and affective-value in psychedelic states induced by N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT).

How does body size influence weight perception?

Currently, it is known that the size of an object influences how heavy it feels (i.e., the size-weight illusion). However, it remains uncertain whether the same applies to the body. Elisa Raffaella Ferrè and colleagues conducted an experimental study to investigate how embodying various hand sizes affects the perception of hand weight. Hand size was manipulated using a visual-tactile illusion with magnifying and minifying mirrors. The results showed that the perception of hand weight is flexible and easily altered by the perception of hand size. However, the perceived weight of the hand is invariably underestimated. Although a larger hand feels heavier, while a smaller hand feels lighter, there is still an underestimation of the actual weight of the hand in both conditions. This also contrasts with object perception, where larger objects feel lighter when compared to smaller objects of the same weight. Given that individuals with anorexia nervosa, for example, often experience their bodies as objects, these findings may help deepen our understanding of such disorders and their connection to bodily distortions. This study was supported by the BIAL Foundation, in the scope of the research project 41/20 - Luminous dancing fairies in weightlessness: How gravity shapes conscious experiences, and published in the journal Cognition, in the article Perceived hand size and perceived hand weight.

Award Universidade de Lisboa|Fundação BIAL 30 Years honours Medicine, Psychology and Philosophy students

Academic competition in António Damásio and Hanna Damásio lecture aims to stimulate students' capacity for reflection, interpretation, and critical analysis.

Prof. Peter Fenwick

The BIAL Foundation expresses profound sorrow on the passing of Prof Peter Fenwick, a unique figure in parapsychology worldwide, broadly awarded for his work on the process of death, including consciousness and near-death experiences.

Can psychedelics enhance meditative training?

While the therapeutic evidence for meditation and psychedelics has been established as standalone interventions, recent research has started to point potential synergies in combining them. The research team led by Milan Scheidegger conducted a randomized placebo-controlled study aiming to test whether N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), an active ingredient of ayahuasca, and harmine (DMT-harmine) combined with meditation increases (1) mindfulness, (2) compassion, (3) insight, and (4) mystical-type transcendence to a larger degree than meditation with a placebo during a 3-day mindfulness retreat. Findings showed that mindfulness and compassion were not significantly different in the DMT-harmine group compared to placebo. However, the DMT-harmine group self-attributed greater levels of mystical-type experiences, non-dual awareness, and emotional breakthrough during the acute substance effects compared to meditation with a placebo. It seems that DMT-harmine may support meditation and meditation-related well-being through eliciting experiences of insight, transcendence, and meaning rather than through mindfulness or compassion. This study was supported by the BIAL Foundation, in the scope of the research project 333/20 - Mindfulness and psychedelics: A neurophenomenological approach to the characterization of acute and sustained response to DMT in experienced meditators, and published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, in the article Meditating on psychedelics. A randomized placebo-controlled study of DMT and harmine in a mindfulness retreat.

Maria de Sousa Award 2024 was delivered at the BIAL Foundation's 30th-anniversary celebration

Young researchers were awarded for their work on stem cells, stroke, ageing, fungal respiratory disease, and inflammatory bowel disease.

What can explain the subjective differences in meditation experience?

In the scope of the research project 92/18 - Attending mindfully: A psychophysiology study of sensory processing in meditators, supported by the BIAL Foundation, Veena Kumari and colleagues examined the effect of regular meditation practice on startle modulation paradigms, specifically habituation and prepulse inhibition (PPI), by comparing the groups of meditators (n = 32) and non-meditators (n = 36). They found no significant differences, on average, between meditators and non-meditators in habituation or PPI, but meditators who reported being able to easily enter a state in which their awareness of the self and others/surroundings are perceived as one, without separation (non-dual awareness), during meditation practice, showed greater PPI, relative to those who could not. These results suggest that differential sensory processing characteristics of meditators may explain subjective differences in meditation experience. More information is available in the article Non-dual awareness and sensory processing in meditators: Insights from startle reflex modulation published in the scientific journal Consciousness and Cognition.

BIAL Foundation brings António Damásio to Portugal for conference "On the Physiology of the Mind"

To mark its 30th anniversary, the BIAL Foundation is bringing António Damásio and Hanna Damásio to Portugal for a conference on October 9 in Lisbon.

Do psi researchers and skeptics think alike?

Psi phenomena, such as extra-sensory perception and post-mortem survival, that are not explained by known cognitive, neural, or physiological processes, have generated interest and curiosity, but also controversy. Cognitive styles related to evaluating evidence and reaching conclusions are relevant to the controversial nature of psi, as they provide a deeper look into how different groups approach the psi phenomena. The research team, led by Marieta Pehlivanova, compared the cognitive styles, precisely the actively open-minded thinking (AOT) and the need for closure (NFC), of 144 participants divided into four groups: academic psi researchers, lay individuals who believe in psi, academics who are skeptics of psi, and lay individuals who are skeptics. On the one hand, they observed that academic psi researchers demonstrated high levels of AOT, like academic and lay skeptics, and the lay psi group had lower levels of AOT than the other groups. On the other hand, no significant differences in NFC were found among the groups, and academic psi researchers exhibited high psi belief levels comparable to lay believers. These findings suggest that despite their high belief in psi phenomena, psi researchers have a need for certainty and to collect evidence to support reasoning as skeptics. This study was developed within the scope of the research project 212/20 - Comparing cognitive styles among parapsychology researchers, psi-believers, and skeptics, supported by the BIAL Foundation, and published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Psychology, in the article Cognitive styles and psi: psi researchers are more similar to skeptics than to lay believers.

What are the effects of expectation on face perception and its relationship with expertise?

In the scope of the research project 129/20 - Investigating the role of expertise in the predictive coding framework combining time resolved neural and behavioural evidence, supported by the BIAL Foundation, Marie Smith and colleagues, through a behavioural categorization task in which 67 participants learned the probabilistic association between a colour cue and a high and low expertise category (faces and cars respectively), they assessed the individual level of expertise in each category. They found that the perception of the high expertise category (faces) was modulated by expectation. That is, there was a faster response when the faces were expected. Furthermore, in the analysis of neural activity (EEG), there were effects of expectation, with significant decoding of the neural response to expected stimuli. These results support the influence of expectation on face perception, highlight the role of expertise and draw attention to individual variability, which is often neglected. More information is available in the article Effects of expectation on face perception and its association with expertise published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports.

Is the ability to inhibit actions influenced by emotional stimuli?

The ability to inhibit ongoing motor actions is essential to avoid detrimental consequences. Effective inhibition depends mainly on the functioning of several areas, such as the pre-supplementary motor cortex (pre-SMA). The research team, led by Sara Borgomaneri, explored possible changes in the ability of 66 participants to inhibit actions upon facing emotionally negative or neutral human body postures, presented in a stop signal task, before and after the application of a session of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the pre-SMA, the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) and the left primary motor cortex (lM1). They observed a shorter reaction time to emotionally negative stimuli after applying an inhibitory rTMS session to the pre-SMA. On the other hand, there was a shorter reaction time to neutral body postures after administration of rTMS over rIFG. No significant changes were observed after lM1 stimulation. These results support the existence of emotional effects on motor control systems and provide evidence that such effects may involve separate and distinct neural pathways from those associated with motor inhibition in neutral contexts. This study was developed within the scope of the research project 33/22 - The influence of emotions on actions: Boosting brain network plasticity to improve action control, supported by the BIAL Foundation, and published in the scientific journal Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, in article The role of pre-supplementary motor cortex in action control with emotional stimuli: A repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation study.

The quest of physiological markers for the experience of pain

Researcher: Elia Valentini - Department of Psychology & Centre for Brain Science, University of Essex Summary: The aim of this project is to improve measurement of the human experience of pain by investigating a combination of psychophysical and physiological responses during mild noxious stimulation. More specifically, we want to investigate how sensitive and specific to pain the brain oscillatory responses are. We use EEG as the main technique, but we are keen to collaborate with neuroscientists using fMRI, autonomic measures and brain stimulation as well as with computational neuroscientists. A clinical collaborator would also be very much welcome.

EEG investigation of hypnosis and decision-making

Researcher: Rinaldo Livio Perri - University Niccolò Cusano Rome, Italy Summary: I work in the field of hypnosis and cognitive neuroscience. In particular, I adopt the event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the effect of the hypnotic suggestions on sensory processing and cognitive performance. I am an expert in decision-making and proactive brain processes before the stimulus administration (e.g., the perceptual, prefrontal and premotor readiness during the expectancy stage). I could help colleagues to properly analyze the ERP signal in the pre-stimulus stage of processing. Also, I would be happy to share my EEG data for re-analyzing them in the frequency domain (e.g., wavelet or coherence analysis in the hypnosis research). Feel free to contact me for any question! More information on my papers: https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=-8e_V64AAAAJ&hl=it Possible collaborations: neuroscientist with experience in the EEG frequency analysis Email: perri.rinaldo@gmail.com

Transparent Psi Project - looking for collaborators

Summary: We are running a fully transparent, expert consensus-base multilab replication of Bem’s (2011) experiment 1. The project features state of the art methods to maximize transparency and study integrity. The study involves a computerized experiment taking about 20 minutes per session. Group testing is possible in a computer lab, no specialized equipment needed. Labs are expected to recruit at least 100 participants. Participants will be exposed to images with explicit erotic/sexual content in the experiment. No financial compensation is required for the participants. Data collection is expected to take place in the 2020 fall semester. Every material is provided for ethics/IRB submissions and data collection in English (translation of materials might be necessary by the collaborators). The study is pre-registered and the manuscript is accepted in principle for publication in the journal Royal Society Open Science. All collaborators who meet the minimum sample size criterion will get authorship on this paper reporting the results of the replication study. More information in the preprint: https://psyarxiv.com/uwk7y/ Indicate interest in the collaboration via the following form: https://tinyurl.com/tpp-labs With any question contact the lead investigator: Dr. Zoltan Kekecs, kekecs.zoltan@gmail.com

Cognitive control and learning

Researcher: Ignacio Obeso, Ph.D. / CINAC - HM Puerta del Sur Summary: The aim of our projects is to understand the behavioral and neural mechanisms used to learn how humans establish adaptive behaviour in changing contexts. More specifically, we want to decipher how stopping abilities are initially learned and later executed under automatic control. We use task-related fMRI, brain stimulation and clinical models to test our predictions in laboratory settings as well as online home-based paradigms. Possible collaborations: computational scientist Email contact: i.obesomartin@gmail.com https://iobesomartin.wixsite.com/cognitivecontrol