A spontaneous dissociative episode during an EEG experiment.

A depersonalization episode occurred unexpectedly during an electroencephalogram (EEG) recording for a study. Experience reports tracked the time course of this event and, in conjunction, with EEG data, were analyzed. The source activity across canonical frequency bands was analyzed across four periods ended by retrospective experience reports (depersonalization was reported in the 2nd period).

Conflict and control in cortical responses to inconsistent emotional signals in a face-word Stroop.

Social communication is fraught with ambiguity. Negotiating the social world requires interpreting the affective signals we receive and often selecting between channels of conflicting affective information. The affective face-word Stroop (AFWS) provides an experimental paradigm which may identify cognitive-affective control mechanisms underpinning essential social-affective skills.

Recasting Jung Through an Indigenist Approach to Deepen Shared Knowledges of Well-being and Healing on Australian Soils: Protocol for a Qualitative Landscape Research Study.

Background: The colonization of Australia is responsible for complex layers of trauma for the First Nations peoples of the continent. First Nations Australians' well-being is irrevocably tied to the well-being of the land. The application of a landscape-based approach to collaborative research shows promise in enabling genuine relationships that yield rich and informative data.

Past and Future Explanations for Depersonalization and Derealization Disorder: A Role for Predictive Coding.

Depersonalization (DP) and derealization (DR) refer to states of dissociation in which one feels a sense of alienation in relation to one's self and environment, respectively. Whilst transient episodes often diminish without treatment, chronic experiences of DP and DR may last for years, with common treatments lacking a strong evidence base for their efficacy. We propose a theoretical explanation of DP and DR based on interoceptive predictive coding, and discuss how transient experiences of DP and DR may be induced in the non-clinical population using virtual reality.

Childhood Sexual, Emotional, and Physical Abuse as Predictors of Dissociation in Adulthood.

This Australian study explores a person's self-reported exposure to childhood abuse to identify the characteristics that are predictive of clinical levels of dissociation in adulthood. The final sample comprised 303 participants, including 26 inpatients and outpatients (24 females and two males) receiving treatment for a dissociative disorder (DD), and 277 university participants, including 220 controls (186 females, 34 males), 31 with elevated levels of dissociation consistent with a DD or posttraumatic stress disorder (27 females and four males), and 26 with clinical levels of dissociation (20 females and six males). The findings demonstrate clinical levels of dissociation and DDs occur in individuals reporting a history of childhood abuse, particularly sexual abuse and experiences that are potentially life-threatening to a child, such as choking, smothering, and physical injury that breaks bones or teeth, or that compromise the child's survival needs, including threats of abandonment and deprivation of basic needs.

Measuring Dissociative Symptoms and Experiences in an Australian College Sample Using a Short Version of the Multidimensional Inventory of Dissociation.

This paper investigated a 60-item version of the Multidimensional Inventory of Dissociation (MID) with the potential to capture the full range of dissociative symptoms that characterize each of the dissociative disorders (DD). The 28-item Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) was designed to capture a wide range of dissociative phenomena, but college population studies indicate it may not be adept at identifying the full range of dissociative symptoms and disorders. The 218-item MID has the advantage of capturing the full range of dissociative symptoms and has diagnostic capabilities for all DSM-5 DD, but the disadvantage of taking considerably longer than the DES to complete.

The prevalence of Dissociative Disorders and dissociative experiences in college populations: a meta-analysis of 98 studies.

This meta-analysis of 31,905 college students includes 12 studies diagnosing Dissociative Disorders (DD) and 92 studies measuring dissociation with the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES). Prevalence rates were used to separately test the plausibility of the Trauma Model (TM) and the Fantasy Model (FM) of dissociation. Results show 11.

New directions in hypnosis research: strategies for advancing the cognitive and clinical neuroscience of hypnosis.

This article summarizes key advances in hypnosis research during the past two decades, including (i) clinical research supporting the efficacy of hypnosis for managing a number of clinical symptoms and conditions, (ii) research supporting the role of various divisions in the anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortices in hypnotic responding, and (iii) an emerging finding that high hypnotic suggestibility is associated with atypical brain connectivity profiles. Key recommendations for a research agenda for the next decade include the recommendations that (i) laboratory hypnosis researchers should strongly consider how they assess hypnotic suggestibility in their studies, (ii) inclusion of study participants who score in the middle range of hypnotic suggestibility, and (iii) use of expanding research designs that more clearly delineate the roles of inductions and specific suggestions. Finally, we make two specific suggestions for helping to move the field forward including (i) the use of data sharing and (ii) redirecting resources away from contrasting state and nonstate positions toward studying (a) the efficacy of hypnotic treatments for clinical conditions influenced by central nervous system processes and (b) the neurophysiological underpinnings of hypnotic phenomena.

Inhibition of retrieval in hypnotic amnesia: dissociation by upper-alpha gating.

Hypnotic amnesia is a functional dissociation from awareness during which information from specific neural processes is unavailable to consciousness. We test the proposal that changes in topographic patterns of cortical oscillations in upper-alpha (10-12 Hz) band selectively inhibit the recall of memories during hypnotic amnesia by blocking availability of locally processed information at specific points in retrieval. Participants were prescreened for high or low hypnotic susceptibility.

Hypnotic induction is followed by state-like changes in the organization of EEG functional connectivity in the theta and beta frequency bands in high-hypnotically susceptible individuals.

Altered state theories of hypnosis posit that a qualitatively distinct state of mental processing, which emerges in those with high hypnotic susceptibility following a hypnotic induction, enables the generation of anomalous experiences in response to specific hypnotic suggestions. If so then such a state should be observable as a discrete pattern of changes to functional connectivity (shared information) between brain regions following a hypnotic induction in high but not low hypnotically susceptible participants. Twenty-eight channel EEG was recorded from 12 high susceptible (highs) and 11 low susceptible (lows) participants with their eyes closed prior to and following a standard hypnotic induction.

Low and then high frequency oscillations of distinct right cortical networks are progressively enhanced by medium and long term Satyananda Yoga meditation practice.

Meditation proficiency is related to trait-like (learned) effects on brain function, developed over time. Previous studies show increases in EEG power in lower frequency bands (theta, alpha) in experienced meditators in both meditation states and baseline conditions. Higher gamma band power has been found in advanced Buddhist meditators, yet it is not known if this occurs in Yoga meditation practices.

Neurosurgery and consciousness: historical sketch and future possibilities.

Neurosurgery has played an important role in the development of neuroscience and the science of consciousness. In this paper, the authors reflect on some of the historical contributions of neurosurgeons to the science of consciousness and discuss the ways in which clinical neurosurgery can contribute to the science of consciousness in the 21st century. An approach to the "hard problem" is proposed based on the principles of psychophysics, and the opportunities offered by intracranial recording and stimulation in patients capable of reporting changes in subjective experience are discussed.

Using structural equation modeling to examine McCollough Effects (orientation-contingent color aftereffects): influence of dissociative experiences and age on illusory aftereffects.

Conventional accounts of the McCollough Effect (ME) have focused on strictly bottom-up processing accounts of the phenomenon, most commonly involving the fatiguing of orientation-selective neurons; although association-learning mechanisms have also gained acceptance. These lower order accounts do not take into account higher order variables related to key personality traits and/or associated cognitive control processes. This article reports the use of confirmatory factor analysis and follow-up structural equation style regressions that model MEs and also the part played by the personality trait of dissociation.

Hypnotizability, eating behaviors, attitudes, and concerns: a literature survey.

The literature suggests that aspects of hypnotizability may be involved in the etiology and maintenance of self-defeating eating. However, interpretation of the published research findings has been complicated by the use of instruments that appear to have measured different or, at best, only related facets of the underlying constructs. This article reports relationships between weight, shape, dietary concerns, hypnotizability, dissociative capacity, and fantasy proneness.

Efficient tyrosine phosphorylation of proteins after activation of platelets with thrombin depends on intact glycoprotein Ib.

The role of platelet glycoprotein Ib as a thrombin receptor has been often a subject of controversy. We have investigated the role of the thrombin receptors, GPIb and protease-activated receptor (PAR)-1. Tyrosine phosphorylation in whole platelet lysates and in cytoskeletal extracts was evaluated after activation with thrombin and with the thrombin receptor-activating peptide (TRAP).

Changes in mismatch negativity across pre-hypnosis, hypnosis and post-hypnosis conditions distinguish high from low hypnotic susceptibility groups.

The role of alterations in mismatch negativity (MMN) in hypnosis was examined by recording MMN of the auditory ERP at frontal (F3, Fz, and F4) and mastoid (M1 and M2) placements. Frontal MMN is believed to reflect activity in right anterior cortical generators, whereas MMN at mastoid leads reflects generators located bilaterally in the temporal auditory cortex. MMN recordings were obtained in 11 low and 12 high hypnotically susceptible participants in three successive blocks; pre-hypnosis, hypnosis and post-hypnosis.

Hypnosis decouples cognitive control from conflict monitoring processes of the frontal lobe.

Hypnosis can profoundly alter sensory awareness and cognitive processing. While the cognitive and behavioral phenomena associated with hypnosis have long been thought to relate to attentional processes, the neural mechanisms underlying susceptibility to hypnotic induction and the hypnotic condition are poorly understood. Here, we tested the proposal that highly hypnotizable individuals are particularly adept at focusing attention at baseline, but that their attentional control is compromised following hypnosis due to a decoupling between conflict monitoring and cognitive control processes of the frontal lobe.

Psychobiology of altered states of consciousness.

The article reviews the current knowledge regarding altered states of consciousness (ASC) (a) occurring spontaneously, (b) evoked by physical and physiological stimulation, (c) induced by psychological means, and (d) caused by diseases. The emphasis is laid on psychological and neurobiological approaches. The phenomenological analysis of the multiple ASC resulted in 4 dimensions by which they can be characterized: activation, awareness span, self-awareness, and sensory dynamics.

An empirical test of Woody and Bowers's dissociated-control theory of hypnosis.

Woody and Bowers's dissociated-control theory predicts impaired performance on tasks indexing frontally mediated supervisory attentional functions during hypnosis, especially for high susceptibles. This prediction is tested using Stroop task behavioral performance to measure aspects of anterior-mediated supervisory attentional function. All measures of anterior-mediated attentional functions significantly declined during hypnosis.

Weak platelet agonists and U46619 induce apoptosis-like events in platelets, in the absence of phosphatidylserine exposure.

Platelets express apoptotic markers during storage, while aging and after stimulation with strong agonists thrombin and collagen. It is unknown if the weak agonists ADP and epinephrine or U46619, a thromboxane analog, induce the expression of apoptotic markers in platelets. To answer this question, we measured phosphatidylserine exposure, gelsolin cleavage and decrease in membrane mitochondrial potential after stimulation with these agonists.