Publications by authors named "Namik Kirlic"

The psychedelic experience can be challenging. There is a need for a structured framework for providing psychological support to individuals with mental health conditions receiving investigational psilocybin treatment. The primary benefit of such a framework is to support a safe and meaningful psilocybin experience.

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Objective: To determine the relationships between psilocybin dose, psychedelic experiences, and therapeutic outcome in treatment-resistant depression.

Methods: For treatment-resistant depression, 233 participants received a single dose of 25, 10, or 1 mg of COMP360 psilocybin (a proprietary, pharmaceutical-grade synthesized psilocybin formulation, developed by the sponsor, Compass Pathfinder Ltd.) with psychological support.

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Background: Mindfulness training has been shown to promote positive mental health outcomes and related changes in neural networks such as the default mode network, which has a central node in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Previous work from our group reported on the impact of a novel, neurofeedback augmented mindfulness training (NAMT) task on regulation of PCC hemodynamic activity in typically developing adolescents. The present pilot study aimed to expand on this finding by examining the pre-post changes of the NAMT task on resting-state functional connectivity of the PCC.

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Meditation is a family of ancient and contemporary contemplative mind-body practices that can modulate psychological processes, awareness, and mental states. Over the last 40 years, clinical science has manualised meditation practices and designed various meditation interventions (MIs), that have shown therapeutic efficacy for disorders including depression, pain, addiction, and anxiety. Over the past decade, neuroimaging has examined the neuroscientific basis of meditation practices, effects, states, and outcomes for clinical and non-clinical populations.

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  • More and more women are going to prison in the US, with many there for drug-related crimes, and programs to help them get treatment can be helpful.
  • Researchers used a machine learning technique to find out what factors might help predict whether these women would finish their treatment programs.
  • Although the models didn't perfectly predict success, they found that things like impulsive behavior and history of trauma were important in understanding who might complete the program.
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  • * Using functional imaging, the research found that AnxMDD participants showed significantly greater brain activation in key areas related to fear processing when exposed to threatening stimuli compared to those with MDD alone.
  • * The findings imply that comorbid anxiety may influence fear-related brain responses, pinpointing areas for potential treatment strategies in individuals who suffer from both depression and anxiety, which are often more challenging to treat.
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  • This study investigates the effectiveness of exposure-based therapy (EXP) versus behavioral activation (BA) for adults with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), as previous research has primarily focused on EXP without direct comparison to BA.! -
  • Conducted as a randomized clinical trial with 102 participants in Tulsa, OK, both EXP and BA showed significant improvements in GAD symptoms according to the GAD-7 self-report scale after treatment and at a 6-month follow-up.! -
  • Results suggest that while both treatments are effective, BA leads to quicker reductions in anxiety and depression symptoms and overall may provide greater improvement compared to EXP, indicating the need for further research into tailored treatment options for GAD.!
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  • The study explores how people with both anxiety and depression (AD+MDD) have stronger responses to fear than those with just depression (MDD).
  • Researchers looked at brain activity in 195 people while they did a fear learning task.
  • The results showed that people with AD+MDD had more brain activation in areas related to fear, suggesting that their condition is connected to heightened fear responses.
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  • - Adolescents faced heightened levels of anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this study aimed to see if these feelings persisted over time.
  • - A small group of 15 healthy adolescents was assessed for their mental health at three different times (before the pandemic, early on, and later), revealing that symptoms of anxiety and depression remained elevated in the later stages of the pandemic.
  • - Findings suggested that difficulty managing emotions during the early pandemic was linked to increased anxiety and depression later on, indicating a need for further research with larger groups to better understand these trends.
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  • Recent studies show that psilocybin therapy can help people with mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
  • The paper suggests that it's important to look at personal and social factors that affect how ready someone is to try this therapy.
  • To make psilocybin therapy safer and more effective, they propose focusing on how patients present themselves, the relationship between therapists and patients, and ensuring patient safety.
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Introduction: Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) is a cognitive process focusing on self-relevant and negative experiences, leading to a poor prognosis of major depressive disorder (MDD). We previously identified that connectivity between the precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) was positively correlated with levels of RNT.

Objective: In this double-blind, randomized, sham-controlled, proof-of-concept trial, we employed real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback (rtfMRI-nf) to delineate the neural processes that may be causally linked to RNT and could potentially become treatment targets for MDD.

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  • - This study investigated how anxiety and depression affect brain activation during an approach-avoidance decision-making task, comparing responses of 118 affected adults to 58 healthy individuals.
  • - Results showed that those with anxiety or depression exhibited increased striatal engagement when responding to emotional stimuli but decreased striatal activity during reward feedback, along with reduced amygdala activity during decision-making.
  • - The findings suggest that altered neural responses in the striatum and amygdala could help understand anxiety and depression, pointing to potential targets for future treatments.
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  • Researchers studied how college students' mental health changed during the pandemic.
  • They found that many students felt worse, especially in Fall 2020 compared to Fall 2019.
  • Those who stayed mentally strong used better coping strategies and drank less alcohol before the pandemic began.
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  • The study looked at how repetitive negative thinking (RNT) affects thinking abilities in people with eating disorders (EDs) and those without.
  • They found that, in people with EDs, more RNT led to worse verbal learning and memory skills, while in healthy people, more RNT was linked to better skills.
  • Depression seemed to play a role in how RNT affected thinking in people with EDs, suggesting that understanding this connection is important for helping them.
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Background: Dysregulation of fear learning has been associated with psychiatric disorders that have altered positive and negative valence domain function. While amygdala-insula-prefrontal circuitry is considered important for fear learning, there have been inconsistencies in neural findings in healthy and clinical human samples. This study aimed to delineate the neural substrates and behavioral responses during fear learning in a large, transdiagnostic sample with predominantly depressive and/or anxious dysfunction.

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Computational modelling is a promising approach to parse dysfunctional cognitive processes in substance use disorders (SUDs), but it is unclear how much these processes change during the recovery period. We assessed 1-year follow-up data on a sample of treatment-seeking individuals with one or more SUDs (alcohol, cannabis, sedatives, stimulants, hallucinogens, and/or opioids; = 83) that were previously assessed at baseline within a prior computational modelling study. Relative to healthy controls (HCs; = 48), these participants were found at baseline to show altered learning rates and less precise action selection while completing an explore-exploit decision-making task.

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Mindfulness training (MT) reduces self-referential processing and promotes interoception, the perception of sensations from inside the body, by increasing one's awareness of and regulating responses to them. The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and the insular cortex (INS) are considered hubs for self-referential processing and interoception, respectively. Although MT has been consistently found to decrease PCC, little is known about how MT relates to INS activity.

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Mindfulness training (MT) promotes the development of one's ability to observe and attend to internal and external experiences with objectivity and nonjudgment with evidence to improve psychological well-being. Real-time functional MRI neurofeedback (rtfMRI-nf) is a noninvasive method of modulating activity of a brain region or circuit. The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) has been hypothesized to be an important hub instantiating a mindful state.

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Altered interoception, or the processing of bodily signals, has been argued to play a role in the development and maintenance of substance use disorders (SUD). Therefore, interoceptive interventions focusing on bodily awareness, such as mindfulness meditation, may improve treatment outcomes for individuals with SUD. Here we review: (1) subjective, behavioral and brain evidence for altered interoceptive processing in SUD, focusing on insular and anterior cingulate cortices (INS, ACC), key regions for interoceptive processing; (2) research highlighting links between mindfulness and brain function; and (3) extant brain research investigating mindfulness-based interventions in SUD.

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  • Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) is linked to tougher cases of depression, leading to issues like higher recurrence and treatment resistance, which the study explored by examining RNT's impact on reward processing and fear learning.
  • The research involved participants with varying levels of RNT and healthy controls undergoing brain scans while performing tasks related to rewards and fear conditioning.
  • Results indicated that those with very high RNT showed distinct differences in brain activity during fear processing compared to those with high RNT, highlighting the need for targeted treatment approaches based on the severity of RNT.*
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  • The study looked at how people with major depressive disorder (MDD) respond to rewards and how that might predict their success in therapy.
  • They compared MDD patients to healthy people and found that MDD patients reacted faster but had different brain wave patterns when seeing rewards.
  • It was suggested that those with bigger brain responses (P300) when facing challenges were more likely to finish therapy successfully.
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  • * A study of 24 adolescents showed that healthy adolescents experienced increased symptoms of depression and anxiety during the pandemic, while ELS-exposed adolescents maintained stable symptoms.
  • * Healthy adolescents who coped by talking with friends and prioritizing sleep were better protected against anxiety.
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