Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
10 papers
Brain imaging studies (fMRI) show that ADHD is linked to problems in many brain networks that control attention, timing, working memory, motivation, and emotion. There is also evidence that a brain system normally quiet during tasks (the default mode network) does not switch off properly in people with ADHD. Some…
A single dose of psilocybin, a psychedelic that acutely causes distortions of space-time perception and ego dissolution, produces rapid and persistent therapeutic effects in human clinical trials1-4. In animal models, psilocybin induces neuroplasticity in cortex and hippocampus5-8. It remains unclear how human brain network changes relate to subjective and lasting…
In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 25 healthy volunteers each took a single 100 mg dose of MDMA or placebo (one week apart) while their brains were scanned. MDMA produced clear increases in positive mood and caused localized decreases in blood flow in parts of the right medial temporal lobe (including…
Meditation involves attentional regulation and may lead to increased activity in brain regions associated with attention such as dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined whether DLPFC and ACC were activated during meditation. Subjects who meditate were recruited and scanned…
Researchers compared whole-brain resting-state functional connectivity in 21 people with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), 18 people with panic disorder (PD), and 22 matched healthy controls. They used a new measure called scaled correlation to look for differences across the brain. GAD showed stronger connections between the hippocampus/parahippocampus and the fusiform…
This paper reviews task-based fMRI studies of emotion in people with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). The authors narrowed 608 papers down to 30 studies that measured BOLD (blood oxygenation level–dependent) responses during emotional tasks. Results across studies were mixed: some found increased brain responses, some found decreased responses, and some…
This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study gave subanesthetic S‑ketamine to 24 healthy young people while recording fMRI and EEG at rest. After ketamine, fMRI showed less connectivity in the medial prefrontal cortex and more connectivity in left and right intraparietal (parietal) areas of the default mode network. EEG showed more…
This paper is a systematic review and meta-analysis of resting-state fMRI studies that compared people with diagnosed anxiety disorders to healthy controls. The authors searched 1,226 records and then ran a coordinate-based meta-analysis (ALE) only on seed-based rs-fMRI studies because other study types were too few. The meta-analysis found reduced…
This review explains how the brain controls sexual responses and how three neurotransmitter systems (serotonin, dopamine, noradrenaline) can change brain activity during erotic stimulation. The authors describe brain networks for different parts of sexual arousal (thinking/appraisal, feeling/pleasure, wanting/goal-directed, and bodily/autonomic responses). They also say pharmaco-fMRI (brain scans after giving drugs)…
In a brain-imaging study of 30 transgender men, 30 cisgender men, and 35 cisgender women, participants watched angry, neutral, happy, and surprised faces while researchers measured brain activity (fMRI) and brain choline levels (1H-MRS) and asked about anxiety and stress. The researchers found that in transgender men only, choline levels…
