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<td><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;">PsyPost – Psychology News Daily Digest (Unofficial)</span></td>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/dmt-harmine-combination-elevates-transcendence-and-insight-during-meditation/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">DMT-harmine combination elevates transcendence and insight during meditation</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 7th 2024, 10:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02698811241282637"><em>Journal of Psychopharmacology</em></a> highlights the potential synergy between meditation and psychedelics. Meditators who received a combination of DMT and harmine reported greater mystical experiences, non-dual awareness, emotional breakthroughs, and lasting increases in well-being compared to those given a placebo.</p>
<p>DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine) is a powerful psychedelic compound that induces intense, short-lived experiences of altered consciousness. It is naturally found in many plants, including those used in the traditional Amazonian brew ayahuasca. DMT is known for producing vivid visual hallucinations, profound mystical experiences, and a temporary breakdown of the sense of self.</p>
<p>However, when consumed alone, DMT is quickly broken down by the body, limiting its effects. To prolong these effects, harmine, a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI), is combined with DMT. Harmine slows down the breakdown of DMT, allowing it to remain active longer in the body.</p>
<p>Meditation and psychedelics are both known to promote psychological insight, emotional regulation, and well-being, but they have typically been studied independently. Prior research has suggested that psychedelics can enhance meditation, but much of this research has focused on psilocybin. Given that DMT, when combined with harmine, can produce long-lasting effects similar to those reported in ayahuasca ceremonies, the researchers wanted to investigate whether DMT-harmine could enhance meditation in a similar way.</p>
<p>“Meditation and psychedelics have attracted increasing interest from science and society over the past few years, mostly for their respective potential benefits for mental health and well-being,” said study author Daniel Meling, a cognitive scientist affiliated with the Psychedelic Research & Therapy Development group at the University of Zurich.</p>
<p>“Initial studies have started to look at potential synergistic effects between meditation and psychedelics for increasing their benefits and limiting their risks for adverse effects. With this study, we explored the potential effects of DMT-harmine on mindfulness, compassion, insight, and transcendence during a meditation retreat with experienced meditators.”</p>
<p>The study involved 40 experienced meditators (18 females and 22 males) who were randomly assigned to receive either the DMT-harmine combination or a placebo during a double-blind, placebo-controlled 3-day meditation retreat. The participants, with an average of over 2,400 hours of meditation experience, were recruited from various meditation traditions, such as Zen and Tibetan Buddhism.</p>
<p>The retreat took place at a Zen meditation center in Switzerland, where participants practiced mindfulness and compassion meditation through daily group sessions. On the second day, the participants received either DMT-harmine or a placebo in incremental doses throughout the day. They engaged in sitting and walking meditation interspersed with vital sign measurements and psychometric evaluations to assess their experiences.</p>
<p>Several psychological measures were used to assess the effects of the retreat. These included questionnaires on mindfulness, compassion, insight, and mystical experiences, which were filled out before, during, and after the retreat, as well as one month later. The researchers also asked participants to rate how meaningful and spiritually significant their experiences were at the 1-month follow-up.</p>
<p>The researchers found that participants in the DMT-harmine group reported higher levels of mystical-type experiences, non-dual awareness, and emotional breakthroughs during the retreat compared to the placebo group. These participants also showed a greater increase in psychological insight one day after the retreat.</p>
<p>Notably, participants in the DMT-harmine group rated their experience as more personally meaningful and spiritually significant than those in the placebo group. At the 1-month follow-up, 45% of the participants in the DMT-harmine group rated the experience as one of the top five most meaningful events in their lives, compared to none in the placebo group. Similarly, 55% of the DMT-harmine group reported significant increases in well-being or life satisfaction, compared to just 15% in the placebo group.</p>
<p>However, the DMT-harmine combination did not significantly enhance mindfulness or compassion compared to placebo. While both groups showed increased mindfulness during the retreat, there was no significant difference between them. Similarly, compassion scores, both for oneself and for others, did not differ significantly between the DMT-harmine and placebo groups.</p>
<p>“Some recent studies have started to look at the similarities between meditation and psychedelics, and some have even suggested that psychedelics may increase mindfulness and prosocial behavior,” Meling told PsyPost. “Our study found that the psychedelic compound combination DMT-harmine did not increase mindfulness and compassion to a larger extent than meditation with a placebo. The main differences we found were for insight and transcendence.”</p>
<p>These findings contribute to the growing body of research exploring the potential synergies between meditation and psychedelics. However, the study, like all research, includes some caveats. One limitation is the “breaking blind” problem, which is common in psychedelic research. Many participants (82%) accurately guessed whether they had received DMT-harmine or a placebo, which could have influenced their responses.</p>
<p>“While it is important to not overgeneralize these results, they may provide an important indicator of potential differences between psychedelics and meditation, and therefore offer interesting insights into how psychedelics and certain styles of meditation practice could complement each other to maximize benefits and minimize risks,” Meling said. “While this study provides a pointer in this direction, much more research is required to test such hypotheses around the exact synergistic effects between psychedelics and meditation.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02698811241282637">Meditating on psychedelics. A randomized placebo-controlled study of DMT and harmine in a mindfulness retreat</a>,” was authored by Daniel Meling, Klemens Egger, Helena D. Aicher, Javier Jareño Redondo, Jovin Mueller, Joëlle Dornbierer, Elijah Temperli, Emilia A. Vasella, Luzia Caflisch, David J. Pfeiffer, Jonas T.T. Schlomberg, John W. Smallridge, Dario A. Dornbierer, and Milan Scheidegger.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/research-reveals-widening-gap-in-fertility-desires-between-republicans-and-democrats/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Research reveals widening gap in fertility desires between Republicans and Democrats</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 7th 2024, 08:00</div>
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<p><p>A study published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.13000"><em>Journal of Marriage and Family</em></a> has found that political identity is increasingly influencing the number of children young adults desire to have. Spanning three decades, the research found that young Republicans consistently expressed a stronger desire for larger families compared to their Democratic counterparts, with this gap widening over time. By 2019, Republicans wanted more children than ever compared to their Democratic peers, a pattern the researchers believe may affect demographic trends in the United States.</p>
<p>The study was motivated by a growing interest in how identities shape personal choices. While many studies have looked at how factors such as religion, gender roles, and socioeconomic status impact family size, political identity has been less frequently explored. However, political identity has become a significant part of how people see themselves, especially in the U.S., where party affiliation influences not just political views, but also lifestyle choices and social norms.</p>
<p>With fertility rates falling and political polarization on the rise, the researchers sought to understand if young adults’ political beliefs were linked to their fertility desires, potentially revealing new insights into future demographic trends.</p>
<p>To investigate, researchers Heather Rackin and Christina Gibson-Davis analyzed data from the Monitoring the Future (MTF) study, which surveys 12th graders across the United States about their values, beliefs, and behaviors. The MTF study, which began in 1975, is one of the few nationally representative data sets that tracks both political identity and fertility desires in young adults.</p>
<p>The sample used in this analysis included 67,557 participants surveyed between 1989 and 2019. Participants were asked how many children they wanted and to describe their political identity as either Republican, Democrat, or “Other,” which included independents or those without a preference. The study also gathered information on participants’ gender role attitudes, religiosity, and thoughts about childbearing to understand how these factors might explain partisan differences in fertility desires.</p>
<p>The results showed clear and consistent partisan differences. Across all time periods, Republicans wanted more children than Democrats. On average, Republicans desired 2.56 children, compared to 2.44 children among Democrats. The difference was small at first—just 0.06 children in the early years of the study—but it grew substantially over time. By the final period, 2014–2019, Republicans wanted 0.20 more children than Democrats. In particular, Republicans were more likely to want large families with four or more children, while Democrats increasingly expressed a preference for small families or even no children at all.</p>
<p>This partisan divide became more pronounced after 2003, a turning point in the study’s timeline. Before 2003, Republican and Democratic fertility desires were closer, with both groups fluctuating in their desires for larger or smaller families. But starting in the mid-2000s, Republicans began to consistently express a stronger preference for bigger families, while Democrats moved in the opposite direction, with an increasing number expressing a desire to be childless. The gap in fertility desires plateaued at high levels after 2003, suggesting that the divide between the two groups had become entrenched.</p>
<p>The researchers found that part of the reason for the partisan divide in fertility desires was linked to differences in religious beliefs and attitudes toward gender roles. Republicans were more likely to be religious and to support traditional gender roles, both of which have been shown in previous research to be associated with a desire for more children. Democrats, on the other hand, were less religious and more likely to support gender equality, which often correlates with smaller family sizes.</p>
<p>However, even after adjusting for these factors, political identity remained a strong and independent predictor of fertility desires. This suggests that party affiliation itself, beyond religious and gender views, is shaping how many children young adults want.</p>
<p>In addition to analyzing the number of children desired, the researchers also looked at the distribution of fertility desires. They found that the growing gap between Republicans and Democrats was driven by differences at the extremes of the fertility spectrum. After 2003, Republicans became significantly more likely to want very large families (four or more children), while Democrats became more likely to want no children at all.</p>
<p>For example, in the period from 2004 to 2008, 20% of young Republicans said they wanted four or more children, compared to just 15% of Democrats. By the period from 2014 to 2019, 7% of Democrats expressed a desire to remain childless, compared to 4% of Republicans.</p>
<p>The study’s findings point to several important trends. First, it shows that political identity is now a significant factor in fertility desires, on par with or even exceeding traditional factors like religiosity and gender role attitudes. Second, the results suggest that political affiliation has become more strongly linked to personal life decisions over time. In the 1980s and 1990s, the gap between Republican and Democratic fertility desires was relatively small and largely explained by differences in religious beliefs. But after 2003, political identity itself became a stronger predictor, independent of these other factors. This indicates that party affiliation may be influencing more aspects of people’s lives, including decisions about family size.</p>
<p>However, the researchers acknowledge that their study has some limitations. First, the data only includes 12th graders, which means the findings may not apply to older adults or young people who do not complete high school. Additionally, the study measures fertility desires, not actual fertility behavior. While fertility desires are a strong predictor of how many children people will eventually have, they do not always translate into reality. Other life events, such as career changes, financial difficulties, or health problems, may influence whether young people follow through on their early desires.</p>
<p>Finally, the researchers note that their analysis is correlational, not causal. While political identity is linked to fertility desires, the study does not prove that party affiliation causes people to want more or fewer children. Other unmeasured factors, such as views on climate change or abortion, may also play a role.</p>
<p>Future research could explore how these findings evolve as today’s young adults move into their childbearing years. It could also examine how other social identities, such as environmentalism or feminism, interact with political affiliation to shape fertility decisions. Understanding the connection between political identity and fertility desires is important not only for predicting future population trends but also for understanding how deeply political polarization affects everyday life.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jomf.13000">Youth’s political identity and fertility desires</a>,” was authored by Heather M. Rackin and Christina M. Gibson-Davis.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/how-does-memory-shape-attention-scientists-have-a-fascinating-answer/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">How does memory shape attention? Scientists have a fascinating answer</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 7th 2024, 06:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study, published in the <em><a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2024-38477-001?doi=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition</a></em>, challenges previous assumptions about the automatic nature of the relationship between memory and attention. The researchers found that while eye movements are attracted to information retrieved from long-term memory, this influence on attention is not automatic. Instead, actively holding retrieved information in mind is necessary for it to guide attention.</p>
<p>Memory plays a vital role in everyday life, helping us navigate familiar environments, recognize faces, and complete tasks. However, not all memories are useful all the time. Sometimes, memories can be distracting or irrelevant, pulling our attention away from what we need to focus on. Previous research has focused on how controlling memory retrieval affects what we can later recall. However, the researchers in this study wanted to investigate a more immediate effect: how controlling memory retrieval affects where we direct our attention at that very moment.</p>
<p>“Although being able to remember information stored in memory is crucial for daily living, it is not always desirable,” said study author Mrinmayi Kulkarni, a postdoctoral fellow at the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto. “In some cases, it may be beneficial to control memory retrieval. For instance, imagine that you are concentrating on a difficult writing assignment, and one of the words in the text reminds you of an event from your personal life. Information retrieved from long-term memory has the ability to grab your attention and disrupt your ability to complete the task at hand.”</p>
<p>“In such cases, it may be important to push the retrieved memory out of your mind so that you can complete your assignment. This is especially important when the memories are unpleasant or traumatic. In fact, the involuntary retrieval and re-living of traumatic experiences (called ‘flashbacks’) is a common symptom associated with conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).”</p>
<p>For their study, the researchers recruited 32 right-handed students from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, with data from 26 participants being analyzed after excluding those with unreliable eye-tracking results. The experiment involved four phases: an initial encoding phase, a test-and-encode phase, a memory regulation and visual search phase, and a final recognition test.</p>
<p>In the encoding phase, participants memorized a series of scene-object pairs, which included three faces and three tools paired with various scenes. The objects were simple and easily recognizable, and the participants were encouraged to form meaningful associations between the objects and the scenes to aid in memory retention. For example, they might think about how likely it was to find a specific person in a certain place or how a tool might be used in that setting.</p>
<p>To ensure proper learning, participants then underwent a test-and-encode phase where their memory for the scene-object pairs was tested and reinforced. Each scene was shown again, and participants had the chance to confirm the correct object pairing, thus solidifying their memory of the associations.</p>
<p>The core of the experiment was the memory regulation and visual search phase. Here, participants were given specific instructions to either retrieve, suppress, or substitute a memory. In the retrieval condition, participants were asked to recall the object associated with a scene. In the suppression condition, they were instructed to avoid thinking about the associated object. In the substitution condition, participants were told to replace the object with a different one from another category (for example, replacing a face with a tool).</p>
<p>After a delay, participants viewed a display containing all the objects along with black dots and were instructed to look at the display freely until all but one dot disappeared. Eye movements during this phase were tracked to observe where participants directed their attention in relation to the objects.</p>
<p>The study’s findings revealed that attention, as measured through eye movements, was strongly influenced by memory retrieval. In the retrieval condition, participants looked more often at the object they had been asked to recall, suggesting that retrieved memories actively attract attention.</p>
<p>“Our results show that when participants are allowed to retrieve their memories without any control, they are more likely to pay attention to the information they are retrieving, even if that information is irrelevant to the task participants are instructed to perform,” Kulkarni told PsyPost.</p>
<p>In contrast, when participants were instructed to suppress or substitute the memory, they spent less time looking at the associated object. In some cases, especially with tools, participants’ attention to the suppressed objects fell below chance levels, indicating active suppression of the memory. In the substitution condition, participants’ eye movements often shifted toward the object from the other category, showing that they were successfully replacing the memory with the substitute.</p>
<p>“We found that when participants attempt to control their memories—by trying either to push the retrieved memories out of their minds or by replacing the memory with other information—the retrieved information exerted much less influence on their attention,” Kulkarni explained. “These results suggest that the link between memory and attention may not be automatic, as was previously thought. Instead, retrieving information and actively holding it in mind might be necessary for the information to influence attention.”</p>
<p>Interestingly, the study also found differences based on the type of object being retrieved. Memories of tools were more easily suppressed or replaced than memories of faces, which remained more resistant to memory control efforts. In the final recognition test, participants were less likely to accurately recall the scene-tool associations after trying to suppress or replace the memories, while scene-face pairs were less affected. This suggests that faces may be more deeply encoded or more challenging to suppress than other types of objects.</p>
<p>“Finally, we also found that controlling memory retrieval weakens the memory itself,” Kulkarni said. “In a surprise memory test administered at the end of the experiment, participants’ memory for information that had been controlled was worse than information that was retrieved. This indicates that, in addition to reducing the influence of retrieved information on attention in the moment, controlling memory retrieval might have long-term effects on memory.”</p>
<p>The researchers were also surprised to discover that participants’ ability to successfully control their memories appeared to vary depending on the type of memory they were trying to suppress.</p>
<p>“In the experiment, participants were more effective at suppressing memory for tools, relative to memory for famous faces,” Kulkarni said. “This might suggest one of two things: first, the way that the brain processes and stores faces is different from the way it stores other types of information (in this case, tools). Second, faces are a special type of stimulus.”</p>
<p>“Past research shows that faces are biologically relevant. We encounter a lot of faces in our lives, and they can tell us important information, such as the identity, mood, and threat level of a person. Because of the importance of faces in our lives as social animals, face stimuli might be more resistant to being forgotten following memory control. Additionally, the use of famous faces might have enabled participants to build richer narratives to remember them by, making them less likely to be forgotten.”</p>
<p>But the study, like all research, has some caveats to consider. “A major caveat here was that the materials we used were all emotionally neutral (e.g., pictures of buildings, streets, faces, and tools),” Kulkarni noted. “We know from past work that emotional stimuli, particularly negative materials, are treated slightly differently from neutral stimuli by the brain. Hence, before this work can be applied to clinical populations such as individuals with depression or PTSD, we need more research to examine how these effects translate when participants have to control memories for unpleasant information.”</p>
<p>Furthermore, while eye-tracking provided a valuable tool for measuring attention, the study didn’t fully explore how individual differences in memory strength or suppression ability might influence the results. Some participants may have found it easier or harder to control their memory retrieval, and these differences could affect how memory and attention interact. Future research could investigate these individual differences in more detail, potentially using neuroimaging techniques to measure brain activity.</p>
<p>“In the next steps for this project, we hope to probe how the brain accomplishes memory control,” Kulkarni said. “We plan to examine which parts of the brain are involved in this process, and how they interact to enable memory suppression.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001321" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Control of memory retrieval alters memory-based eye movements</a>,” was authored by Mrinmayi Kulkarni, Allison E. Nickel, Greta N. Minor, and Deborah E. Hannula.</p></p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/your-zoom-background-could-influence-how-tired-you-feel-after-a-video-call/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Your Zoom background could influence how tired you feel after a video call</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 6th 2024, 14:00</div>
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<p><p><strong>As remote working remains common for many people, so does sitting in video calls. On many videoconferencing platforms users can set virtual backgrounds. But could this choice have varying effects on how tired people feel after a video call?</strong> <strong>Researchers investigated and found that video backgrounds leave people feeling more fatigued than any other background option, but scenes of nature help you stay more focused.</strong></p>
<p>Part of many people’s pandemic experience included working from home. Even after lockdowns, videoconferencing remains a big part of life as people continue to work remotely, connect with families and friends online, and attend virtual events hosted on videoconferencing platforms.</p>
<p>Spending hours on video calls, however, can be exhausting and manifest as physical, emotional, or cognitive tiredness – a phenomenon known as videoconferencing fatigue (VF). Now, researchers in Singapore have asked if a relationship between virtual backgrounds and VF exists and what the underlying mechanisms are.</p>
<p>“We show that the use of different types and contents of virtual backgrounds can contribute to VF,” said Heng Zhang, co-author of the study published in <em>Frontiers in Psychology</em> and a researcher at the Nanyang Technological University Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information. “Users who utilize video virtual backgrounds experience higher levels of VF compared to those who use image or blurred virtual backgrounds.”</p>
<h2>Tiring backgrounds</h2>
<p>The researchers carried out a survey with more than 600 participants in which they asked people whether they use virtual backgrounds, and what type of background (static image, blurred image, video, or no virtual background) they choose. The researchers also measured VF using a five-point scale that indicated levels of general, visual, social, motivational, and emotional fatigue. Participants were aged between 22 and 76 years and worked from home around three days a week.</p>
<p>The results showed that participants who use video backgrounds experienced the highest levels of VF. Users who use blurred backgrounds also experienced higher VF than those who use static images. “Our brains automatically react to new information in the environment. This consumes cognitive resources, which then increases cognitive load and consequently leads to VF,” Zhang explained.</p>
<p>The key, the researchers said, is how much new information is contained in the background. “Image backgrounds initially present new information, but users might gradually shift their attention elsewhere. Blurred backgrounds don’t introduce new information, but occasionally users may catch glimpses of the real environment, which presents new information. Video backgrounds, however, continuously introduce new information, constantly interrupting users’ attention and putting a demand on cognitive resources.”</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1408481/full">Read and download original article</a></p>
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<h2>Virtual nature</h2>
<p>In addition to the type of background, the environment that is depicted in the background can also influence VF. “Users who use nature-themed backgrounds report lower levels of VF compared to others,” Zhang said. Other backgrounds, such as office settings or public spaces can increase users’ pressure to self-present as if they actually were in one of those settings, leading to increased fatigue. “In a work setting, a nature-themed image background might be the ideal choice,” Zhang pointed out.</p>
<p>When being on calls in relaxed settings, participants who used lighthearted and funny backgrounds reported the lowest VF levels. It is important that users choose backgrounds appropriately, as different contexts call for different types of backgrounds, the authors said. Making thoughtful choices could not only enhance meeting effectiveness, but also improve the users’ psychological experience, reducing the fatigue associated with videoconferencing.</p>
<h2>Optimizing video calls</h2>
<p>Their study provides a scientific foundation for further optimizing the videoconferencing experience and helping users make more informed choices, the researchers said. These insights may be especially valuable to users who use video calls in their work and could help them maintain well-being while maximizing the benefits of this way of working.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the authors said that further study is needed to focus on how different age groups and video call purposes influence the relationship between virtual backgrounds and VF. In addition – and despite of the fact that many people spend significant amounts of time watching themselves when on a video call – the role of other users’ backgrounds on VF needs to be investigated. “A more comprehensive understanding of the role of virtual backgrounds in videoconferencing could provide more targeted recommendations for future research and practice,” concluded Zhang.</p>
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<td><a href="https://www.psypost.org/new-study-reveals-distinct-brain-connectivity-in-insomnia-subtypes/" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">New study reveals distinct brain connectivity in insomnia subtypes</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Oct 6th 2024, 12:00</div>
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<p><p>A recent study published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2024.06.014" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Biological Psychiatry</a></em> sheds new light on the neurological differences between different types of insomnia. The research suggests that structural brain connectivity – how different regions of the brain are wired together – differs across four of five insomnia subtypes. These findings could lead to more targeted treatment approaches for individuals who struggle with insomnia, offering hope that therapies could one day be tailored to an individual’s specific brain characteristics.</p>
<p>Insomnia affects a large portion of the population, with approximately 10% of adults in Europe suffering from it. People with insomnia experience trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up too early, and these disruptions often lead to difficulties functioning during the day. Beyond the immediate discomfort, insomnia is associated with a higher risk of other health issues, including cardiovascular problems, obesity, and mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety. Cognitive behavioral therapy is commonly used to treat insomnia, but it doesn’t work for everyone, even when combined with medication.</p>
<p>To improve treatment outcomes, scientists believe that a better understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying insomnia is necessary. Previous neuroimaging studies have provided some insight, suggesting that insomnia may involve disruptions in large-scale brain networks such as the default mode network and the salience network. However, findings have been inconsistent. One reason could be the considerable variation among individuals with insomnia – a disorder that might not have a one-size-fits-all cause or treatment.</p>
<p>Recently, researchers discovered five distinct insomnia subtypes, each with its own profile of distress levels and personality traits. These subtypes were identified through a data-driven approach, rather than being based solely on sleep patterns, making the classification more robust. The goal of the current study was to examine whether these subtypes also differ in their brain structure. If these structural differences could be identified, it could open up new possibilities for more personalized treatment approaches.</p>
<p>“When we started to think about subtypes years ago, we considered that different combinations of minor deviations (towards the sides of the normal distribution) in brain circuits could have a final common path of a brain vulnerable to insomnia. At that time, no big database with MRI data in people with insomnia was available. Therefore, we tried to assess proxy measures for individual differences in brain circuits,” explained study author <a href="https://nin.nl/research-groups/van-someren/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Eus van Someren</a>, a professor at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience.</p>
<p>“We selected a large number of life history, mood, and personality trait questionnaires that had been associated with individual differences in brain circuits. We implemented them on our website ‘<a href="https://slaapregister.nl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">slaapregister.nl</a>‘ for volunteers to fill out. Thousands of people completed the long list of questionnaires. We used data-driven clustering approaches to find specific profiles of scores on the questionnaires within the people that suffered from insomnia.”</p>
<p>“So, it has been on purpose that we assessed multiple non-sleep characteristics for the very reason that they reflect individual differences in brain circuits. We showed that specific combinations of higher scores (reflecting specific combinations of profiles of slightly deviating brain structure) can indeed all prime people towards vulnerability to insomnia. This new paper, led by Tom Bresser from my research group, has now found the first brain structural differences associated with the subtypes.”</p>
<p>To investigate these potential brain differences, the researchers collected data from 204 people with insomnia and compared them to 73 individuals without sleep complaints. These participants were recruited through the Netherlands Sleep Registry and underwent a series of evaluations to determine their level of insomnia and assign them to one of the five insomnia subtypes.</p>
<p>The researchers focused on three key brain regions: the frontal, orbitofrontal, and temporal areas. These regions were chosen because they are thought to be linked to the mood and personality traits that distinguish different insomnia subtypes.</p>
<p>To assess brain connectivity, the researchers used a technique called diffusion-weighted imaging, which measures the structural connections, or “wiring,” between different parts of the brain. They specifically looked at the white matter, which forms the connections between brain regions, using measures such as fractional anisotropy, streamline volume density, and mean diffusivity to capture the integrity of these connections.</p>
<p>The study then compared the brain connectivity patterns of the individuals with insomnia to those of the control group without sleep complaints. Importantly, the researchers conducted permutation tests – a method of statistical testing – to confirm that the observed differences were specific to the insomnia subtypes and not just random variations in the data.</p>
<p>The researchers found that four of the five insomnia subtypes had distinct profiles of brain connectivity deviations when compared to people without insomnia.</p>
<p>The <strong>highly distressed</strong> subtype had the most pronounced deviations, particularly in the default mode network. This network is responsible for functions such as self-reflection, daydreaming, and mind-wandering. In people with insomnia, the default mode network might be hyperactive, leading to excessive internal focus, possibly contributing to the rumination and emotional distress often experienced by people with this subtype. The connectivity deviations in this network were far less pronounced in the other subtypes, suggesting that this may be a key feature of the highly distressed group.</p>
<p>By contrast, the <strong>moderately distressed reward-sensitive</strong> subtype displayed fewer deviations overall, particularly in the ventral attention network. This network is involved in shifting attention and responding to unexpected or important stimuli in the environment. The relatively lower connectivity deviations in this group suggest that their insomnia may not be driven by heightened sensitivity to external stimuli, which could explain why they might experience less distress compared to the highly distressed group.</p>
<p>The study also revealed that the <strong>slightly distressed low-reactive</strong> subtype exhibited significant deviations in the ventral attention network, indicating that this group might have heightened sensitivity to environmental changes or disruptions. In contrast, the <strong>slightly distressed high-reactive</strong> subtype showed more widespread deviations across several networks, including the somatomotor and limbic networks, which are involved in movement, sensory processing, and emotional regulation. This suggests that this group may have more general disruptions in brain connectivity that contribute to their experience of insomnia.</p>
<p>The fifth subtype, known as the <strong>moderately distressed reward-insensitive</strong> subtype, did not show significant or specific deviations in brain connectivity when compared to the other four subtypes. This lack of notable connectivity differences may suggest that this group’s experience of insomnia is not as strongly linked to the brain network disruptions observed in the other subtypes.</p>
<p>One particularly interesting finding was that some subtypes exhibited opposing connectivity patterns. For instance, while one subtype might show increased connectivity between certain regions, another might show decreased connectivity in the same areas. This suggests that the same symptoms of insomnia, such as difficulty sleeping or early morning awakening, may arise from very different underlying brain mechanisms depending on the subtype.</p>
<p>The findings demonstrate that “people with quite different small deviations in brain connectivity can experience the same insomnia complaints,” van Someren told PsyPost.</p>
<p>One limitation of the study is that while the researchers identified five distinct insomnia subtypes based on personality and mood traits, they cannot be certain whether more subtypes exist beyond the ones they uncovered. The data-driven approach they used allowed them to differentiate these five groups, but given the complexity of insomnia and its underlying brain mechanisms, there could be additional subtypes.</p>
<p>Van Someren noted that in their previous research, he and his colleagues discovered that insomnia subtypes differ in their lifetime risk for mood and anxiety disorders. This is significant because, while many studies had already shown insomnia to be a major risk factor for these disorders, there was previously no way to predict which individuals with insomnia were more likely to develop them.</p>
<p>“Subtyping increases the accuracy of the prediction. Some subtypes have a high risk, others no elevated risk at all, independent of the severity of sleep complaints,” van Someren explained. “The new findings have relevance as well for trying to understand brain characteristics underlying vulnerability versus resilience to mood and anxiety disorders.”</p>
<p>“Given these findings on the importance of subtyping to prioritize people at risk for preventive intervention, we are now recruiting people with current anxiety disorder for a large study to evaluate whether they may recover faster if we improve their sleep.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322324014185" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Insomnia Subtypes Have Differentiating Deviations in Brain Structural Connectivity</a>,” was authored by Tom Bresser, Tessa F. Blanken, Siemon C. de Lange, Jeanne Leerssen,<br>
Jessica C. Foster-Dingley, Oti Lakbila-Kamal, Rick Wassing, Jennifer R. Ramautar, Diederick Stoffers, Martijn P. van den Heuvel, and Eus J.W. Van Someren.</p></p>
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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