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Recently, there has been growing scientific interest in studying states of selflessness, where there is no sense of self as the immediate subject of experience. Preliminary findings suggest that this state is associated with increased positive emotions and a sense of connection with the world and all living beings. Given its potential benefits, various practices have been developed to induce or cultivate selflessness, including meditation and psychedelic drugs. However, there is a pressing need to explore alternative cost-effective and non-pharmacological approaches to overcome the limitations of these methods. In this regard, Virtual Reality (VR) presents a promising method capable of creating experiences that may be risky, costly, or otherwise unfeasible in the real world. The present study aims to examine whether a multi-person numadelic VR experience could induce a state of selflessness and to investigate its impact on affect, mystical experiences, and peak experiences. A total of 56 volunteers participated in a VR session and completed several self-report questionnaires before, immediately after, and one week following the experience. Preliminary findings suggest that a single multi-person VR experience can engender selflessness and enhance interpersonal connectedness. Additionally, it increases low-arousal positive affect and warmth, and generates mystical and peak experiences in a notable subset of participants. The experience is also widely accepted, with participants reporting few adverse effects. By providing a new research method for accessing selflessness, this study paves the way for further exploration in this field and contributes to a deeper understanding of this complex psychological experience.

Abstract The immersive environments of virtual reality (VR) have potential to engender a vast range of experiences. Although participants recognize these experiences as artificial, the consequences can still be profound. Compared to VR, lucid dreams—characterized by awareness that one is dreaming—potentially allow for even more expansive explorations of immersive multisensory experience. Furthermore, lucid dreaming could conceivably enhance the impact of a prior VR experience, producing more profound effects than the VR experience alone. As an initial step along those lines, we attempted to induce lucid dreams about a VR experience called Ripple, with the goal of documenting the impact of the combination. In prior research, Ripple by itself was shown to reduce self-other boundaries and enhance interconnectedness. We recruited four frequent lucid dreamers to experience Ripple on two occasions, followed by an overnight session with sounds from Ripple presented quietly during polysomnographically verified rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Three participants experienced lucid dreams about Ripple that night, and all four reported dreams containing elements of Ripple. The lucid dreams were validated in real time by physiological signals from the dreamers to indicate their concurrent experience of lucidity in the dream, followed by signals of dreaming about the VR experience. On this basis, we can confirm that it was possible in these circumstances for people to have lucid dreams recapitulating elements of the prior VR experience. Our findings also showcase how the synergistic combination of VR and lucid dreaming could be strongly beneficial.

A Quality Improvement Group for Māori oral health providers [Indigenous New Zealand oral health services] has been an effective and necessary mechanism for engaging Indigenous oral health expertise in decision-making for Indigenous oral health policy and sector developments to reduce oral health inequalities and improve Indigenous oral health outcomes.

A Quality Improvement Group for Māori oral health providers [Indigenous New Zealand oral health services] has been an effective and necessary mechanism for engaging Indigenous oral health expertise in decision-making for Indigenous oral health policy and sector developments to reduce oral health inequalities and improve Indigenous oral health outcomes.

Self-transcendent experiences (STEs) offer profound and beneficial shifts in perspective, yet remain largely inaccessible outside elite contemplative or pharmacological contexts. Neural measures have deepened our understanding of these states, but their cost and limited ecological validity constrain broader application. This study evaluates heart rate variability (HRV) amplitude, a measure reflecting dynamic sympathovagal engagement, as a cost-effective and sustainable physiological marker of STE during ‘numadelic’ virtual reality (VR) experiences. The unique numadelic aesthetic combined with multi-person can induce STE through dissolving self-boundaries and fostering embodied presence. Building on previous work linking non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC) with autonomic nervous system activity during psychedelic drug administration, we tested the hypothesis that HRV amplitude may reflect STE depth and relate to affective and relational outcomes during non-drug numadelic VR experiences. Specifically, ninety-six participants engaged in guided meditation within either a numadelic VR setting or a non-VR audio-guided group format. Physiological data (cardiac activity and respiration) were recorded during the meditation, alongside psychological assessments pre- and post-session. Findings confirm that HRV amplitude measured during numadelic VR correlates with subjective STE ratings. It also relates to compassion traits, and emotional improvement following VR practice. Additional analysis of data from a prior psychedelic drug study further validated the relevance of this measure across methods of inducing NOSCs. These results advance the psychophysiological mapping of STEs and highlight HRV amplitude as a potential real-time biomarker which may help to guide participants toward self-transcendent states within adaptive environments. By integrating contemplative science with immersive design, this work supports the development of scalable tools that enhance both access to and understanding of STEs.

Controllable arrays of ions and ultracold atoms can simulate complex many-body phenomena and may provide insights into unsolved problems in modern science. To this end, experimentally feasible protocols for quantifying the buildup of quantum correlations and coherence are needed, as performing full state tomography does not scale favourably with the number of particles. Here we develop and experimentally demonstrate such a protocol, which uses time reversal of the many-body dynamics to measure out-of-time-order correlation functions (OTOCs) in a long-range Ising spin quantum simulator with more than 100 ions in a Penning trap. By measuring a family of OTOCs as a function of a tunable parameter we obtain fine-grained information about the state of the system encoded in the multiple quantum coherence spectrum, extract the quantum state purity, and demonstrate the buildup of up to 8-body correlations. Future applications of this protocol could enable studies of many-body localization, quantum phase transitions, and tests of the holographic duality between quantum and gravitational systems. Characterizing the correlations of quantum many-body systems is known to be hard, but there are ways around: for example, a new method for measuring out-of-time correlations demonstrated in a Penning trap quantum simulator with over 100 ions.

Quantum simulation of spin models can provide insight into problems that are difficult or impossible to study with classical computers. Trapped ions are an established platform for quantum simulation, but only systems with fewer than 20 ions have demonstrated quantum correlations. We studied quantum spin dynamics arising from an engineered, homogeneous Ising interaction in a two-dimensional array of ⁹Be⁺ ions in a Penning trap. We verified entanglement in spin-squeezed states of up to 219 ions, directly observing 4.0 ± 0.9 decibels of spectroscopic enhancement, and observed states with non-Gaussian statistics consistent with oversqueezed states. The good agreement with ab initio theory that includes interactions and decoherence lays the groundwork for simulations of the transverse-field Ising model with variable-range interactions, which are generally intractable with classical methods.

Interleukin (IL)-17a has been highly conserved during evolution of the vertebrate immune system and widely studied in contexts of infection and autoimmunity. Studies suggest that IL-17a promotes behavioral changes in experimental models of autism and aggregation behavior in worms. Here, through a cellular and molecular characterization of meningeal γδ17 T cells, we defined the nearest central nervous system–associated source of IL-17a under homeostasis. Meningeal γδ T cells express high levels of the chemokine receptor CXCR6 and seed meninges shortly after birth. Physiological release of IL-17a by these cells was correlated with anxiety-like behavior in mice and was partially dependent on T cell receptor engagement and commensal-derived signals. IL-17a receptor was expressed in cortical glutamatergic neurons under steady state and its genetic deletion decreased anxiety-like behavior in mice. Our findings suggest that IL-17a production by meningeal γδ17 T cells represents an evolutionary bridge between this conserved anti-pathogen molecule and survival behavioral traits in vertebrates. IL-17a is an evolutionarily conserved cytokine with behavior-modulating roles in the central nervous system. Kipnis and colleagues characterize a population of meningeal γδ17 T cells that use IL-17a to elicit anxiety-like behavior through cortical glutamatergic neurons.