Biology subjects

Callara, A. L.

Publications and source records attributed to Callara, A. L..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Longitudinal Characterization of a Novel Class of Recurrent, Stereotyped Neurophysiological Events in an Advanced Meditator

Seven EEG recordings over thirteen months revealed highly stereotyped transitions between distinct brain dynamics in an advanced meditator, providing a rare experimental window onto large-scale brain-state dynamics. We report an intensive longitudinal EEG case study of an experienced Tibetan tantric practitioner recorded across seven different measurement sessions, including concentrative and analytical meditation, three Dissolution of Elements sessions, nap, and reading sessions. Across conditions, the EEG repeatedly entered abrupt and reversible "ON" periods lasting tens of seconds. These periods were characterized by high-amplitude delta-theta activity, a structured 7-8 Hz component, fronto-central predominance, and a recurrent transient complex preceding state onset. Compared with matched pre- and post-event intervals, ON periods showed increased spectral power and directed connectivity, reduced relative variability, and high cross-session similarity, consistent with a recurrent and stereotyped macroscopic neurophysiological regime. Additional analyses did not support a straightforward explanation in terms of respiratory-rate changes, sleep-related variations, or overt movement artifacts. During Dissolution of Elements meditation event counts were consistent with the reported structure of the practice. However, given the current state of knowledge about the phenomenon, there is insufficient evidence to establish a close association with either the type of meditation session or the specific practices undertaken during the practitioners many years of retreat. We therefore distinguish the robust observation of a recurrent EEG regime from the more tentative hypothesis that it is related to advanced tantric meditative practice. What does appear to be well documented, however, is an unusual, abrupt, and reversible large-scale EEG reconfiguration in a deeply phenotyped expert volunteer, highlighting the value of intensive longitudinal single-participant designs for identifying and characterizing rare neurophysiological phenomena.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Physiologically Informed PCA-Partial Correlation for highly Collinear Brainstem fMRI Networks

Functional connectivity (FC) approaches from resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) are amply spread to investigate the cortical organization, yet the brainstem remains relatively underexplored despite its pivotal roles in both physiological and pathological conditions. The highly collinear network, in which the strongly interconnected nodes and the widespread neuromodulatory influences induce indirect or mediated interactions, make the estimation of direct brainstem FC challenging. Standard bivariate methods fail to recover the true network structure in such complex topologies, causing false positive interactions. On the other hand, partial correlation can potentially estimate the direct FC, but multicollinearity issues and collider-induced spurious correlations limit its application in high-dimensional scenarios. Here, we propose a physiologically informed framework in which the conditioning strategy for partial correlation estimation is tailored for the investigation of the brainstem and its direct interactions within the network and with whole-brain regions. Specifically, we employed a PCA-regularized partial correlation (PCA - {rho}PC) approach, where PCA is applied to the brainstem covariates to mitigate multicollinearity and model shared modulatory variance. We show that PCA - {rho}PC improves the robustness and interpretability of brainstem FC, yielding sparser and more physiologically plausible connectomes compared with conventional (regularized) approaches. Both simulation and real fMRI data raise the possibility that Pearsons and PCA-regularized approaches may complement each other in an effort to unravel the pattern of direct vs. indirect effects in highly collinear settings, paving the way for future extensions in a wide range of multivariate neuroimaging applications.

bioengineering↗

bioRxiv2026

The volatile fatty-acid fingerprint of human fear

Human axillary odour can convey information about emotional state, but the molecular composition of fear related volatile emissions remains undefined. Here, we combine low background dual chamber axillary sampling, synchronous real time and offline mass spectrometry, chemical domain group independent component analysis and hierarchical Bayesian modelling to identify a molecular finger-print of acute fear during immersive virtual reality fear induction. In 37 healthy adults, this framework recovered five axillary volatile components associated with a continuous physiology derived fear index. The fingerprint comprised increased emissions of acetic, butyric, caproic and caprylic acids, octanal and acetone, together with decreased sulcatone, decanal, geranylacetone and citraconic anhydride. This coordinated pattern was reproducible across individuals and emerged from unsupervised chemical decomposition followed by regularised Bayesian selection, without prior biochemical constraints. Posterior predictive checks and leave one participant out refitting supported its robustness within the cohort. Its composition and directionality are consistent with sympathetic autonomic metabolic mobilisation, suggesting contributions from fatty acid handling, acetone related metabolism and axillary gland output. These findings define a candidate molecular cue of acute human fear and establish a replicable methodological template for decoding the chemical language of human emotion.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Analytical meditation improves physiological well-being in expert practitioners: a study on central and peripheral neurophysiological correlates

Meditation has been long associated with improvements in mental well-being, emotional regulation, and attentional control. Yet, the diversity of meditative techniques and participant expertise has hindered the systematic identification of their neurophysiological correlates supporting these benefits. To address this challenge, we investigated the neurophysiological signatures of concentrative and analytical meditation in 35 experienced Tibetan monk practitioners. EEG, ECG, EDA, and respiration were simultaneously recorded during Concentrative, Loving-Kindness and Emptiness meditations. Linear-mixed-models revealed significant modulations in autonomic and cortical activity across meditations. Peripheral indices indicated enhanced parasympathetic tone, decreases respiratory rate, and gradual increase in EDA - reflecting a state of relaxed-alertness with concurrent vagal engagement and sustained sympathetic arousal. EEG analyses supported this state showing elevated gamma-band power during analytical meditations. These findings suggest that advanced meditative states foster an adaptive integration of autonomic and cortical responses, supporting the emergence of relaxed-vigilance - a psychophysiological condition associated with well-being and cognitive flexibility.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Chemosensitive brainstem and diencephalic components in breath-hold fMRI

ObjectiveThe knowledge on breathing control and central chemoreception, key subcortical functions involved in several neuropathologies, is still mainly based on animal studies. In humans, functional MRI (fMRI) offers the needed spatio-temporal resolution and non-invasiveness, but the lack of specific tools and preprocessing solutions hinders its use in brainstem studies. We hereby propose an original fMRI analysis pipeline aimed at unravelling central chemoreception mechanisms, by integrating acquisition, spatial coregistration, noise removal and a novel data-driven analysis solution to compare network activation levels across tasks or conditions in fMRI. ApproachNovel analysis methodologies are integrated with the optimization of known preprocessing approaches to physiological noise correction and brainstem-focused coregistration. We couple independent components of fMRI data, separately estimated from healthy subjects during Free Breathing (FB) and Breath Hold (BH), by means of spatial correlation. We then identify statistically significant differences between BH and FB in CO2-dependent components by means of voxel-wise comparisons of components percent signal change. Components were localized using the Brainstem Navigator Atlas for enhancing network interpretability. Main ResultsUsing the pipeline we characterized CO2-related BOLD oscillations within the central control system of breathing. We corroborated the primary chemoreceptive role of medullary raphe in healthy subjects. We observed that BH over-activated ascending sensory-motor projections through the postero-lateral thalamus, descending projections through the putamen, and peripheral sensations entry points in the dorsal medulla. We highlighted the role of latero-dorsal tegmentum in the response to hypercapnia-induced aversive effects. SignificanceOur method allows to non-invasively locate primary chemoreception and related arousal triggers, characterizing alterations and therefore fostering the identification of therapeutic targets in abnormal breathing. Moreover, the proposed strategy addresses the issues of inter-task comparison among homologous independent sources, of their characterization and interpretation. Its extension could benefit all similarly challenging brainstem-focused studies, including those on Parkinsons and Alzheimers diseases.

bioengineering↗