Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 13 scalp electrodes while subjects read sentences, some of which contained either a verb that disagreed in number with the subject noun (syntactic anomaly) or a word in uppercase letters (physical anomaly). Uppercase words elicited the P300 complex of positivities, whereas agreement violations elicited a late positive shift with an onset around 500 msec and a duration of several hundred msec. These effects differed in their morphology, temporal course, amplitude, and scalp distribution. Furthermore, manipulations of the probability-of-occurrence and task relevance of the anomalies had robust effects on the response to uppercase words, but not on the response to agreement violations. Finally, these anomalies had additive effects when agreement-violating uppercase (doubly anomalous) words were presented. These results are taken to be an initial indication that the positive shift elicited by agreement violations is distinct from the P300 response to unexpected, task-relevant anomalies that do not involve the violation of a grammatical rule.

Wearables are frequently designed to support users engaged in complex "real world" activities, ranging

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) administered as an adjunct to talk therapy influences patient speech content and increases improvement in treatment-resistant posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Data came from the recordings of Mithoefer et al. (2011). In the third therapeutic session studied, patients were assigned, double blind, to an MDMA or a placebo group. Condition-blind scorers listened to therapy recordings and scored utterances where patients initiated topics that were empathic (regarding others' emotions), entactic (requesting or appreciating physical touch), or ensuic (describing a change in their sense of themselves). Patients who received MDMA produced high levels of ensuic, empathic, and entactic utterances compared with those who received the placebo. Interrater discourse scoring was reliable. The relationship between the number of scored utterances and the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale scores measuring PTSD severity after the treatment was significant, and reanalysis grouped bimodally into "many" or "few" such utterances remained significant. MDMA assisted these patients in having meaningful and disorder-resolving thoughts and discourse in talk therapy.

IntroductionThis chapter discusses some substances that are particularly likely to induce hallucinations. Many such drugs are available in nature and have long histories of use; more have emerged from laboratories either accidentally or as the result of purposeful research. Many more substances than these can elicit hallucinations, given the natural corporeal variations among individuals. For example, antidepressants such as paroxetine (Shimizu et al. 2010 ) or citalopram (Capaldi and Carr 2010 ) occasionally induce auditory hallucinations, which tend to resolve quickly after the drug is discontinued. Even the lack of an ordinary biological componentsuch as water in dehydration -can cause similar effects.This chapter focuses on a few substances often taken for the purpose of hallucination. Some effects that are typically sought by hallucinogen users are alterations of sensory perception, interpretation, and context. Changes in visual perception are perhaps the canonical hallucinogen-induced effect. For example, a normal aspect of human sight called "persistence of vision" enables us to perceive subsequent still images as a seamless motion picture, or a moving dot of light as a complete picture in a laser show. Some hallucinogens extend this ability so that a larger set of images is retained in perception -the line behind the laser dot becoming longer -an effect commonly known as "trailers." Spots or afterimages seen upon closing one's eyes