Raquel Aparicio-Terrés, Samantha López-Mochales, Margarita Díaz-Andreu, Carles Escera
First published: 16 July 2025
https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.15403
Excerpts:
A striking cross-cultural phenomenon observed throughout the entire world is the use of sound to induce altered states of consciousness.1 These nonordinary experiences are behavioral/mental states characterized by subjective deviations from ordinary wakefulness,2including alterations in perception, affect, and cognition. There is direct evidence that our ancestors engaged in practices aimed at altering the mind as far back as 3000 years ago.3However, the remains found in archaeological sites seem to suggest an older use at least from the Magdalenian in the Upper Paleolithic, with dates as old as 14,000 years ago.4, 5
The thalamus is a key subcortical brain structure involved in sensory processing, being part of the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical loop.104 This loop refers to the reciprocally connected pathways between the cortex and the thalamus and plays a critical role in gating and filtering sensory information from sensory organs to the cortex and vice versa. Under conditions of altered functioning, the thalamus can either propagate unfiltered sensory information from subcortical structures to the cortex, theoretically leading to an overflow of sensory information (sensory flooding),105 or block the propagation of information from subcortical structures to the cortex. The cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical loop has been previously implicated in various forms of altered states of consciousness.