Dream and daydream: differences and similarities

Did you know that daydreams reflect events from the previous two days and “night” dreams resemble a fictional plot?

Does your dog have social skills?

A study suggests that viewing the owner’s face works as a positive social reinforcement for dogs. Learn more about this and other surprising results about “man’s best friend”.

Can perceived interactions with the deceased help in the bereavement process?

Across societies, 30 to 34% of individuals is likely to experience at least one after-death communication (ADC) in their lifetime. The ADC is defined as a spontaneous phenomenon in which a living individual has a feeling or sense of direct contact with a deceased person. An ADC may occur in several forms, which include a sense of presence, sensory experiences (visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory), symbolic experiences (song on radio, flower blooming out of season, etc.), electronic experiences (telephone call, Facebook “like”, or email from the deceased, computer anomalies, etc.), visitation or message dreams. ADCs occur across cultures, race, age, socio-economic status, educational level, gender, and religious beliefs. In the scope of project 169/20 - Investigation of the Phenomenology and Impact of Spontaneous and Direct After-Death Communications (ADCs), supported by the BIAL Foundation, the research team explored the impact of perceived ADCs on bereavement, involving 70 individuals who experienced ADCs with deceased partners or spouses. The majority found the ADCs comforting (81%) and helpful in their bereavement (84%). For 49% of the participants, ADCs seemed to ease acceptance of loss and 42% confirmed an accelerated recovery due to the ADC. The implications of these findings are discussed in the article Description and impact of encounters with deceased partners or spouses published in OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying.

The Portuguese Medical Association and the BIAL Foundation deliver the 3rd edition of the Maria de Sousa Award

The award ceremony for the third edition of the Maria de Sousa Award took place on November 16 at Teatro Thalia, in Lisbon, and was attended by the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Elvira Fortunato, who chaired the session, the Secretary of State of Health Promotion, Margarida Tavares, and the Secretary of State for Higher Education, Pedro Teixeira. The five winners, all young researchers in health sciences, are Inês Alves (i3S, U.Porto), Nuno Dinis Alves (ICVS, U.Minho), Catarina Palma dos Reis (CHULC - Maternidade Dr. Alfredo da Costa, Lisboa), João Neto (i3S, U.Porto) and Sara Calafate (ICVS, U.Minho).

Electrophysiological signature of cessations

The paper Investigation of advanced mindfulness meditation “cessation” experiences using EEG spectral analysis in an intensively sampled case study, published in the journal Neuropsychologia, examines the neural signature of “cessation” events (momentary void of consciousness) during mindfulness meditation. The study, carried out by Matthew Sacchet in the scope of the research project 99/20 - Beyond "mindfulness" and toward a modern science of meditative mastery and spiritual transformation, supported by the BIAL Foundation, showed that EEG alpha-power decreases started 40 seconds before cessations and were lowest immediately following a cessation. Region-of-interest (ROI) based examination of this finding revealed that the alpha-suppression was most pronounced over the occipital and parietal regions of the brain, and linearly decreased with time for the entire pre-cessation duration.