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Neural Press™
Volume 5 Issue 1 (April 2026)
REVIEW
A Multiscale Psychopathological–Psychophysiological Nexus in Anxiety-Related Pathways
Lleuvelyn A. Cacha and Roman R. Poznanski
This review examines the psychopathological–psychophysiological nexus underlying anxiety-related behavior from a multiscale neuroscience perspective. Anxiety is conceptualized as emerging from dynamic interactions among neural circuits, metabolic processes, and neuroendocrine systems that regulate stress and threat responses in adaptive or maladaptive ways, thereby shaping vulnerability to psychopathology. Central to this framework is the bidirectional coupling of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activity with amygdala–hippocampal circuitry within forebrain threat-processing pathways, together with modulation by the behavioral inhibition system. Dysregulation across these interacting systems provides a mechanistic basis for the cognitive and behavioral manifestations of anxiety-related disorders.
Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) provides a non-invasive means of interrogating in vivo biochemical processes, extending magnetic resonance methodologies beyond structural and hemodynamic imaging into the domain of cellular metabolism. Unlike conventional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), which primarily captures anatomical organization and indirect functional signals, MRS resolves metabolite-specific spectral features, enabling the quantification of neurochemical states within intact tissue. Advances over recent decades (including ultra-high-field systems, improvements in radiofrequency coil design, optimized pulse sequences, and increasingly sophisticated spectral modelling) have significantly enhanced signal fidelity and metabolite resolution. These developments have expanded the applicability of MRS across neurology, psychiatry, oncology, and metabolic research. However, such progress has also exposed fundamental interpretative challenges, particularly regarding spectral overlap, macromolecular contributions, and the limited specificity with which individual metabolites can be mapped onto discrete biological processes. Accordingly, the utility of MRS cannot be understood solely in terms of improved detection sensitivity or expanded clinical deployment. Rather, its interpretative power depends on how spectroscopic signals are situated within a broader multiscale framework linking molecular metabolism, cellular function, and systems-level dynamics. This mini-review therefore moves beyond purely technical accounts by critically examining the assumptions underlying metabolite attribution and emphasizing the necessity of multimodal integration. By synthesizing physical principles, methodological constraints, and neurobiological interpretation, this work advances a more constrained and context-sensitive framework for MRS analysis. Emerging developments (including multimodal imaging integration and machine learning assisted spectral decomposition ) are evaluated in this light, with particular attention to their implications for translational neuroscience and precision medicine.
REVIEW
Angelos Kalafatas
REVIEW
Effects of Blue Light Blocking Glasses on Visual Performance, Sleep, Neuroendocrine Regulation: A narrative review
Mariel Coronel, Vania De la Luz, Sidra Hassaan, Joseph Varon, Matthew Halma
The widespread adoption of LED screens has substantially increased human exposure to short-wavelength blue light (400–490 nm), particularly during evening hours. This spectral range preferentially activates melanopsin-containing intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs), which regulate circadian timing and melatonin secretion via the suprachiasmatic nucleus. Nighttime activation of these non-visual pathways has been linked to melatonin suppression, delayed sleep onset, and altered sleep architecture. Prolonged screen use is also associated with digital eye strain, including visual fatigue, dry eyes, and headaches. Blue light blocking glasses have been proposed as a simple, non-pharmacological strategy to mitigate these effects. This narrative review examines the evidence for blue light blocking glasses across three domains: sleep and circadian regulation, visual performance and digital eye strain, and neuroendocrine and neurophysiological outcomes. While some randomized controlled trials report improvements in sleep onset, melatonin profiles, and subjective visual comfort, other well-designed studies show minimal or inconsistent effects. Emerging evidence on hyperpolarized lenses and electroencephalographic markers of neural arousal suggests additional mechanisms worth investigating. Overall, results vary considerably depending on population, timing of use, and lens properties, and robust evidence supporting routine use remains limited.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Processual relational geometry: generative unfolding and self-intending closure constituting consciousness - a transscale ontophysical framework
Roman R. Poznanski
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The fundamental nature of consciousness is not experience-based in origin but disposition-based, arising through nonlocalizable relational unfolding that exhibits coherence across regimes of relational organization, and is therefore not reducible to processes confined to specific spatial or temporal scales of brain activity. It is continuously constituted through transscale relational unfolding, requiring explanatory frameworks that extend beyond the scope of phenomenological introspection. In neurobiological models where repertoire and selection are assumed to drive process a priori this view is reinterpreted by treating process as primary through processual relational geometry: a formalism that specifies the generative constraints underlying the unfolding of non-Shannon intrinsic information as a template of the process-manifested property. Embedded quantum physicalism (EQP) delimits the admissible transformations under which relational configurations emerge, cohere, and persist, structured by gradients of admissibility. Within this framework, what is commonly described as “integration” in neuroscience is reconceptualized as closure: the stabilization of transscale relational coherence into unified (globally coherent) or mosaic relational regimes, without implying field-like continuity. Stabilization proceeds through negentropic selection of intrinsic informational patterns, constituting organized dispositional regimes. Such dispositions neither pre-exist nor emerge independently, but are constituted within a reflexive, nonreductive process whereby intrinsic information manifests as intrinsic intentionality through reflexive–projective closure within the self-intending projective framework (SIPF). This establishes a constrained relational process realism linking EQP relational unfolding to the physical realization of phenomenality. In a specific instantiation, quasipolaritonic process geometry (QPG) is a template of this ontophysical process physically realized through reflexively stabilized quasipolaritonic dynamics, understood as the operational expression of poststructural organization in embedded and dispositional systems. This process is proposed to be physically realized through quasipolaritonic dynamics in cortical neuropil microcavities, providing a substrate-specific basis for nonlocalized relational coherence in the brain. Transscale consciousness becomes phenomenal only when coherent regimes achieve self-intending projective closure, constituting enfolding as reflexive–projective stabilization and yielding transscale closure of relational organization. Transscale consciousness is thereby established as a transscale process of self-intending projective closure that is not spatially confined yet admits physical realization in part through quasipolaritonic dynamics within cortical neuropil microcavities, constituting a subject-specific embodiment.