Decolonial Neuroscience and ancient practices

From functional pragmatism to evidence-based science

There is a mistake science sometimes makes when it becomes too arrogant: it rejects too quickly what it still does not know how to measure well. There is another mistake that is just as dangerous: treating anything ancient, symbolic, or culturally respected as if it were already proven. This blog refuses both shortcuts. Hypnosis, Osteopathy, and Acupuncture do not need to be treated as superstition, and they do not need to be treated as ready-made truth either. We can treat them as serious sources of measurable questions. That is where a more decolonial neuroscience becomes powerful: not by replacing rigor with belief, but by replacing arrogance with better observation, broader cultural awareness, and more humility about what science still measures poorly. Recent work in neuroscience and culture argues for exactly this kind of expansion. (PubMed)

That shift matters because a living science does not begin by laughing at the body. It begins by asking better questions about what the body is doing. Across many areas of cognitive science, researchers are still warning that too much of what we call “general knowledge” has been built from narrow populations and narrow ways of framing mind and behavior. A more decolonial stance does not mean lowering standards. It means admitting that territory, culture, embodiment, attention, expectation, and relationship may all matter more than older laboratory habits allowed. (PubMed)

Hypnosis is a great example. It is often trapped between two bad caricatures: stage trick on one side, magic power on the other. But the recent literature is much more interesting. A 2024 meta-analytic review covering twenty years of evidence found the strongest support for hypnosis in pain, medical procedures, and also in children and adolescents. A separate 2024 review describes how EEG, PET, and fMRI studies have been used to examine functional connectivity, oscillatory activity, executive control, and changes related to agency and hypnotizability. So the better question is not “Is hypnosis real or fake?” The better question is: what changes in attention, pain, expectancy, agency, and bodily regulation when language, context, and relationship reorganize the organism? (PubMed)

And this is where embodied knowledge becomes real. Think of a voice that calmed you down. Then think of a voice that tightened your chest before you even had time to argue with it. The body often understands the difference first. That is why hypnosis is scientifically exciting: it may reorganize breathing, gaze, jaw tension, pain perception, anticipation, and the feeling of authorship over one’s own actions. For experimental work, we can study this with EEG for oscillations, ERPs, and microstates; EEG-DC for slower tonic shifts; fNIRS for prefrontal hemodynamics during induction, suggestion, and analgesia; eye tracking for fixation, saccades, blink patterns, and attentional narrowing; synchronized video for posture and facial micro-changes; and, when we want a more causal design, TMS can be added to test the contribution of cortical control networks. That is how a controversial topic becomes a strong multimodal research program. (PubMed)

Osteopathy asks for the same maturity. If we enter the topic already in love with it, it becomes miracle. If we enter already mocking it, it becomes a joke. Neither path helps science. A 2024 mapping review found reported biological changes following osteopathic manipulative treatment across several body systems, especially neurophysiological and musculoskeletal domains, but the authors also stressed that more work is needed to understand specificity and clinical contribution. In contrast, a 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that osteopathic manipulative treatment was not statistically superior to sham or placebo for the main clinical outcomes in neck pain or low-back pain. That contrast is valuable: a body can change without that automatically proving a clinically superior treatment effect. (PubMed)

That does not weaken the field. It strengthens the next question. Instead of asking only “Does it work?” we can ask what changes first? Does breathing reorganize? Does protective muscle tension drop? Does posture become more stable? Does gaze exploration widen? Does prefrontal load during movement or pain tasks change? Here the experimental toolbox becomes very rich: EMG for jaw, neck, or trapezius tension; ECG for HRV and especially RMSSD; respiration sensors for timing and depth; GSR for autonomic arousal; video synchronization for posture and movement; plus EEG, EEG-DC, and fNIRS to connect bodily reorganization to neural dynamics. That kind of design respects the complexity of the phenomenon instead of forcing a simplistic yes-or-no answer too early. (PubMed)

Acupuncture and electroacupuncture may be the clearest testing ground for this whole manifesto. It does not make sense to reduce them to mystical energy outside the body. But it also does not make sense to dismiss them before measuring what happens physiologically. A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis reported that real acupuncture showed a stronger effect than placebo acupuncture in increasing parasympathetic tone through HRV-related measures, though the authors explicitly warned about study heterogeneity and quality. A 2024 clinical update on acupuncture analgesia reviewed plausible mechanisms involving local physiological responses, spinal and supraspinal modulation of nociceptive signaling, and endogenous biochemical mediators. That does not turn every traditional claim into proof. It does something more useful: it turns the body into a map of testable mechanisms. (PubMed)

This also opens strong experimental directions for Brain Support / BrainLatam-style multimodal work. We can compare manual acupuncture, electroacupuncture, and appropriate control conditions using ECG-derived HRV/RMSSD, respiration, GSR, and EMG to track autonomic and muscular regulation; EEG and EEG-DC to examine oscillatory and slow-state changes; fNIRS to follow prefrontal hemodynamics during pain modulation or sustained attention; eye tracking to study vigilance and salience; and synchronized video to capture protective gestures, facial responses, and posture. In more causal protocols, TMS can complement these measures by probing cortical contribution before or after intervention. This is how an ancient practice stops being an altar or a target and becomes a measurable source of hypotheses. (PubMed)

So this blog is really a manifesto. Decolonial Neuroscience is not science replaced by belief. It is science that learns to ask better questions. It does not kneel before tradition, and it does not sneer at tradition. It asks: what here is context, what is expectancy, what is touch, what is autonomic regulation, what is analgesia, what is posture, what is narrative, what is brain network, and what can we actually measure without mutilating the phenomenon? Recent writing on Indigenous perspectives in neuroscience argues for exactly this kind of breadth and humility. (PubMed)

For teenagers and young researchers, that should feel motivating, not abstract. It means science is still alive. It means there are real questions waiting for better experiments. Does hypnosis change pain more than it changes agency, or the other way around? Does osteopathy first alter posture, muscle tone, or autonomic recovery? Does acupuncture change HRV, attention, pain, and prefrontal dynamics in the same direction, or not? Does electroacupuncture produce a different bioelectrical signature than manual needling? These are not vague questions. They are measurable, embodied, and worth testing. (PubMed)

At the end, the choice is simple: between dogma and mockery, we choose the well-formed question. And a well-formed question begins by respecting the body enough to measure it carefully.

To read well is to feel in the body what the mind is beginning to understand.

References

1. Rosendahl et al., 2024 — Meta-analytic evidence on the efficacy of hypnosis for mental and somatic health issues: a 20-year perspective.
   Meta-analytic review showing the strongest evidence for hypnosis in pain, medical procedures, and children/adolescents. (PubMed)

2. De Pascalis, 2024 — Brain Functional Correlates of Resting Hypnosis and Hypnotizability: A Review.
   Review of EEG, PET, and fMRI findings on hypnosis, hypnotizability, functional connectivity, oscillations, and agency. (PubMed)

3. Dal Farra et al., 2024 — Reported biological effects following Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment: A comprehensive mapping review.
   Maps reported biological effects of osteopathic manipulative treatment, especially in neurophysiological and musculoskeletal domains. (PubMed)

4. Ceballos-Laita et al., 2024 — Is Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment Clinically Superior to Sham or Placebo for Patients with Neck or Low-Back Pain?.
   Systematic review and meta-analysis finding no statistically significant superiority over sham/placebo for major clinical outcomes in neck and low-back pain. (PubMed)

5. Hamvas et al., 2023 — Acupuncture increases parasympathetic tone, modulating HRV: Systematic review and meta-analysis.
   Suggests real acupuncture increases parasympathetic tone more than placebo acupuncture, with caution due to heterogeneity and study quality. (PubMed)

6. Niruthisard et al., 2024 — Recent advances in acupuncture for pain relief.
   Reviews current evidence and plausible mechanisms for acupuncture analgesia, including local, spinal, supraspinal, and biochemical pathways. (PubMed)

7. Illes et al., 2025 — Two-Eyed Seeing and other Indigenous perspectives for neuroscience.
   Argues that integrating Indigenous and biomedical perspectives can broaden neuroscience with more humility and ethical responsibility. (PubMed)

8. Gutchess & Cho, 2024 — Memory and aging across cultures.
   Explains why culture matters for a more representative and accurate cognitive science. (PubMed)

9. Biles et al., 2024 — What is Indigenous cultural health and wellbeing? A narrative review.
   Shows how culture, knowledge systems, place, and wellbeing are interconnected in Indigenous health frameworks. (PubMed)