# PLOS One Study Links Breathwork-Induced Altered States to Specific Brain and Cardiovascular Changes
By IO Digest Desk
Attention was turning to a PLOS One study examining what happens physiologically when experienced practitioners engage in high-ventilation breathwork accompanied by music.[16843]
The paper addresses a subject that has been growing rapidly in public visibility. The authors say breathwork is increasingly used as a therapeutic tool for psychological distress and that some high-ventilation practices can produce subjective effects resembling altered states of consciousness associated with psychedelic substances, including euphoria, bliss, and perceptual changes.[16843]
What has remained unclear, according to the paper, is the neurobiological basis of those effects.[16843] The study set out to investigate that gap by examining experienced practitioners and linking reported subjective states with both peripheral and central physiological measures.[16843]
The headline finding in the supplied extract is specific. The authors report that the intensity of altered states induced by high-ventilation breathwork was proportional to sympathetic cardiovascular activation and to haemodynamic changes in cerebral perfusion within brain regions spanning the left operculum/posterior insula and the right amygdala/anterior hippocampus.[16843] The paper notes that these regions are implicated in respiratory interoception and the processing of emotional memories, respectively.[16843]
The study’s framing suggests the researchers are not merely cataloging unusual experiences. They are trying to connect those experiences to mechanisms. The authors say the observed regional cerebral effects may underlie mental experiences that mediate positive therapeutic outcomes of high-ventilation breathwork.[16843] That is a careful formulation: it points to possible therapeutic relevance without claiming clinical efficacy has been definitively established.
The paper also situates breathwork within a broader therapeutic conversation. It notes emerging evidence of clinical value in affective and trauma-related disorders and suggests that if altered states are important to psychedelic therapies, high-ventilation breathwork might function as a non-pharmacological alternative with fewer legal and ethical barriers to wide clinical adoption.[16843] But the extract makes equally clear that the field is still developing and that the mechanisms have been understudied.[16843]
Methodologically, the authors say they first characterized the subjective experience of the practice, then used those findings to select “Oceanic Boundlessness” as the principal altered-state variable for identifying critical neurobiological effects.[16843] The extract describes that dimension as including experiences such as unity, bliss, insightfulness, and positively experienced depersonalization.[16843]
The paper was published on 2025-08-27 in *PLOS One* and is described as open access, with data publicly available through the OSF repository named in the article.[16843] The authors also state that they received no specific funding for the work and declared no competing interests.[16843] Those details do not validate the findings by themselves, but they do add transparency around data access and disclosures.
The broader importance of the study is that it pushes breathwork research beyond anecdote and into measured physiological correlation. Public enthusiasm for non-drug practices that promise emotional release or consciousness shifts has expanded quickly. The supplied evidence suggests this paper gives that conversation a more defined biological vocabulary, linking reported altered states to measurable cardiovascular arousal and region-specific changes in brain perfusion.[16843]
The most defensible takeaway from the extract is restrained. This study does not prove that breathwork is a substitute for psychedelic treatment or that it will deliver clinical benefit in every context. It does show that, in experienced practitioners, high-ventilation breathwork accompanied by music was associated with altered states that tracked alongside specific cardiovascular and cerebral changes. That is a meaningful step for a field still trying to explain what participants say they experience.
