Psilocybin, the compound that gives magic mushrooms their hallucinogenic state, exerts its magical powers by desynchronizing the brain network that controls our sense of self, a new study has found.
Psilocybin Distortion It alters people’s perception of time and space, as well as their sense of connection to the world around them. Most of these subjective effects fade quickly, but new research has found that some changes in the brain can persist for weeks after taking large doses of psilocybin.
This is the first time such persistence has been demonstrated in detail in humans, and the discovery may help explain why psilocybin is a promising treatment for depression and depressive disorder. Other mental disorderssaid the lead study author. Dr. Joshua SiegelA psychiatrist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
“If you have this plasticity, [in the brain] “And we expected that if there was this clinical response, there would be changes in connectivity and activity,” Siegel told Live Science. “This is the first study to provide a convincing answer as to what that is.”
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Research has shown that psilocybin acts on brain cells that respond to the chemical messenger serotonin. people and Without depression They suggest that the drug helps parts of the brain make new connections and synchronize activity. Other brain networks are disrupted And it will get out of sync.
To explore these effects further, Siegel and his colleagues used precision functional mapping, which captures large amounts of brain activity data from just a few subjects. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Neuroscience, found that NatureSeven participants had their brains scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique that tracks blood flow to infer activity in different brain regions.
Participants were given high doses of either psilocybin or Ritalin, a stimulant commonly used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and then after a week or two they returned to take the other drug. Ritalin was used as a control, Siegel said, because it has a brain-stimulating effect but does not have hallucinogenic properties.
Participants had their brains scanned an average of 18 times — before, during, and three weeks after treatment — with some subjects scanned almost every other day, Siegel said. This provided a detailed picture of each subject’s day-to-day fluctuations in brain activity, shedding light on psilocybin’s ongoing effects.
What the researchers found was important: psychedelics significantly reduced the synchrony of a brain network called the “default mode network.” This circuitry of connections between brain regions includes the thalamus, basal ganglia, cerebellum, and HippocampusIt is most active when people are self-reflecting and letting their minds wander but are not engaged in any specific task.
“It was this network that was most altered by psilocybin,” Siegel says, “and in fact this is consistent with how we think about the psychedelic experience: this idea of a breakdown in the ego and a distortion of our sense of space and time.”
These effects faded once the subject sobered, but they did result in reduced synchrony between the default mode network and the anterior hippocampus (a structure associated with memory and emotion) that lasted for at least three weeks.
Siegel said these findings are consistent with previous neuroscience studies.
Research shows that psilocybin loosens connections in the brain, making the compound potentially useful in treating depression. By putting the brain into a more adaptive state, psilocybin Long-term changes in cognitionPerhaps it is this desynchronization that makes people with depression Reestablishing healthier, more dynamic brain connections.
“In other words, psilocybin may open the door to change and allow therapists to guide their patients.” Dr. Petros PetridisA psychiatrist at the New York University Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine said: Commentary.
But Siegel cautioned that the drug’s effectiveness depends on the situation. In this study, the researchers found that brain desynchronization decreased when subjects took part in a simple word-to-picture matching task. Such tasks don’t engage the default mode network, so areas of the brain that are less susceptible to psilocybin are engaged, he said.
This may explain why blocking out external stimuli — for example, by using an eyeshade — allows people to become fully immersed in the psychedelic experience, Petridis writes.
At least one participant initially had a very positive experience with psilocybin, but then had a bad trip. When treating mental health issues, it’s likely important to use psilocybin in a controlled environment where participants are screened for risk of psychosis, Siegel said. In clinical trials of psilocybin, participants are typically given only low doses, but these and additional precautions are in place.
“To give the best chance of having a lasting therapeutic effect afterwards, someone needs to be in a place and environment where they can have this inner experience and be completely immersed in this intense experience,” he said.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide medical advice.
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