Lead: Psilocybin desynchronizes the human brain

Psilocybin desynchronizes the human brain 

Nature

To assess how human brain network changes relate to the subjective and lasting effects of psychedelics, this study tracked individual-specific brain changes with longitudinal precision functional mapping (roughly 18 magnetic resonance imaging visits per participant). Psilocybin massively disrupted functional connectivity (FC) in the cortex and subcortex, acutely causing more than threefold greater change than methylphenidate. These FC changes were driven by brain desynchronization across spatial scales (areal, global), which dissolved network distinctions by reducing correlations within and anticorrelations between networks. Persistent reduction of hippocampal-default mode network connectivity may represent a neuroanatomical and correlate of the proplasticity and therapeutic effects of psychedelics.

 

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