Reduced Precision Underwrites Ego Dissolution and Therapeutic Outcomes Under Psychedelics
Frontiers in Neuroscience – March 17, 2022
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Psychedelics dramatically shift our perception by reducing the "precision" of how our brains update beliefs, a core concept in Bayesian probability and cognitive psychology. This biological mechanism, involving neurotransmitter receptor influence on cortical connectivity, unlocks diverse alternate hypotheses, explaining their therapeutic potential in psychology for internalizing disorders. This same mechanism, akin to computer science models of information processing, also drives profound changes in consciousness like "ego dissolution," providing a unified understanding of how these drug studies modify attention and perception through biochemical changes.
Abstract
Evidence suggests classic psychedelics reduce the precision of belief updating and enable access to a range of alternate hypotheses that underwrite how we make sense of the world. This process, in the higher cortices, has been postulated to explain the therapeutic efficacy of psychedelics for the treatment of internalizing disorders. We argue reduced precision also underpins change to consciousness, known as “ ego dissolution ,” and that alterations to consciousness and attention under psychedelics have a common mechanism of reduced precision of Bayesian belief updating. Evidence, connecting the role of serotonergic receptors to large-scale connectivity changes in the cortex, suggests the precision of Bayesian belief updating may be a mechanism to modify and investigate consciousness and attention.