Psilocybin impairs high-level but not low-level motion perception
Neuroreport – August 01, 2004
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Psilocybin, a powerful hallucinogen, creates compelling illusions of motion by selectively disrupting how the brain processes complex visual information. In a study involving nine human volunteers, this psychedelic substance impaired global motion perception—the ability to discern overall movement patterns—while leaving simpler local motion detection unaffected. This finding offers crucial insights for psychology and neuroscience, suggesting how neurotransmitter receptor influence on behavior can model aspects of clinical psychosis and enhance our understanding of visual perception and cognitive psychology.
Abstract
The hallucinogenic serotonin(1A&2A) agonist psilocybin is known for its ability to induce illusions of motion in otherwise stationary objects or textured surfaces. This study investigated the effect of psilocybin on local and global motion processing in nine human volunteers. Using a forced choice direction of motion discrimination task we show that psilocybin selectively impairs coherence sensitivity for random dot patterns, likely mediated by high-level global motion detectors, but not contrast sensitivity for drifting gratings, believed to be mediated by low-level detectors. These results are in line with those observed within schizophrenic populations and are discussed in respect to the proposition that psilocybin may provide a model to investigate clinical psychosis and the pharmacological underpinnings of visual perception in normal populations.