UNRAVELing the synergistic effects of psilocybin and environment on brain-wide immediate early gene expression in mice
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) February 21, 2023 Daniel Ryskamp Rijsketic, Austen B. Casey, Daniel A. N. Barbosa et al. 10 citations preprint
Psilocybin, given to mice in either their home cage or an enriched environment, increased neural activity in brain regions including the neocortex, caudoputamen, central amygdala, and parasubthalamic nucleus while decreasing activity in the hypothalamus, cortical amygdala, striatum, and pallidum. The effects of both the drug and the environment were strong and widespread but largely independent, with very few interactions between context and psilocybin treatment. This suggests that the brain's response to psilocybin is not strongly modulated by environmental setting at the level of immediate early gene expression.