Short- and long-term reconfiguration of rat prefrontal cortical networks following single doses of psilocybin
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) December 13, 2024 Ross J. Purple, Rekha Gupta, Christopher W. Thomas et al. 1 citation preprint
Psilocybin at therapeutically relevant doses (0.3 or 1 mg/kg) in rats unmasked 100 Hz high frequency oscillations in the infralimbic cortex that persisted for about an hour, accompanied by decreased pyramidal cell firing rates and reduced signal complexity. These acute effects were more pronounced during rest than during a sustained attention task. Over the following days, gradually emerging increases in beta and low-gamma (20-60 Hz) power appeared specifically in the infralimbic cortex, suggesting network plasticity on multi-day timescales. The findings implicate infralimbic network oscillations as potential biomarkers of psychedelic action not readily detectable in human brain imaging.