Psilocybin reduces low frequency oscillatory power and neuronal phase-locking in the anterior cingulate cortex of awake rodents
Scientific Reports July 26, 2022 Caroline T. Golden, Paul Chadderton 45 citations
Psilocybin, a hallucinogenic compound being investigated for treating depression and PTSD, alters neural activity in the anterior cingulate cortex of awake mice. Using multi-unit recordings, the study found that psilocybin (2 mg/kg) significantly decreased low-frequency local field potential power while gamma activity trended upward. Overall population firing rates increased, with nearly half of individual neurons showing a significant increase. Psilocybin reduced phase modulation of cells across most frequency bands, indicating desynchronization of cortical populations. Bursting behavior changed in a subset of cells, and neurons that increased burst firing often transitioned from a phase-modulated to an unmodulated state. These effects suggest disruption of top-down processing and dissolution of the default mode network in the acute psychedelic state.