Psilocybin prevents habituation to familiar stimuli and preserves sensitivity to sound following repeated stimulation in mouse primary auditory cortex
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) September 30, 2024 Conor P. Lane, Veronica Tarka, Olivier Valentin et al. 1 citation preprint
Psilocybin, a psychoactive substance from fungi, prevents the normal habituation of sound-evoked responses in the primary auditory cortex of mice. After administration of 1 mg/kg psilocybin, neurons maintained their responsiveness, bandwidth, and sound-level response thresholds to repeated stimuli, whereas control mice showed marked habituation and narrowing of tuning. Psilocybin did not alter the overall distribution of best frequencies, indicating it disrupts normal sensory gating rather than tonotopic organization. This supports models where psychedelics cause perceptual disturbances by disrupting hierarchical sensory gating. These findings may inform future treatments for conditions involving maladaptive sensory processing, such as tinnitus.