Effects of serotonin 2A/1A receptor stimulation on social exclusion processing
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences April 18, 2016 Katrin H. Preller, Thomas Pokorny, Andreas Hock et al. 175 citations
Social ties are crucial for health, but psychiatric patients often face social rejection, and heightened reactivity to exclusion affects disorder development and treatment. The neuromodulatory substrates of rejection are largely unknown. Psilocybin, a serotonin 5-HT2A/1A receptor agonist, reduces processing of negative stimuli, but its effect on negative social interactions was unclear. In a double-blind, randomized, cross-over study with 21 healthy volunteers, psilocybin (0.215 mg/kg) versus placebo reduced feelings of social exclusion and decreased neural response to exclusion in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and middle frontal gyrus, key regions for social pain.