Scientific Reports
October 20, 2020
Rubén Herzog, Pedro A. M. Mediano, Fernando E. Rosas et al.
60 citations
Psychedelic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide, which activate the serotonin 2A receptor, produce profound changes in consciousness and increase entropy in spontaneous neural activity. This study provides the first model-based explanation for that entropy increase by extending a whole-brain model of serotonergic neuromodulation. The model reproduced the overall entropy rise seen in previous experiments. Entropy changes were not uniform: some brain regions showed increased entropy while others showed decreases, indicating a topographical reconfiguration driven by receptor activation. At the whole-brain level, this reconfiguration was not well explained by receptor density but was closely related to the brain's anatomical connectivity topology.
Scientific Reports
August 5, 2016
Jaakko O. Nieminen, Olivia Gosseries, Marcello Massimini et al.
60 citations
During non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, the brain's response to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) differs depending on whether the person is conscious (dreaming) or not. When subjects reported no conscious experience upon awakening, TMS evoked a larger negative deflection and a shorter phase-locked response compared to when they reported a dream. The amplitude of the negative deflection—a hallmark of neuronal bistability—was inversely correlated with the length of the dream report. These findings suggest that variations in the level of consciousness within the same physiological state are associated with changes in underlying cortical bistability.
Scientific Reports
August 15, 2017
B. Martin, N. Franck, M. Cermolacce et al.
58 citations
People with schizophrenia struggle to predict when events will happen based on elapsed time, and this difficulty relates to disturbances in the sense of self. In a study of 28 patients and 24 matched controls, participants viewed a visual cue that either predicted or did not predict when a target would appear (after 400 ms or 1000 ms). Both groups responded faster to targets after longer intervals due to the natural predictability of time passing (the hazard function). However, patients with high scores on the EASE scale for self-awareness and presence showed no benefit from this temporal predictability, while those with low scores did.
Scientific Reports
October 3, 2019
Mario de la Fuente Revenga, Jong M. Shin, Hiba Vohra et al.
57 citations
A fully automated system detects head-twitch behavior (HTR) in mice, a behavioral marker of psychedelic drug action at the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor. The system was validated using the psychedelic DOI in mice lacking the 5-HT2A receptor and by evaluating false-positive and false-negative events. Automation enabled efficient time-course studies. Pharmacological interactions between the 5-HT2A receptor and metabotropic glutamate receptor 2 (mGluR2) were explored: the mGluR2/3 antagonist LY341495 potentiated DOI-induced HTR, while the mGluR2/3 agonist LY404039 blocked it. This system can accelerate understanding of 5-HT2A receptor pharmacology and its behavioral outputs in rodents.
Scientific Reports
April 7, 2022
Grant Jones, Jocelyn A. Ricard, Joshua Lipson et al.
56 citations
People who have used psilocybin at some point in their lives have 30% lower odds of having opioid use disorder, based on data from a large U.S. national survey. No other classic psychedelic substances—such as LSD, peyote, or mescaline—showed a similar association. Psilocybin use was also linked to lower odds of meeting seven of the 11 diagnostic criteria for opioid use disorder. These findings suggest psilocybin may hold promise as a treatment, but clinical trials are needed to establish causality.
Scientific Reports
July 13, 2021
Otto Simonsson, Walter Osika, Robin Carhart‐Harris et al.
54 citations
Lifetime use of classic psychedelics is associated with lower odds of heart disease and diabetes. Analyzing data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2005–2014), people who had ever tried a classic psychedelic had 23% lower odds of past-year heart disease and 12% lower odds of past-year diabetes. The associations persisted after adjusting for other factors. The authors suggest classic psychedelic use might benefit cardiometabolic health but call for more research on causal pathways.
Scientific Reports
June 30, 2022
Joseph M. Rootman, Maggie Kiraga, Pamela Kryskow et al.
53 citations
A naturalistic observational study followed 953 people who microdosed psilocybin (taking small, non-hallucinogenic doses of psychedelic mushrooms) and 180 non-microdosers for about 30 days. Small to medium improvements in mood and mental health were observed among microdosers, consistent across gender, age, and pre-existing mental health concerns. Older adults showed specific improvements in psychomotor performance. Combining psilocybin with lion's mane mushrooms and niacin did not affect mood or mental health changes, but among older microdosers, this combination was linked to greater psychomotor improvements than psilocybin alone or with lion's mane. These findings add controlled evidence to the growing research on psychedelic microdosing.
Scientific Reports
October 2, 2020
Manoj K. Doss, Darrick G. May, Matthew W. Johnson et al.
52 citations
Salvinorin A, a κ-opioid receptor agonist and dissociative hallucinogen found in Salvia divinorum, alters human brain functional connectivity in ways similar to other hallucinogens. In a placebo-controlled, within-subject fMRI study, inhaled Salvinorin A tended to decrease functional connectivity within brain networks while increasing connectivity between networks, most notably attenuating the default mode network during peak effects. It reduced brainwide dynamic functional connectivity but increased brainwide entropic functional connectivity, though only the reduction survived statistical correction. Connectome-based classification models trained on dynamic connectivity accurately identified Salvinorin A scans, especially when using default mode network interactions. These findings suggest shared neural mechanisms across hallucinogen types.
Scientific Reports
February 5, 2024
Alistair Niemeijer, Erwin Krediet, Jeanine Kamphuis et al.
50 citations
Patients with treatment-resistant depression who received psilocybin in a clinical trial described challenges with trust-building and expectation management, the need to navigate intense experiences often guided by music, and a desire for a more comprehensive treatment including multiple psilocybin sessions and sustained therapy. Distrust in mental healthcare generally, but trust in study therapists, was a key subtheme. The findings suggest that optimizing psilocybin treatment for this population requires individualized preparation, investment in trust-building, additional sessions, and access to ongoing psychotherapy with trusted therapists.
Scientific Reports
August 19, 2019
Cole Korponay, Daniela Dentico, Tammi R. A. Kral et al.
49 citations
An eight-week mindfulness intervention did not reduce impulsivity on the go/no-go task or Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), nor produce changes in neural correlates such as frontostriatal gray matter, functional connectivity, or dopamine levels compared to active or wait-list control groups. Long-term meditators (LTMs) did not differ from meditation-naïve participants (MNPs) on the go/no-go task, but LTMs self-reported lower attentional impulsivity and higher motor and non-planning impulsivity on the BIS-11. LTMs had less striatal gray matter, greater cortico-striatal-thalamic functional connectivity, and lower spontaneous eye-blink rate than MNPs. Total lifetime practice hours did not significantly relate to impulsivity or neurobiological metrics, suggesting pre-existing differences may account for group differences.
Scientific Reports
November 5, 2018
Matthieu Darracq, Chadd M. Funk, Daniel Polyakov et al.
49 citations
Sleep and anesthesia alter conscious experience, which can be absent (unconsciousness) or take the form of dreaming where sensory stimuli are not incorporated (disconnected consciousness). Using transcranial magnetic stimulation-electroencephalography over parietal regions, evoked alpha power (8-12 Hz) decreased during disconnected consciousness in rapid eye movement sleep and ketamine anesthesia compared to wakefulness. In unconscious states of propofol anesthesia and non-rapid eye movement sleep, evoked low-gamma power (30-40 Hz) decreased compared to wakefulness or disconnected consciousness. These findings, confirmed with dream reports from serial awakenings, suggest suppression of evoked alpha activity may mark sensory disconnection.
Scientific Reports
July 1, 2024
Jonathan N. Davies, Anna Faschinger, Julieta Galante et al.
45 citations
Between 2002 and 2022, the use of meditation, yoga, and guided imagery or progressive relaxation among US adults rose significantly. By 2022, 18.3% (60.53 million) practiced meditation, 16.8% (55.78 million) practiced yoga, and 6.7% (22.22 million) used guided imagery or progressive relaxation. Growth was widespread across sociodemographic groups, but people of 'Other' race (54% Indigenous Americans) and those with moderate psychological distress were overrepresented across all practices. Individuals with severe distress were more likely to use meditation and guided imagery or progressive relaxation. Meditation use accelerated among adults aged 65 and older, those not accessing mental health care, and less educated groups, suggesting unmet health needs.
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.
Scientific Reports
May 20, 2020
Adam L. Halberstadt
45 citations
A new automated method detects head-twitch responses (HTR) in mice, a behavior induced by hallucinogens, with 99.4% sensitivity. Traditional methods relying on amplitude-time features are unreliable due to variability in twitch characteristics and similarity to other behaviors like jumping. The approach transforms magnetometer recordings into time-frequency visual representations (scalograms), extracts deep features using a pretrained convolutional neural network (ResNet-50), and classifies them with a Support Vector Machine algorithm. Tested on recordings from 237 mice containing 11,312 HTR, the method correctly identified 11,244 twitches and was insensitive to other behaviors such as jumping and seizures. Deep learning on scalograms enables robust, reliable automated HTR detection.
Scientific Reports
May 30, 2022
David R. Glowacki, Rhoslyn Roebuck Williams, Mark Wonnacott et al.
44 citations
A virtual reality framework called Isness-distributed (Isness-D) enables groups of people in a shared virtual space to experience their bodies as luminous energetic essences with diffuse boundaries, allowing moments of 'energetic coalescence' where bodies fluidly merge and participants include multiple others within their self-representation. In a citizen science study with 58 participants across an international network of Isness-D nodes, scores on four self-report scales (inclusion of community in self, ego-dissolution inventory, communitas scale, and MEQ30 mystical experience questionnaire) were statistically indistinguishable from those reported in recent psychedelic drug studies. This demonstrates that distributed VR can design intersubjective self-transcendent experiences where people dissolve their sense of self in connection to others.
Scientific Reports
February 16, 2022
Grant M. Jones, Matthew K. Nock
44 citations
Lifetime use of peyote, but not other classic psychedelics, is associated with more than 50% lower odds of cocaine use disorder (CUD) in a nationally representative U.S. sample of 214,505 adults from the 2015–2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Peyote also reduced odds for seven of 11 specific CUD criteria, with adjusted odds ratios ranging from 0.26 to 0.47. Other psychedelics (mescaline, psilocybin, LSD) showed either no association or increased odds of CUD. The authors suggest that third variables such as demographic or personality profiles of peyote users may explain the association, and call for longitudinal studies to test temporal links.
Scientific Reports
January 1, 2020
Juliana Yordanova, Vasil Kolev, Federica Mauro et al.
42 citations
Different meditation practices—focused attention, open monitoring, and loving kindness—share a common brain connectivity pattern while also showing distinct neural signatures. Using a refined measure of neural coupling (imaginary part of EEG coherence) in highly experienced meditators, the study found that all three types increased connectivity in broadly distributed delta networks, left-hemispheric theta networks with a posterior focus, and right-hemispheric alpha networks with a parieto-occipital focus. Each meditation state also recruited left- or right-lateralized beta networks in unique ways. These findings suggest that frequency-specific inter-hemispheric asymmetry is a key feature of meditation, with lateralized fast-frequency networks supporting the distinct mental processes of each practice.
Scientific Reports
February 18, 2009
Vincent Haegele
38 citations
Both MDMA and psilocybin reduce the rejection of unfair offers in the Ultimatum Game, a measure of costly punishment of norm violators. In two studies with healthy participants, psilocybin (open-label, within-participant, N=19) and MDMA (placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover, N=20) lowered rejection rates (odds ratios 0.42 and 0.57, respectively). For MDMA, the reduction correlated with increased prosociality (R²=0.26). MDMA did not affect third-party rejection but increased amounts offered to others (Cohen's d=0.82). The findings suggest these compounds shift the concept of social reward toward direct relationship value, informing their use in drug-assisted psychotherapy.
Scientific Reports
February 7, 2024
Christopher Timmermann, Richard J Zeifman, David Erritzøe et al.
37 citations
Intravenous DMT, a fast-acting psychedelic, improved depression scores in healthy volunteers one to two weeks after administration. In a placebo-controlled comparison (13 participants) and a prospective dataset (17 participants), depression severity decreased significantly. Reductions in trait neuroticism appeared only in the placebo-controlled sample. Changes in depression and anxiety correlated with the intensity of acute peak experiences, suggesting that DMT may reduce depressive symptoms by inducing such experiences. The short half-life and flexible dosing of intravenous DMT make it a practical candidate for psychedelic medicine, though further research in clinical samples is needed.
Scientific Reports
July 22, 2020
Patricia Duerler, Leonhard Schilbach, Philipp Stämpfli et al.
36 citations
Adapting attitudes and behaviors to group norms is essential for social interaction, yet its neuropharmacology is poorly understood. In a pharmacological fMRI study, 24 healthy volunteers received placebo, LSD (100 µg), or the 5-HT2A antagonist ketanserin (40 mg) plus LSD in a double-blind, crossover design. LSD increased social adaptation only when others' opinions were similar to the individual's own, and this was associated with increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex during social feedback. Pretreatment with ketanserin fully blocked LSD-induced changes, indicating a key role of the 5-HT2A system in social feedback processing.
Scientific Reports
October 29, 2022
Marija Franka Žuljević, Ivan Buljan, Mia Leskur et al.
34 citations
A new 20-item questionnaire, the Attitudes on Psychedelics Questionnaire (APQ), was developed and tested in a Croatian general population sample of 1153 participants. The APQ has four sub-scales: Legal Use, Effects, Risk Assessment, and Openness to Psychedelics. It showed excellent reliability and strong correlations with a similar unvalidated measure, supporting its validity. Younger age, male gender, and lower educational status were associated with more positive attitudes. People who knew more about psychedelics also held more favorable attitudes. The APQ can be used to assess educational interventions, patient outcomes, and expert attitudes, but further validation in English is needed.
Scientific Reports
October 17, 2017
Constanza Baquedano, Rodrigo C. Vergara, Vladimir Lopez et al.
34 citations
Imagining food can make it feel real, but mindful attention reduces this effect. In one condition, participants were instructed to immerse themselves in food images; in another, they applied mindful attention. Saliva volume and automatic approach bias toward attractive food were measured. Mindful attention reduced saliva volume and automatic approach bias compared to immersion. During immersion, higher saliva volume, subjective realism, and food craving traits were linked to stronger approach bias, while meditation experience was linked to weaker bias. The findings suggest that mindful attention can de-automatize automatic food biases.
Scientific Reports
August 22, 2023
Hannes Kettner, Stephen Ross, Richard J. Zeifman et al.
31 citations
Co-using a low dose of MDMA with psilocybin or LSD is associated with less intense challenging experiences—such as grief and fear—and increased feelings of self-compassion, love, and gratitude, compared to using psilocybin or LSD alone. In a survey of 698 people planning to use these substances, the 27 who also took a low dose of MDMA reported these benefits without a reduction in mystical-type experiences or compassion. Medium-to-high MDMA doses did not show the same effects. The findings suggest MDMA may buffer against some difficult aspects of psychedelic experiences, but the study's small, non-experimental convenience sample limits certainty.
Scientific Reports
June 22, 2022
Grant Jones, Joshua Lipson, Matthew K. Nock
31 citations
Lifetime use of psilocybin, peyote, or mescaline is associated with lower odds of current nicotine dependence, while lifetime LSD use is linked to higher odds. Analyzing 214,505 participants from the 2015–2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, multivariable logistic regression showed psilocybin use corresponded to reduced odds of nicotine dependence (adjusted odds ratio 0.87–0.93). Peyote and mescaline use also reduced odds on multiple subdomains of the Nicotine Dependence Syndrome Scale (adjusted odds ratio 0.79–0.91). LSD use was associated with increased odds (adjusted odds ratio 1.17–1.24). These observational findings suggest potential for tryptamine and phenethylamine psychedelics in smoking cessation research, but causal relationships require experimental testing.
Scientific Reports
December 18, 2020
Sanah Malomile Nkadimeng, Christiaan M.l. Steinmann, J.n. Eloff
31 citations
The prevalence of major depression is higher in people with chronic heart failure than in the general population. Psilocybin-containing mushrooms have been used historically for their mind-healing properties, but their safety in cardiovascular disease is not fully known. This study investigated the effects of water extracts from Psilocybe cubensis and Panaeolus cyanescens on endothelin-1-induced pathological hypertrophy and TNF-α-induced cell injury in H9C2 cardiomyocytes. The extracts did not aggravate hypertrophy and protected against TNF-α-induced injury and cell death at the concentrations used. The results support medicinal safe use under controlled conditions and caution against higher concentrations.