Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
January 31, 2026
Carla Soares, Gisela Lima, Marta Teixeira et al.
1 citation
Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying the impact of psychedelics on social perception and cognition may be instrumental to unravel their therapeutic potential. We conducted a pharmacoimaging study to examine ayahuasca's effects on a key theory of mind region, at the core of the third visual pathway (TVP) - the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), which is involved in facial...
Scientific Reports
December 12, 2025
Gisela Lima, Carla Soares, Marta Teixeira et al.
Reward processing is a broad psychological construct that can be parsed into distinct components known as "reinforcement learning" (learning), "reward responsiveness" (liking), and "motivation to obtain a reward" (wanting). Dysfunctions in reward processing in mesolimbic and mesocortical pathways are a core feature of many pathologies. Psychedelics have been proposed as a treatment option for...
Research Square
September 17, 2025
Gisela Lima, Carla Soares, Marta Teixeira et al.
Abstract Reward processing is a broad psychological construct that can be parsed into distinct components known as “reinforcement learning” (learning), “reward responsiveness” (liking), and “motivation to obtain a reward” (wanting). Dysfunctions in reward processing in mesolimbic and mesocortical pathways, are a core feature of many pathologies. Psychedelics have been proposed as a treatment...
British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
December 1, 2024
Gisela Lima, Carla Soares, Marta Teixeira et al.
4 citations
Recent years have witnessed an unprecedented increase in the search for the use of psychedelics in improving physical and mental health. Anaesthesia has evolved since very early times, born from the need to eliminate pain and reduce suffering and there are reports of the use of anaesthetics to achieve mystical states since the nineteenth century. Nowadays, the renaissance of psychedelics in...
Neuroimage
August 15, 2024
Marta Lapo Pais, Marta Teixeira, Carla Soares et al.
8 citations
N, N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a psychedelic tryptamine acting on 5-HT2A serotonin receptors, which is associated with intense visual hallucinatory phenomena and perceptual changes such as distortions in visual space. The neural underpinnings of these effects remain unknown. We hypothesised that changes in population receptive field (pRF) properties in the primary visual cortex (V1) might...
Frontiers in Pharmacology
2024
Carla Soares, Gisela Lima, Marta Lapo Pais et al.
13 citations
The modulation of social cognition is suggested as a possible mechanism contributing to the potential clinical efficacy of psychedelics in disorders involving socio-emotional and reward processing deficits. Resting-state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rs-fMRI) can be used to detect changes in brain connectivity during psychedelic-induced states. Thus, this pharmacoimaging study...
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
September 1, 2023
Carla Soares, Gerardo Gonzalo, João Castelhano et al.
The Default Mode Network (DMN) and the Theory of Mind (ToM) networks play a crucial role in our understanding of the neurocognition of the self. The DMN is commonly associated with introspection, while the ToM is involved in perspective-taking. There is no research investigating the overlap between the DMN and ToM in relation to causal effects such as induced by psychedelics, and their precise...
Frontiers in Pharmacology
September 29, 2021
João Castelhano, Gisela Lima, Marta Teixeira et al.
34 citations
There is an increasing interest in the neural effects of psychoactive drugs, in particular tryptamine psychedelics, which has been incremented by the proposal that they have potential therapeutic benefits, based on their molecular mimicry of serotonin. It is widely believed that they act mainly through 5HT2A receptors but their effects on neural activation of distinct brain systems are not...