Psilocybin and the Evolutionary Significance of Altered Neural States: Interaction-Based Perspectives Beyond Deterrence Models
January 28, 2026 Philip Rebensburg
Psilocybin is a psychoactive tryptamine produced by a phylogenetically discontinuous yet ecologically diverse subset of fungi. Despite decades of chemical, pharmacological, and ethnobiological research, the evolutionary forces driving the emergence and persistence of this compound remain insufficiently explained. Recent hypotheses proposing that psilocybin evolved primarily as a deterrent...