Effects of LSD on music-evoked brain activity
Mendel Kaelen, Romy Lorenz, Frederick S. Barrett, Leor Roseman, Csaba Orbán, Andre Santos-Ribeiro, Matthew B. Wall, Amanda Feilding, David Nutt, Suresh Muthukumaraswamy, Robin Carhart-Harris, Robert Leech
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) June 25, 2017 preprint DOI: 10.1101/153031 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Randomized controlled trial |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 16 |
| Population | Healthy participants |
| Intervention | Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) |
| Dose | 75 mcg |
| Topics | LSD |
| Keywords | Active listening Sound perception Music psychology Cognitive psychology Stimulus psychology Audiology Electroencephalography Communication Musicology |
| Citations | 20 |
| Key findings | LSD enhances music-evoked brain activity and connectivity, especially related to timbral complexity, and this is associated with increased feelings of wonder. |
Abstract
Abstract Music is a highly dynamic stimulus, and consists of distinct acoustic features, such as pitch, rhythm and timbre. Neuroimaging studies highlight a hierarchy of brain networks involved in music perception. Psychedelic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) temporary disintegrate the normal hierarchy of brain functioning, and produce profound subjective effects, including enhanced music-evoked emotion. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the acute effects of LSD on music-evoked brain-activity under naturalistic music listening conditions. 16 healthy participants were enrolled in magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while listening to a 7-minute music piece under eyes-closed conditions on two separate visits (LSD (75 mcg) and placebo). Dynamic time courses for acoustic features were extracted from the music excerpts, and were entered into subject-level fMRI analyses as regressors of interest. Differences between conditions were assessed at group level subsequently, and were related to changes in music-evoked emotions via correlation analyses. Psycho-physiological interactions (PPIs) were carried out to further interrogate underlying music-specific changes in functional connectivity under LSD. Results showed pronounced cortical and subcortical changes in music-evoked brain activity under LSD. Most notable changes in brain activity and connectivity were associated with the component timbral complexity, representing the complexity of the music’s spectral distribution, and these occurred in brain networks previously identified for music-perception and music-evoked emotion, and showed an association with enhanced music-evoked feelings of wonder under LSD. The findings shed light on how the brain processes music under LSD, and provide a neurobiological basis for the usefulness of music in psychedelic therapy.