Serotonin, Predictive Processing and Psychedelics
Matteo Colombo
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences April 19, 2022 DOI: 10.33735/phimisci.2022.9320 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Commentary Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Anxiety Serotonin |
| Keywords | Predictive power Sketch Worry Cognitive psychology Psychotherapist Epistemology |
| Citations | 6 |
| Key points | Argues that Letheby's reliance on Predictive Processing to explain psychedelic therapy is problematic and proposes an alternative interpretation using Reinforcement Learning. |
Abstract
Letheby’s "Philosophy of Psychedelics" relies on Predictive Processing to try and find unifying explanations relevant to understanding how serotonergic psychedelics work in psychiatric therapy, what subjective experiences are associated with their use and whether such experiences are epistemically defective. But if Predictive Processing lacks genuinely explanatory unifying power, Letheby’s account of psychedelic therapy risks being unwarranted. In this commentary, I motivate this worry and sketch an alternative interpretation of psychedelic therapy within the Reinforcement Learning framework.
Citations in the library
Cited by 2
- From pure experience to cognitive models: constitutive explanations and modalization in phenomenological cognitivism Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences August 12, 2025
- These aren’t the beliefs you’re looking for: on the limits of affect-neutral accounts of psychedelic therapy Synthese January 26, 2026