Psychedelics restructure information in the human brain
George Blackburne, Alberto Liardi, Pablo Mallaroni, Rosalind McAlpine, Robin Carhart-Harris, Christopher Timmermann, Suresh Daniel Muthukumaraswamy, Jeremy I Skipper, Pedro A. M. Mediano
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational neuroimaging study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 80 |
| Population | People administered one of five psychedelic or dissociative compounds (LSD, psilocybin, ketamine, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT) |
| Interventions | LSD Psilocybin Ketamine DMT 5-MeO-DMT |
| Key findings | The authors report that a multivariate information decomposition explains major prior findings and reveals competing underlying phenomena masked by existing approaches, and that these observations can emerge from a minimal generative model in which neural populations operate with reduced self-coupling. They propose that the psychedelic brain is one in which cortical populations become alike, but not necessarily together. |
Abstract
How do psychedelic drugs alter human brain function? Answering this question relies on our ability to understand how information is stored, transferred, and transformed across the cortex. Here, we leverage a precise mathematical framework for multivariate information decomposition to construct the first comprehensive picture of these processes across five compounds: LSD, psilocybin, ketamine, DMT and 5-MeO-DMT (N=80). We provide a formal and empirical explanation of major prior results, revealing sets of competing underlying phenomena masked by extant approaches. We extend this analysis to novel higher-order phenomena, and we demonstrate how all of these observations can emerge from a minimal generative model in which neural populations operate with reduced self-coupling. In sum, our results suggest that the psychedelic brain is one in which cortical populations become alike, but not necessarily together. This has important implications for models of how psychedelics reorganize brain dynamics to alter subjective experience and alleviate mental health conditions.