Language-associated brain representations covary with disruption of selfhood under psilocybin
Greg Cooper, Devon Stoliker, Sebastian Vincent Astl Delgado, George Blackburne, Leonardo Novelli, David William Green, Adeel Razi, Ravi Das, Jeremy I Skipper
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) October 14, 2026 preprint DOI: 10.64898/2026.10.06.757069 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational fMRI study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 43 |
| Population | Participants who received psilocybin and completed the Ego Dissolution Inventory; a separate visual imagery comparator sample of 49 |
| Intervention | Psilocybin |
| Dose | 19 mg |
| Measures | Ego Dissolution Inventory (EDI), Neurosynth language map, Spearman's rho |
| Topics | Psilocybin |
| Key findings | Under psilocybin, greater similarity in activity of a left-lateralised frontotemporal language network across participants was associated with higher ego-dissolution scores (r=.382), nearly twice the largest comparator estimate. Exploratory analyses linked this network's connectivity changes to ego dissolution, with the strongest associations for items describing loss of ego or identity (rho=.43 to .51). The authors propose that language-associated systems integrate semantic and autobiographical context into experience and that disrupting them contributes to loss of ego and identity. |
Abstract
Language helps organise experience into an idiosyncratic, temporally extended sense of self. We therefore used fMRI to investigate whether greater similarity between participants in the activity of language-associated brain regions accompanied psilocybin-induced loss of selfhood. Participants heard music and viewed moving clouds at baseline and after 19 mg psilocybin. At each brain location and time point, we tested whether similarity increased with each pair's summed rank on the Ego Dissolution Inventory (EDI; N=43). We grouped independent components of these associations by time course and decoded each group's map with Neurosynth. Elementary visual imagery (SI; N=49) and baseline activity served as comparators. Under psilocybin, one group formed a distributed, left-lateralised frontotemporal network matching the Neurosynth language map (r=.382, spatial-null p<.001, q=.003), nearly twice the largest comparator estimate (SI: r=.208, p=.004, q=.028; baseline: r<.12). In exploratory analyses, resting-state connectivity of this network decreased with posterior visual cortex and increased with thalamic and frontal regions. Participants with higher EDI scores showed larger changes (Spearman's rho=.455, Bonferroni-adjusted p=.048; SI: rho=.008), most strongly for items describing loss of ego or identity (rho=.43 to .51). We propose that language-associated systems incorporate each person's semantic and autobiographical context into experience, and that disrupting them contributes to loss of ego and identity.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on psilocybin, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psilocybin induces schizophrenia-like psychosis in humans via a serotonin-2 agonist action Healthy human volunteers | 1998 | Experimental study | |
| Validation of the revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire in experimental sessions with psilocybin Participants in controlled laboratory experiments receiving a moderate to high oral... | 2015 | Validation study using pooled data from five laboratory experiments | n = 184 |
| Broadband Cortical Desynchronization Underlies the Human Psychedelic State Healthy human participants | 2013 | Experimental study | |
| Long-term follow-up of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for psychiatric and existential distress in patients with life-threatening cancer Participants with cancer-related psychiatric distress who completed a parent randomized... | 2020 | Long-term within-subjects follow-up analysis | n = 15 |
| Enzymatic Synthesis of Psilocybin | 2017 | Laboratory study |