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36 Papers Indexed in Blossom

Published Papers

Open Accessindividual

A multi-institutional investigation of psilocybin's effects on mouse behavior

In a coordinated five‑laboratory study of ~200 mice, psilocybin (2 mg/kg IP) produced robust, replicable acute behavioural effects — increased anxiety- and avoidance-related behaviour and reduced fear expression — but did not reproducibly produce persistent (24 h) anxiolytic, antidepressant, fear‑extinction or pro‑social effects. The multi‑institutional design therefore both delineates the reliable acute actions of psilocybin and provides a model for improving reproducibility in psychedelic research.

Published
Journal
Biorxiv
Authors
Lu, O. D., White, K., Raymond, K., Liu, C., Klein, A. S., Green, N., Vaillancourt, S., Gallagher, A., Shindy, L., Li, A., Wallquist, K., Li, R., Zou, M., Casey, A. B., Cameron, L. P., Pomrenze, M. B., Sohal, V., Kheirbek, M. A., Gomez, A. M., Lammel, S., Heifets, B. D., Malenka, R.
Open Accessindividual

Psychedelics Align Brain Activity with Context

Using the largest psychedelic neuroimaging dataset to date (62 adults, fMRI and EEG, before and after 19 mg psilocybin), the authors show that psilocybin reorganises brain dynamics—increasing global connectivity in associative regions and decreasing it in sensory areas—so that neural activity aligns with contextual stimuli and eyes-open versus eyes-closed states. This reorganisation, revealed by low-dimensional trajectories, produces an “embeddedness” state linking distinct neural patterns to boundary-dissolving subjective experiences and next-day mindset changes, offering a framework for how psychedelics exert context-sensitive behavioural and therapeutic effects.

Published
Journal
Biorxiv
Authors
Stoliker, D., Novelli, L., Khajehnejad, M., Biabani, M., Barta, T., Greaves, M. D., Williams, M., Chopra, S., Bazin, O., Simonsson, O., Chambers, R., Barrett, F., Deco, G., Seth, A., Preller, K. H., Carhart-Harris, R., Sundram, S., Egan, G. F., Razi, A.
Open Accessindividual

Dissociable effects of LSD and MDMA on striato-cortical connectivity in healthy subjects

In healthy volunteers, acute MDMA and LSD did not alter within-network connectivity of associative, limbic or sensorimotor striatal seeds but produced distinct striato‑cortical changes: MDMA reduced limbic striatum–amygdala coupling, while LSD increased associative striatum connectivity with frontal, sensorimotor and visual cortices. These drug-specific effects mainly occurred outside standard striatal networks, consistent with reduced network modularity and increased cross‑network connectivity under psychedelics.

Published
Journal
Biorxiv
Authors
Ertl, N., Ashraf, I., Azizi, L., Roseman, L., Erritzoe, D., Nutt, D. J., Carhart-Harris, R. L., Wall, M. B.
Open Accessindividual

Psilocybin alters visual contextual computations

Using psychophysics, ultra-high field fMRI and computational modelling, the authors show that psilocybin alters visual contextual perception (the Ebbinghaus illusion) and the contextual modulation of cortical visual responses. They present a computational model linking these behavioural and neural changes and propose altered contextual computations as a potential general mechanism for psychedelic effects.

Published
Journal
Biorxiv
Authors
Aqil, M., De Hollander, G., Vreugdenhil, N., Knapen, T., Dumoulin, S. O.
Open Accessindividual

The non-hallucinogenic serotonin 1B receptor is necessary for the antidepressant-like effects of psilocybin in mice

This preprint mouse study (n=29) finds that the serotonin 1B receptor (5-HT1BR) is necessary for psilocybin's antidepressant and anxiolytic effects, independent of its hallucinogenic properties. Using transgenic mice lacking 5-HT1BR and network analysis, the study demonstrates that this receptor influences brain-wide activity patterns and mediates acute and persistent behavioural responses to psilocybin, suggesting a novel mechanism for psilocybin's therapeutic effects.

Published
Journal
Biorxiv
Authors
Fleury, S., Nautiyal, K. M.
Open Accessindividual

Human brain changes after first psilocybin use

In a placebo-controlled, within-subject neuroimaging study of 28 psychedelic‑naive participants, a single high (25 mg) dose of psilocybin produced lasting functional and anatomical brain changes from 1 hour to 1 month and improved cognitive flexibility, psychological insight and well‑being at one month. Diffusion MRI showed decreased axial diffusivity in prefrontal–subcortical tracts that correlated with reduced brain network modularity (which correlated with improved well‑being), acute increases in cortical signal entropy predicted one‑month well‑being via next‑day psychological insight, and none of these effects were seen with a 1 mg control dose.

Published
Journal
Biorxiv
Authors
Lyons, T., Spriggs, M. J., Kerkelä, L., Rosas, F. E., Roseman, L., Mediano, P. A. M., Timmermann, C., Oestreich, L., Pagni, B. A., Zeifman, R. J., Hampshire, A. D. G., Trender, W., Douglass, H., Girn, M., Godfrey, K., Kettner, H., Sharif, F., Espasiano, L., Gazzaley, A., Wall, M. B., Erritzoe, D., Nutt, D. J., Carhart-Harris, R. L.

Quick Facts

Papers Indexed
36
Publisher
openRxiv
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