Healthy VolunteersNeuroimaging & Brain MeasuresMDMAPsilocybin

The effects of psilocybin and MDMA on between-network resting state functional connectivity in healthy volunteers

This analysis of a previous double-blind, placebo-controlled, fMRI study (n=15) found that psilocybin increased between-network resting-state functional connectivity (FC) more than MDMA.

Authors

  • Robin Carhart-Harris
  • David Nutt
  • Leor Roseman

Published

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
individual Study

Abstract

Perturbing a system and observing the consequences is a classic scientific strategy for understanding a phenomenon. Psychedelic drugs perturb consciousness in a marked and novel way and thus are powerful tools for studying its mechanisms. In the present analysis, we measured changes in resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) between a standard template of different independent components analysis (ICA)-derived resting state networks (RSNs) under the influence of two different psychoactive drugs, the stimulant/psychedelic hybrid, MDMA, and the classic psychedelic, psilocybin. Both were given in placebo-controlled designs and produced marked subjective effects, although reports of more profound changes in consciousness were given after psilocybin. Between-network RSFC was generally increased under psilocybin, implying that networks become less differentiated from each other in the psychedelic state. Decreased RSFC between visual and sensorimotor RSNs was also observed. MDMA had a notably less marked effect on between-network RSFC, implying that the extensive changes observed under psilocybin may be exclusive to classic psychedelic drugs and related to their especially profound effects on consciousness. The novel analytical approach applied here may be applied to other altered states of consciousness to improve our characterization of different conscious states and ultimately advance our understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying them.

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Research Summary of 'The effects of psilocybin and MDMA on between-network resting state functional connectivity in healthy volunteers'

Introduction

Psychedelic drugs offer a way to perturb consciousness and thereby probe its neurobiology. Roseman and colleagues frame the psychedelic state as an ‘‘expansive’’ alteration of waking consciousness that does not map simply onto reduced wakefulness or awareness; they situate this within information-integration accounts of consciousness, where the breadth of awareness relates to the repertoire of metastable brain states and the capacity to integrate them. Resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) and independent component analysis (ICA)-derived resting state networks (RSNs) are presented as candidate measures of such metastable ‘‘sub-states’’, and prior work is noted showing decreased within-network (intra-RSN) coupling after psilocybin and reduced anticorrelation between the default mode network (DMN) and task-positive networks following classic psychedelics.

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Study Details

References (11)

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