Psychedelic-assisted therapy is a promising new treatment for psychiatric disorders like anxiety and depression. A new study at UC Berkeley will be one of the first to explore how the psychedelic compound psilocybin interacts with the brain and shapes human perception. Credit: iStock/Dusan Stankovic
For many people, psychedelic-assisted therapy has the power to unlock new insights and lift the burden of mental distress. But why these compounds have such profound effects — and how exactly they interact with the complex machinery of the human brain — remains largely a mystery.
The UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP) is launching a new study designed to reveal the mechanisms behind how psychedelics shape human perception.
In the experiment, healthy human participants will ingest psilocybin, a compound found in psychedelic mushrooms. Each participant will then perform simple perceptual tasks while their visual cortex is monitored using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).
The researchers hope that by gaining a better understanding of how psilocybin interacts with the brain’s visual system — one of the best-understood parts of the brain — they will also obtain insights into these drugs’ wide-ranging impacts on the human mind.
“We have this incredible opportunity to characterize the psychedelic experience in real time — while it’s happening — using modern neuroimaging methods,” said Michael Silver, director of the BCSP and the study’s leader. “Understanding the actions of psychedelics at a neuroscientific level will generate insights into how they’re working as medicines and will hopefully help us develop more effective treatments for mental health disorders. It will also shed light on some of the fundamental mysteries of the human brain, mind and consciousness and how they relate to each other.”
For centuries, plants and fungi with psychedelic properties have been included in the sacred ceremonial practices of many Indigenous communities. In the 1950s and 1960s, Western scientists, psychiatrists and therapists began testing whether psychoactive compounds purified from plants and fungi, as well as novel synthetic compounds, could help treat mental health disorders. However, these studies were curtailed by the passing of the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, which restricted the use […]
Psychedelics change how we see the world. A UC Berkeley study aims to find out why.
