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Psychedelics tune the brain to the environment

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Rather than just scrambling neural activity, the psychedelic substance psilocybin also reorganizes brain dynamics so as to align with a person’s context and experiences.

By

  1. Stefan Borgwardt

    1. Stefan Borgwardt is in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Lübeck, Lübeck D-23538, Germany.

  2. Mihai Avram

    1. Mihai Avram is in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Lübeck, Lübeck D-23538, Germany.

Classic psychedelic compounds — a group that includes psilocybin, LSD, DMT and mescaline — induce profound alterations in perception, cognition and emotion. These substances have captured scientific and clinical attention, partly because guided treatment with psychedelics can provide rapid and long-lasting relief for people with certain psychiatric conditions, such as major depressive disorder1. However, despite the promise that psychedelics show in the clinic, the neural mechanisms that link their acute effects to lasting therapeutic benefits are poorly understood. Human neuroimaging studies have consistently shown that psychedelics disrupt the brain’s intrinsic functional organization, producing a ‘desynchronized’ state2. Writing in Nature, Stoliker et al.3 provide a compelling new perspective: rather than simply making brain activity noisier, psilocybin reorganizes neural dynamics in relation to a person’s surrounding world.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-02377-9

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Competing Interests

S.B. is the secretary (an unpaid, voluntary position) for the German Society for Psychedelic Research and Therapy (DGPFT) e.V..

  • Read the paper: Psychedelics align brain activity with context

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