Effects of External Stimulation on Psychedelic State Neurodynamics

Pedro A.M. Mediano; Fernando E. Rosas; Christopher Timmermann; Leor Roseman; David J. Nutt; Amanda Feilding; Mendel Kaelen; Morten L. Kringelbach; Adam B. Barrett; Anil K. Seth; Suresh Muthukumaraswamy; Daniel Bor; Robin L. Carhart-Harris

doi:10.1021/acschemneuro.3c00289

Effects of External Stimulation on Psychedelic State Neurodynamics

Pedro A.M. Mediano^*, Fernando E. Rosas^*, Christopher Timmermann, Leor Roseman, David J. Nutt, Amanda Feilding, Mendel Kaelen, Morten L. Kringelbach, Adam B. Barrett, Anil K. Seth, Suresh Muthukumaraswamy, Daniel Bor, Robin L. Carhart-Harris

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Clinical Medicine - Center for Music In the Brain

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Recent findings have shown that psychedelics reliably enhance brain entropy (understood as neural signal diversity), and this effect has been associated with both acute and long-term psychological outcomes, such as personality changes. These findings are particularly intriguing, given that a decrease of brain entropy is a robust indicator of loss of consciousness (e.g., from wakefulness to sleep). However, little is known about how context impacts the entropy-enhancing effect of psychedelics, which carries important implications for how it can be exploited in, for example, psychedelic psychotherapy. This article investigates how brain entropy is modulated by stimulus manipulation during a psychedelic experience by studying participants under the effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or placebo, either with gross state changes (eyes closed vs open) or different stimuli (no stimulus vs music vs video). Results show that while brain entropy increases with LSD under all of the experimental conditions, it exhibits the largest changes when subjects have their eyes closed. Furthermore, brain entropy changes are consistently associated with subjective ratings of the psychedelic experience, but this relationship is disrupted when participants are viewing a video─potentially due to a “competition” between external stimuli and endogenous LSD-induced imagery. Taken together, our findings provide strong quantitative evidence of the role of context in modulating neural dynamics during a psychedelic experience, underlining the importance of performing psychedelic psychotherapy in a suitable environment.

Original language	English
Journal	ACS Chemical Neuroscience
Volume	15
Issue	3
Pages (from-to)	462-471
Number of pages	10
ISSN	1948-7193
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1021/acschemneuro.3c00289
Publication status	Published - 7 Feb 2024

Keywords

complexity
consciousness
neuroscience
psychedelics

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10.1021/acschemneuro.3c00289

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title = "Effects of External Stimulation on Psychedelic State Neurodynamics",

abstract = "Recent findings have shown that psychedelics reliably enhance brain entropy (understood as neural signal diversity), and this effect has been associated with both acute and long-term psychological outcomes, such as personality changes. These findings are particularly intriguing, given that a decrease of brain entropy is a robust indicator of loss of consciousness (e.g., from wakefulness to sleep). However, little is known about how context impacts the entropy-enhancing effect of psychedelics, which carries important implications for how it can be exploited in, for example, psychedelic psychotherapy. This article investigates how brain entropy is modulated by stimulus manipulation during a psychedelic experience by studying participants under the effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or placebo, either with gross state changes (eyes closed vs open) or different stimuli (no stimulus vs music vs video). Results show that while brain entropy increases with LSD under all of the experimental conditions, it exhibits the largest changes when subjects have their eyes closed. Furthermore, brain entropy changes are consistently associated with subjective ratings of the psychedelic experience, but this relationship is disrupted when participants are viewing a video─potentially due to a “competition” between external stimuli and endogenous LSD-induced imagery. Taken together, our findings provide strong quantitative evidence of the role of context in modulating neural dynamics during a psychedelic experience, underlining the importance of performing psychedelic psychotherapy in a suitable environment.",

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Effects of External Stimulation on Psychedelic State Neurodynamics

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