Name: How Psychedelics Change the Brain
Uploaded: undefined
Duration: undefined

NOVA

Psychedelics might interact with the brain by turning off the brain’s default mode network and affecting a thin sheet of gray matter called the claustrum. This could shake up communication between different regions of the brain.

Scientists found that psychedelic drugs may change how brain regions talk to each other.

How Psychedelics Change the Brain

Carlisle Companies

Viking

NOVA Science Trust Logo

Psychedelics might interact with the brain by turning off the brain’s default mode network and affecting a thin sheet of gray matter called the claustrum. This could shake up communication between different regions of the brain.

Scientists found that psychedelic drugs may change how brain regions talk to each other.

Body & Brain

How Psychedelics Change the BrainPublished October 19, 2022NARRATOR: The default mode network activates when a person is introspective, and, under normal circumstances, becomes less active when a person shifts their attention to the outside world. But brain studies show that under the influence of a psychedelic, the default mode network is quieted, while other regions of the brain increase communication with each other. A mathematical model captures a normal brain’s activity. In contrast, a brain under the influence of psilocybin reveals a dramatic increase in global communication. Thousands of new connections form, linking brain regions that don’t normally talk to each other.ROBIN CARHART-HARRIS: So, one analogy I’ve used for how psychedelics work in the brain is this snow globe. When you pick up a snow globe, you know, the snow’s settled at the bottom, it’s sort of fixed, and then you pick it up, shake it, and things jiggle around, and there’s randomness and a kind of chaos, if you want, in the system.NARRATOR: The user experiences this as an altered and heightened sense of awareness. But what causes this?FRED BARRETT: Early in our functional brain imaging studies of psychedelics, scientists were finding that the default mode network was turning down or turning off during these experiences. And that was a really good place to start, but we began to then look one layer deeper. Why was the default mode network turning off?NARRATOR: New research led neuroscientist Fred Barrett to investigate a region of the brain called the claustrum.FRED BARRETT: The claustrum is a really thin sheet of gray matter in the brain, tucked deep within each of the hemispheres of the brain. Recent animal models have shown that it is incredibly highly connected to just about every other region of the brain. Understanding that the receptors targeted by psychedelic drugs are also really densely expressed in the claustrum, we began to wonder whether the claustrum may be at the center of psychedelic effects.NARRATOR: Fred believes the claustrum’s central location and shape suggest it regulates communication between the departments.FRED BARRETT: When it’s functioning normally, the claustrum is essentially acting like a switchboard. It’s trying to help other brain regions figure out when to turn on and when to turn off. But when we experience a psychedelic drug, we believe that it’s binding to specific receptors in the claustrum and, somehow, disrupting or disorganizing the claustrum. It’s almost as if the switchboard walks away. What happens next is that we seem to observe a, a radical change in the way that brain regions talk to each other. And it may be within this context that we’re experiencing learning and a possible, even, rewiring of the circuits that govern our behavior. And it may be that it’s that radical reorganization that allows people to encounter new psychological insights that they hadn’t encountered before.NARRATOR: Fred thinks the claustrum’s sudden abdication of control may help explain why rigid behavior and thought patterns have a shot at resetting.MATT JOHNSON: It’s almost like they’ve seen this kind of grand menu within their mind that they weren’t aware of. That this, this greater number of possibilities that they can explore.ERIC GOSS: It took a while to recover. I was having headaches and muscle pains. But it was the best headache I’d ever had in my life, because it told me that the psilocybin was working. It was actually physically restructuring my brain, something that I never imagined could happen before.ROLAND GRIFFITH: It’s like reprogramming the operating system of a computer. You’re getting down to very basic code-level changes that can enduringly change someone going forward.

United States

Northern Mariana Islands

Puerto Rico

American Samoa

Guam

U.S. Virgin Islands

U.S. Minor Outlying Islands

US & Territories

Colossal explosions shake a remote corner of the Siberian tundra, leaving behind massive craters. In Alaska, a huge lake erupts with bubbles of inflammable gas. Scientists are discovering that these mystifying phenomena add up to a ticking time bomb, as long-frozen permafrost melts and releases vast amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. What are the implications of these dramatic developments in the Arctic? Scientists and local communities alike are struggling to grasp the scale of the methane threat and what it means for our climate future. (Premiered February 2, 2022)

In the Arctic, enormous releases of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, threaten the climate.

Arctic Sinkholes

The top half of Jupiter in blue and green against a night sky

A composite image of Jupiter using images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Judy Schmidt.

Explore the cosmos, delve into ancient history, and follow an extreme rescue with NOVA’s most-watched documentaries released in 2022.

NOVA’s most popular science documentaries of 2022

Four bright orange loops brand off of a dark blue blob

A transmission electron micrograph of HIV-1 virus particles (orange) replicating from the plasma membrane of an infected H9 T cell. Credit: NIAID, Flickr

Scientists have cured a handful of people of HIV by piggybacking on treatments they received for blood cancer. But does that bring a widespread cure any closer?

How Psychedelics Change the Brain

Support Provided By

Explore More

Hitting the Brain's Reset Button

Magic Mushrooms Lift Deep Depression in 12 Patients

Can Psychedelics Cure?

Psychedelics as Medicine: The History of Peyote

Transcript

Sources