Magic Mushrooms Trip Up Brain Activity
by Stephanie Pappas
The active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms decreases brain activity, possibly explaining the vivid, mind-bending effects of the drug, a new study finds.
The decreases were focused in regions that serve as crossroads for information in the brain, meaning that information may flow more freely in a brain on mushrooms. The findings could be useful in developing hallucinogenic treatments for some mental disorders.
“There is increasing evidence that the regions affected are responsible for giving us our sense of self,” study author Robin Carhart-Harris, a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London, wrote in an email to LiveScience.
“In other words, the regions affected make up what some people call our ‘ego.’ That activity decreases in the ‘ego-network’ supports what people often say about psychedelics, that they temporarily ‘dissolve the ego.’”…
(read more: Live Science) (image: Cactu @ Wikimedia Commons)
(via psychedeliciosa)
