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A Look Inside a Brain on Magic Mushrooms
by Paul Seaburn
Does a brain on magic mushrooms look the same as one having a dream? That’s the conclusion of a study of 15 volunteers published this week in the journal Human Brain Mapping.
Researchers at Imperial College in London gave psilocybin, the psychedelic chemical in magic mushrooms, to the volunteers and then measured their brain activity using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scanner. Scientists at Goethe University in Germany participated in the analysis.
They found that activity in the hippocampus and anterior cingulate cortex, areas linked to emotional thinking, became more pronounced and appeared to be working together in a manner similar to the brain of a person dreaming. Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, a leading expert in psychedelic research at Imperial College, was not surprised at the similarity.
People often describe taking psilocybin as producing a dreamlike state and our findings have, for the first time, provided a physical representation for the experience in the brain.
Source: http://philosophers-stone.co.uk/wordpress/2014/09/a-look-inside-a-brain-on-magic-mushrooms/
