Imperial College London
Alternate

Professor Robin Carhart-Harris

Faculty of Medicine, Department of Brain Sciences

Visiting Professor
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7992r.carhart-harris

 
 
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Assistant

 

Miss Bruna Cunha +44 (0)20 7594 7992

 
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Location

 

Burlington DanesHammersmith Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@unpublished{Herzog:2020:10.1101/2020.05.13.093732,
author = {Herzog, R and Mediano, PAM and Rosas, FE and Carhart-Harris, R and Perl, YS and Tagliazucchi, E and Cofre, R},
doi = {10.1101/2020.05.13.093732},
title = {A mechanistic model of the neural entropy increase elicited by psychedelic drugs},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.13.093732},
year = {2020}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - UNPB
AB  - <jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>Psychedelic drugs, including lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and other agonists of the serotonin 2A receptor (5HT2A-R), induce drastic changes in subjective experience, and provide a unique opportunity to study the neurobiological basis of consciousness. One of the most notable neurophysiological signatures of psychedelics, increased entropy in spontaneous neural activity, is thought to be of relevance to the psychedelic experience, encoding both acute alterations in consciousness and mediating long-term effects. However, no clear mechanistic explanation for this ‘entropic’ phenomenon has been put forward so far. We sought to do this here by building upon a recent whole-brain model of serotonergic neuromodulation, to study the entropic effects of 5HT2A-R activation. Our results reproduce the overall entropy increase observed in previous experiments <jats:italic>in vivo</jats:italic>, providing the first model-based explanation for this phenomenon. We also found that entropy changes were not uniform across the brain: entropy increased in some regions and decreased in others, suggesting a topographical reconfiguration mediated by 5HT2A-R activation. Interestingly, at the whole-brain level, this reconfiguration was not well explained by 5HT2A-R density, but related closely to the topological properties of the brain’s anatomical connectivity. These results help us understand the mechanisms underlying the psychedelic state and, more generally, the pharmacological modulation of whole-brain activity.</jats:p>
AU  - Herzog,R
AU  - Mediano,PAM
AU  - Rosas,FE
AU  - Carhart-Harris,R
AU  - Perl,YS
AU  - Tagliazucchi,E
AU  - Cofre,R
DO  - 10.1101/2020.05.13.093732
PY  - 2020///
TI  - A mechanistic model of the neural entropy increase elicited by psychedelic drugs
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.13.093732
ER  -
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