Counterflows: Information Processing Parallels of Psychedelic State and Schizophrenia Measured by Effective Connectivity

Abstract

The aim of the proposed study is to investigate parallels in neural correlates of schizophrenia and psychedelic state induced by psilocybin. Despite being distinct neurobiological processes and having dramatically different outcomes, these two conditions share striking resemblances in phenomenology, suggesting there may be shared neural mechanisms in certain stages of their development. With the clinical burden posed by schizophrenia and conditions potentially treatable by psilocybin, more research into neurobiology of both is crucially needed - with an additional opportunity of expanding the current knowledge of general principles of brain function by doing so. We aim to further theories that are currently being discussed in both conditions, and bring about their synthesis: 1) shift from a predominantly top-down cognitive processing to an increased bottom-up processing (Adamek 2024), 2) higher permeability of the so-called thalamic filter (Müller 2018, Avram 2021), and 3) alterations in the interactions within the triple network (the default mode network, central executive network and salience network) comprising the top of the brain functional hierarchy (Nekovarova 2014, Stoliker 2023). The last two phenomena have been observed in both psychedelic state and in schizophrenia; the shift to an increased bottom-up processing has been demonstrated in schizophrenia, and we hypothesize that the same will occur under the influence of psilocybin. In this study, fMRI time series of healthy volunteers given psilocybin will be analyzed, forming the first step of a larger analysis, with a subsequent comparison of the observed changes with a group of patients with schizophrenia matched by age, gender and education.

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