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After their father and grandfather died of Alzheimer’s, these brothers began exploring how functional and psychedelic mushrooms can impact brain health
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Chris and Joe Claussen watched their grandfather, then their father, die of Alzheimer’s disease.
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They did genetic testing that found they’re at increased risk for the disease too.
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They founded First Person, a company focused on the medicinal power of mushrooms.
When Chris and Joe Claussen were kids, they saw their father struggle when his own dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Years later, at just 65 years old, their dad was diagnosed with the condition that affects memory, brain function, and behavior.
“We saw how it progressed from little things to complete disaster,” Joe said.
The brothers had seen how the disease ends and they scrambled for answers. They were intrigued by the possible medicinal applications of mushrooms. They implemented dietary changes for their dad and saw small improvements in his abilities. Unfortunately, it was too late to reverse the course of the disease.
“The simple truth is, currently, if you wait too long to start taking care of your brain, there is not a lot you can do,” Chris said. “You have to start 20 to 30 years before you start to see symptoms.”
The brothers are at increased risk of Alzheimer’s
The brothers decided to do genetic testing to better understand their risk for Alzheimer’s. It revealed that they both carry the APOE4 gene, which doubles or triples the risk of developing Alzheimer’s. For the brothers, knowing that provided valuable information.
“It shouldn’t be scary, it should be a guide,” Chris said.
They started following a healthy-brain protocol that included following a ketogenic diet and supplementing with medicinal mushrooms like Lion’s Mane. Both said they noticed physical and cognitive improvements in themselves. That convinced them that they were onto something, and they started First Person.
“We wanted to get the message out there: The time to take care of your brain starts now,” Chris said.
Exploring the impact of mushrooms and microdosing
First Person manufactures supplements based on functional mushrooms to support brain health. Functional mushrooms like Lion’s Mane don’t contain psychoactive compounds that are banned in the US.
But the Claussens believe that those compounds are just as important in unlocking brain health. First Person is conducting research on psychedelic mushrooms in Jamaica, where the mushrooms are legal. Both the Claussens believe that some legalization in the US is inevitable, and they want their research to help support that.
“We’re studying these compounds and looking at standardizing dosing,” Joe said.
These are compounds that have been used for millennia, particularly in Asian cultures, Joe said. US drug policy has stigmatized them, but now Western researchers are starting to understand their potential. At the same time, there’s a strong grassroots movement, with everyone from moms to veterans extolling the benefits of microdosing — the practice of using very small amounts of psychedelics.
The brothers want to avoid disaster for their own families
The Claussens believe that despite their genetic risk, their futures are not sealed. Through dietary and lifestyle changes, they believe that Alzheimer’s can be prevented. Research shows they could be onto something: Up to 40% of dementia cases could be prevented through lifestyle adjustments like reducing alcohol intake and maintaining healthy blood pressure.
“This is just making a few small tweaks that are not overly difficult to do,” Chris said.
That can help your entire family avoid heartbreak in the future. “It affects everybody if you can’t take care of yourself,” Chris said.
Read the original article on Insider
Inside one of NYC’s ketamine clinics where hotshots and average Joes are given IV of psychedelic
Stepping inside the Jeff Ditzell Psychiatry clinic in the financial district of Manhattan, it feels more like a luxury spa than a medical facility.
But customers come here for something far more powerful than a deep tissue massage or hot yoga session — they come for the ketamine.
A medical loophole means facilities like this one can offer the hallucinogen, which was first developed as a horse tranquilizer and has become popular among ravers, for people with depression.
Far from the party atmosphere that typically surrounds ketamine, the person receiving the infusion at Dr Ditzell’s clinic is taken into a dimly-lit room where they are surrounded by plants and colorful abstract art.
They are put in a leather reclining chair whose back is enveloped in a white pod reminiscent of an Elon Musk SpaceX invention. It puts the patient in partial darkness to induce relaxation while they get hooked up to an IV for a roughly 40-minute infusion.
Patients spend the next hour outfitted with a sleeping mask and headphones playing theta brain waves, which are at the dominant frequency in healing, high creative states, and remembering emotional experiences.
Dr Jeff Ditzell told DailyMail.com: ‘Essentially, the music and the aromatherapy that we have going as well as the calm setting, warm lights and all that, the comfortable space that’s dedicated to the ketamine infusion is really key in getting a good response.’
His clinic, which is just a stone’s throw away from Wall Street, has attracted bankers with deep pockets looking to escape from the madness of the trading floor.
Ket clinics have been appearing across New York at a rapid rate and they are now staring to crop up in other major US cities like Houston, Miami, Los Angeles and Seattle.
There are estimated to be over 100 nationwide now compared to just a handful a decade ago. It comes after several recent studies indicated a low dose of the drug may help treat depression and PTSD.
Patients undergoing ketamine treatments recline in a leather lounge chair that resembles a SpaceX device designed by Elon Musk, a feature meant to cocoon the user and foster introspection. Ditzell is committed to providing clients with a good trip, he told DailyMail.com. The office is festooned with abstract art, ambient lights, and potted plants
Ketamine infusions are for people with debilitating depression who have tried several other courses of treatment including antidepressant medications with little or no relief. Before it was known as a party drug that could produce out-of-body experiences, ketamine was used as an anesthetic in surgical procedures. Since then, it has been prescribed ‘off-label’ for treatment-resistant depression
Ditzell’s office, which is just a stone’s throw away from Wall Street, has attracted bankers with deep pockets looking to escape from the madness of the trading floor. But not just anyone can receive a ketamine treatment, Ditzell says. There is a lengthy screening process that considers the person’s psychiatric history before determining if they qualify
In a treatment room at Ditzell’s clinic, patients spend an hour outfitted with a sleeping mask while listening to theta brain waves, which are at the dominant frequency in healing, high creative states, and remembering emotional experiences. Patients report feeling ‘stoned’ with many saying they’ve had out of body experiences
People undergoing ketamine infusions report sedating or relaxing effects. Some gain a heightened sensory awareness while many report feeling outside of their bodies.
‘I wouldn’t quite call it psychedelic,’ said David Hogberg, 52, a journalist who underwent five treatments in Washington, DC. ‘But you’re definitely you are, for lack of a better word, stoned.’
Ketamine is a schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act in the same category as codeine and anabolic steroids.
The consequences of possessing recreational ketamine vary by state but fines can range from the hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, with jail time of up to 20 years.
But it is approved in the US and UK as a surgical anesthetic and can be prescribed ‘off-label’ for depression in private clinics.
This loophole guarantees that providers who administer ketamine treatments for treatment-resistant depression are on the right side of the law.
But experts Dailymail.com spoke to were split over the growing practice.
Some argue that administering the infusions is reckless and seeks to oversimplify the recovery process, which typically takes years of hard work in cognitive therapy and adherence to an effective medication regimen.
Ketamine infusions are for people with debilitating depression who have tried several other courses of treatment including antidepressant medications with little or no relief.
‘Complex mental health is not a situation where there is a quick fix,’ said Dr Zak Waqar-Uddin, a general practitioner in the UK.
He went on: ‘It relies on sympathetic trained experts including psychiatrists and psychologists, who use medications and counselling techniques that even when successfully applied, take months if not years for their results to show.’
On the other side of the debate, Dr Michel Thase, a psychiatry professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine told this website: ‘The way we administer it is in no way shape or form the way people use it as as a party drug.’
‘And the doses that are used to treat depression are one quarter of the doses used as an anesthetic.’
Prescribing medications off label is a common practice for numerous treatments. The drug topiramate, for instance, is federally approved to treat epilepsy and prevent seizures.
But topiramate is commonly used to treat myriad other issues including alcohol and nicotine dependence, bulimia nervosa, borderline personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Tourette syndrome.
During the Covid pandemic the controversial Donald Trump-backed malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was allowed to be used ‘off-label’ to treat the virus after showing some early promise in the lab. But larger studies discovered it was not able to treat Covid and may have caused nasty side effects.
At Dr Ditzell’s clinic, clients undergo a consultation and screening process before they can be prescribed the infusions. The practice is meant to weed out people who are just looking for a trip.
But the screening process for prospective ketamine clients is not uniform across the US. And the infusions are not cheap and can cost anywhere from $400 to $2,000 a pop, which raises ethical issues.
Defending his clinic, Dr Ditzell said: ‘A ketamine clinic is never the first stop for a person looking to treat their depression. It’s more like a last resort.
‘You start looking at what [treatment is] left? Transcranial magnetic stimulation, electroconvulsive therapy, deep brain stimulation. We’re talking about some serious stuff.’
Before it was known as a party drug that could produce out-of-body experiences, ketamine was used as an anesthetic in surgical procedures.
David Hogberg, 52, and his son at National’s Park in Washington, DC. Hogberg underwent a series of five ketamine infusions. He reported feeling exceptionally well for a short period of time before his depression symptoms came rushing back. While he said the treatments were not the cure he was hoping for, he did not dissuade other people from trying them.
Credit Field Trip Health. Ketamine infusion clinics have cropped up nationwide. They have the same ingredients as Ditzell’s clinic: comfortable chairs, meditative lighting, plants and other earthy accoutrements, and supervision from a medical professional.
Credit Point Ketamine Malibu. There went from being a smattering of clinics in select major cities to a booming wellness industry trend that has reached all corners of the US. There are estimated to be over 100 nationwide now compared to just a handful a decade ago. It comes after several recent studies indicated a low dose of the drug may help treat depression and PTSD.
A patient at the Ketamine Clinic of Seattle. Depression is believed to be linked to a loss of synaptic connections between nerve cells, but ketamine has been shown to bolster frayed neural connections caused by chronic stress that contribute to severe emotional distress, depression, and mood disorders.
Credit Field Trip Ketamine Clinic in Houston. There is a growing body of evidence pointing to low-dose IV ketamine’s fast-acting antidepressant effects, but opponents argue that the new craze is a quick fix for severe depression. But clinical research into ketamine as a treatment for mood disorders is scarce and there remain concerns about long-term effects of repeated infusions of ketamine.
It was introduced in the 1960s and is still used today to induce sedation before operations.
In the intervening years, ketamine, nicknamed in certain circles ‘special K’ was embraced by the rave-going community as a popular party drug for its hallucinatory and psychoactive effects.
In the last few years, several studies have highlighted ketamine, sometimes known as ‘ket’, ‘K’ or ‘special K’, as a potential antidepressant, along with other psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and MDMA.
A group of psychiatrists in India, for example, reported in 2019 that a group of 25 males using a low-dose infusion saw significant improvement in depression and anxiety symptoms immediately one hour after single dose.
The positive effect was sustained with six doses over two weeks with an overall decrease in illness severity after two weeks.
Depression is believed to be linked to a loss of synaptic connections between nerve cells, but ketamine has been shown to have nerve healing properties.
It is believed to bolster frayed neural connections caused by chronic stress that contribute to severe emotional distress, depression, and mood disorders.
But clinical research into ketamine as a treatment for mood disorders is scarce and there remain concerns about long-term effects of repeated infusions of ketamine.
Most of the data supporting the use of ketamine as a treatment for depression and mood disorders are based on trials that followed up on patients after just one treatment. Patients are typically encouraged to complete five or six.
A handful of studies have determined the relative safety of undergoing a series of treatments, but data to back up their efficacy and safety long term are lacking
Ketamine’s therapeutic effects stem from its ability to change the levels of a neurotransmitter called glutamate, which is crucial in certain concentrations to a fully functioning brain.
Overactivation of glutamate receptors may lead to long-term depression, and ketamine works by blocking those receptors. The result is a greater production and synaptic release of glutamate, which can result in new connections between neurons in areas of the brain that regulate mood and behavior.
The drug, when administered in low doses and monitored by healthcare providers, can provide instant antidepressant effects.
Dr Ditzell claims between six and eight out of 10 of his patients see ‘immediate’ improvements to their mood after the therapy.
Ketamine works differently than the antidepressants that have been on the market for decades, such as Prozac and Zoloft, which are prescribed for a wide range of mental health conditions including depression, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and PTSD.
In order to qualify for the treatments, the would-be client has to prove they have already tried other treatments for their clinical depression without success.
Many clinics require a detailed list of prescription medications the person as tried as well as coordination with other mental health providers.
But the screening process for ketamine treatments across clinics is not uniform and some experts worry that anyone with money could get them.
David Hogberg completed five treatments starting in the spring of 2021. While he benefited from the treatments at first, the positive effects were not permanent.
‘After the fifth treatment, suddenly, boom, all my depression and anxiety was gone,’ he said. ‘And I am not even sure that lasted a week before my symptoms came back.’
He added, ‘I checked the research that afternoon and apparently it works for about 75% of patients. So that means for one in four it’s not going to work. That’s high, so I have no reason to think that I wasn’t one of those one in four.’
When all was said and done, David paid about $1,500 for the series of treatments. ‘For anyone thinking about it, I wouldn’t tell them not to do it because you may be one of those three out of the four, but I would say don’t go into it with high expectations and have a backup plan which unfortunately I didn’t have.’
Psychedelic mushroom benefits are popping up all over
“Let’s be adults about this. These are no longer ‘shrooms.’ These are no longer party drugs for young people,” Stamets told CNN. “Psilocybin mushrooms are nonaddictive, life-changing substances.”
“The data are strong from depression to PTSD to cluster headaches, which is one of the most painful conditions I’m aware of,” said neurologist Richard Isaacson, director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic in the Center for Brain Health at Florida Atlantic University.
“I’m excited about the future of psychedelics because of the relatively good safety profile and because these agents can now be studied in rigorous double-blinded clinical trials,” Isaacson said. “Then we can move from anecdotal reports of ‘I tripped on this and felt better’ to ‘Try this and you will be statistically, significantly better.'”
Your brain on mushrooms
Classic psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD enter the brain via the same receptors as serotonin, the body’s “feel good” hormone. Serotonin helps control body functions such as sleep, sexual desire and psychological states such as satisfaction, happiness and optimism.
People with depression or anxiety often have low levels of serotonin, as do people with post-traumatic stress disorder, cluster headaches, anorexia, smoking addiction and substance abuse. Treatment typically involves selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, which boost levels of serotonin available to brain cells. Yet it can take weeks for improvement to occur, experts say, if the drugs even work at all.
With psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD, however, scientists can see changes in brain neuron connectivity in the lab “within 30 minutes,” said pharmacologist Brian Roth, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“One of the most interesting things we’ve learned about the classic psychedelics is that they have a dramatic effect on the way brain systems synchronize, or move and groove together,” said Matthew Johnson, a professor in psychedelics and consciousness at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
“When someone’s on psilocybin, we see an overall increase in connectivity between areas of the brain that don’t normally communicate well,” Johnson said. “You also see the opposite of that — local networks in the brain that normally interact with each other quite a bit suddenly communicate less.”
It creates a “very, very disorganized brain,” ultimately breaking down normal boundaries between the auditory, visual, executive and sense-of-self sections of the mind — thus creating a state of “altered consciousness,” said David Nutt, director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London.
And it’s that disorganization that is ultimately therapeutic, according to Nutt: “Depressed people are continually self-critical, and they keep ruminating, going over and over the same negative, anxious or fearful thoughts.
“Psychedelics disrupt that, which is why people can suddenly see a way out of their depression during the trip,” he added. “Critical thoughts are easier to control, and thinking is more flexible. That’s why the drug is an effective treatment for depression.”
The growth of brain cells
There’s more. Researchers say psychedelic drugs actually help neurons in the brain sprout new dendrites, which look like branches on a tree, to increase communication between cells.
“These drugs can increase neuronal outgrowth, they can increase this branching of neurons, they can increase synapses. That’s called neuroplasticity,” Nutt said.
That’s different from neurogenesis, which is the development of brand new brain cells, typically from stem cells in the body. The growth of dendrites helps build and then solidify new circuits in the brain, allowing us to, for example, lay down more positive pathways as we practice gratitude.
“Now our current thinking is this neuronal outgrowth probably doesn’t contribute to the increased connectivity in the brain, but it almost certainly helps people who have insights into their depression while on psilocybin maintain those insights,” Nutt said.
“You shake up the brain, you see things in a more positive way, and then you lay down those positive circuits with the neuroplasticity,” he added. “It’s a double whammy.”
Interestingly, SSRIs also increase neuroplasticity, a fact that science has known for some time. But in a 2022 double-blind phase 2 randomized controlled trial comparing psylocibin to escitalopram, a traditional SSRI, Nutt found the latter didn’t spark the same magic.
“The SSRI did not increase brain connectivity, and it actually did not improve well-being as much as psilocybin,” Nutt said. “Now for the first time you’ve got the brain science lining up with what patients say after a trip: ‘I feel more connected. I can think more freely. I can escape from negative thoughts, and I don’t get trapped in them.’ “
Taking a psychedelic doesn’t work for everyone, Johnson stressed, “but when it works really well it’s like, ‘Oh my god, it’s a cure for PTSD or for depression.’ If people really have changed the way their brain is automatically hardwired to respond to triggers for anxiety, depression, smoking — that’s a real thing.”
How long do results last? In studies where patients were given just one dose of a psychedelic “a couple of people were better eight years later, but for the majority of those with chronic depression it creeps back after four or five months,” Nutt said.
“What we do with those people is unknown,” he added. “One possibility is to give another dose of the psychedelic — we don’t know if that would work or not, but it might. Or we could put them on an SSRI as soon as they’ve got their mood improved and see if that can hold the depression at bay.
“There are all sorts of ways we could try to address that question,” Nutt said, “but we just don’t know the answer yet.”
What about microdosing?
Stamets, who over the last 40 years has discovered four new species of psychedelic mushrooms and written seven books on the topic, said he believes microdosing is a solution. That’s the practice of taking tiny amounts of a psilocybin mushroom several times a week to maintain brain health and a creative perspective on life.
A typical microdose is .01 to .03 grams of dried psilocybin mushrooms, as compared to the 25-milligram pill of psilocybin that creates the full-blown psychedelic experience.
Stamets practices microdosing, and has focused on a process called “stacking,” in which a microdose of mushrooms is taken with additional substances believed to boost the fungi’s benefits. His famous “Stamets Stack” includes niacin, or vitamin B3, and the mycelium, or rootlike structure, of an unusual mushroom called Lion’s mane.
Surveys of microdosers obtained on his website have shown significantly positive benefits from the practice of taking small doses.
“These are self-reported citizen scientists projects and we have now around 14,000 people in our app where you register yourself and report your microdose,” Stamets told an audience at the 2022 Life Itself conference, a health and wellness event presented in partnership with CNN.
“I’m going to say something provocative, but I believe it to my core: Psilocybin makes nicer people,” Stamets told the audience. “Psilocybin will make us more intelligent, and better citizens.”
Scientific studies so far have failed to find any benefits from microdosing, leaving many researchers skeptical. “People like being on it, but that doesn’t validate the claims of microdosing,” Johnson said. “People like being on a little bit of cocaine, too.”
Experimental psychologist Harriet de Wit, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the University of Chicago, was excited to study microdosing because it solves a key problem of scientific research in the field — it’s hard to blind people to what they are taking if they begin to trip. Microdosing solves that problem because people don’t feel an effect from the tiny dose.
De Wit specializes in determining whether a drug’s impact is due to the drug or what scientists call the “placebo effect,” a positive expectation that can cause improvement without the drug.
She published a study in early 2022 that mimicked real-world microdosing of LSD, except neither the participants nor researchers knew what was in the pills the subjects took.
“We measured all kinds of different behavioral and psychological responses, and the only thing we saw is that LSD at very low doses produced some stimulant-like effects at first, which then faded,” de Wit said.
The placebo effect is powerful, she added, which might explain why the few additional studies done on it have also failed to find any positive results.
“I suspect microdosing may have an effect on mood, and over time it might build up resilience or improve well-being,” Nutt said. “But I don’t think it will rapidly fragment depression like macrodosing and going on a trip.”
A need for caution
Obviously, not all hallucinogenic experiences are positive, so nearly every study on psychedelic drugs has included therapists trained to intercede if a trip turns bad and maximize the outcome if the trip is good.
“This is about allowing someone access into deeper access into their own mental processes, with hopefully greater insight. While others might disagree, it does seem very clear that you need therapy to maximize the benefits,” Johnson said.
There are also side effects from psychedelics that go beyond a bad trip. LSD, mescaline and DMT, which is the active ingredient in ayahuasca tea, can increase blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Ayahuasca tea can also induce vomiting. LSD can cause tremors, numbness and weakness, while the use of mescaline can lead to uncoordinated movements. People hunting for psychedelic mushrooms can easily mistake a toxic species for one with psilocybin, “leading to unintentional, fatal poisoning.”
Another issue: Not everyone is a candidate for psychedelic treatment. It won’t work on people currently on SSRIs — the receptors in their brains are already flooded with serotonin. People diagnosed with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, or who have a family history of psychosis are always screened out of clinical trials, said Frederick Barrett, associate director of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins.
“If you have a vulnerability to psychosis, it could be that exposing you to a psychedelic could unmask that psychosis or could lead to a psychotic event,” Barnes said.
Then there are the thousands of people with mental health concerns who will never agree to undergo a psychedelic trip. For those people, scientists such as Roth are attempting to find an alternative approach. He and his team recently identified the mechanisms by which psychedelics bond to the brain’s serotonin receptors and are using the knowledge to identify new compounds.
“Our hope is that we can use this information to ultimately make drugs that mimic the benefits of psychedelic drugs without the psychedelic experience,” Roth said.
“What if we could give people who are depressed or suffer from PTSD or anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder a medication, and they could wake up the next day and be fine without any side effects? That would be transformative.”
LSD Lets The Brain ‘Free Itself’ From Divisions Dictated by Anatomy, Scientists Find
Where does the mind ‘meet’ the brain? While there’s no shortage of research into the effects of psychedelics, drugs like LSD still have much to teach us about the way the brain operates – and can shine a light on the mysterious interface between consciousness and neural physiology, research suggests.
In a new study investigating the effects of LSD on volunteers, scientists found that the psychedelic enables the brain to function in a way beyond what anatomy usually dictates, by altering states of dynamic integration and segregation in the human brain.
“The psychedelic compound LSD induces a profoundly altered state of consciousness,” explains first author and neuroscience researcher Andrea Luppi from the University of Cambridge.
“Combining pharmacological interventions with non-invasive brain imaging techniques such as functional MRI (fMRI) can provide insight into normal and abnormal brain function.”
The new research falls within the study of dynamic functional connectivity – the theory that brain phenomena demonstrate states of functional connectivity that change over time, much in the same way that our stream of consciousness is dynamic and always flowing.
As this happens, and the human brain processes information, it has to integrate that information into an amalgamated form of understanding – but at the same time segregate information as well, keeping distinct sensory streams separate from one another, so that they can be handled by particular neural systems.
This distinction – the dynamics of brain integration and segregation – is something that gets affected by psychedelic drugs, and with the advent of brain imaging technology, we can observe what happens when our regular functional connectivity gets disrupted.
In the study, a group of 20 healthy volunteers underwent brain scans in two separate sessions, a fortnight apart. In one of the sessions, the participants took a placebo before entering the fMRI scanner, while in the other slot, they were given an active dose of LSD.
In comparing the results from the two sessions, the researchers found that LSD untethers functional connectivity from the constraints of structural connectivity, while simultaneously altering the way that the brain handles the balancing act between integration and segregation of information.
“Our main finding is that the effects of LSD on brain function and subjective experience are not uniform in time,” Luppi says.
“In particular, the well-known feeling of ‘ego dissolution’ induced by LSD correlates with reorganisation of brain networks during a state of high global integration.”
In effect, the drug’s state of altered consciousness could be seen as an abnormal increase in the functional complexity of the brain – with the data showing moments where the brain revealed predominantly segregated patterns of functional connectivity.
In other words, the ‘ego dissolution’ of a psychedelic trip might be the subjective experience of your brain cranking up its segregation dynamics, decoupling the brain’s structure from its functioning – meaning your capacity to integrate and amalgamate separate streams of information into a unified whole becomes diminished.
“Thus, LSD appears to induce especially complex patterns of functional connectivity (FC) by inducing additional decoupling of FC from the underlying structural connectome, precisely during those times when structural-functional coupling is already at its lowest,” the authors explain in their paper.
“Due to the effects of LSD, the brain is free to explore a variety of functional connectivity patterns that go beyond those dictated by anatomy – presumably resulting in the unusual beliefs and experiences reported during the psychedelic state.”
The findings are reported in NeuroImage.