New brain scan research has revealed the physical mechanism behind the "ego dissolution" of taking psychedelic drugs like LSD and mushrooms.
Researchers at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam had participants undergo functional magnetic imaging scans while on LSD and found that the psychedelic produces feelings of loss of self by over-connecting brain regions involved in higher cognition.
Lead researcher Enzo Tagliazucchi said that the latest findings can provide insight into how the brain works on psychedelic drugs as well as cognition processes of how our mind determines the nature of reality.
"There is 'objective reality' and then there is 'our reality.' Psychedelic drugs can distort our reality and result in perceptual illusions. But the reality we experience during ordinary wakefulness is also, to a large extent, an illusion," Tagliazucchi said.
"We know that the brain fills in visual information when suddenly missing, that veins in front of the retina are filtered out and not perceived, and that the brain stabilizes our visual perception in spite of constant eye movements. So when we take psychedelics we are, it could be said, replacing one illusion by another illusion. This might be difficult to grasp, but our study shows that the sense of self or 'ego' could also be part of this illusion," he explained.
To understand how LSD changes brain function, Tagliazucchi and his team had 15 health participants undergo functional magnetic imaging scans. The researchers noted that the participants were randomly assigned to take LSD or placebo.
Brain scans revealed that LSD use led to an increased global connectivity in numerous higher-level regions of the brain. The study also revealed that the psychedelic significantly increased brain connectivity by magnifying the level of communication between normally distinct brain networks. What's more, the participants' level of "ego dissolution" grew stronger with increasing global connectivity.
"This could mean that LSD results in a stronger sharing of information between regions, enforcing a stronger link between our sense of self and the sense of the environment and potentially diluting the boundaries of our individuality," Tagliazucchi said.
The findings were published in the April 13 issue of the journal Current Biology.
