Psilocybe argentipes is a hallucinogenic mushroom. The present study examined the effects of P. argentipes on marble-burying behavior, which is considered an animal model of obsessive-compulsive disorder. P. argentipes significantly inhibited marble-burying behavior without affecting locomotor activity as compared with the same dose of authentic psilocybin. These findings suggest that P. argent...

Psychedelics (serotonergic hallucinogens) are powerful psychoactive substances that alter perception and mood and affect numerous cognitive processes. They are generally considered physiologically safe and do not lead to dependence or addiction. Their origin predates written history, and they were employed by early cultures in many sociocultural and ritual contexts. After the virtually contempo...

BACKGROUND The classical serotonergic psychedelics LSD, psilocybin, mescaline are not known to cause brain damage and are regarded as non-addictive. Clinical studies do not suggest that psychedelics cause long-term mental health problems. Psychedelics have been used in the Americas for thousands of years. Over 30 million people currently living in the US have used LSD, psilocybin, or mescaline....

in the Amazonian medicine ayahuasca—can produce similar results. Nor is taking a drug even necessary. Investigators seem to agree that the salutary effects come not from the compounds themselves but from the spiritual epiphany they produce, so nonpharmacologic ways of achieving the same outcome should be just as beneficial. For example, many people use meditation to attain a transcendental stat...

Reminiscent of Wilder Penfield’s famous experiments, Neurologists in France have reported a remarkable case in which intraoperative electrical stimulations of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) in a conscious patient induced transient dreamlike states with vivid visual imagery (Herbet et al., 2014). The implicated circuitry and nature of the experiences evoked comparisons with findings from o...

Networks, as efficient representations of complex systems, have appealed to scientists for a long time and now permeate many areas of science, including neuroimaging (Bullmore and Sporns 2009 Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 10, 186-198. (doi:10.1038/nrn2618)). Traditionally, the structure of complex networks has been studied through their statistical properties and metrics concerned with node and link prop...