Trial reportProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2012
Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin.
Trial report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03356483 (Psilocybin Treatment in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), which is not on this map. Cited by 448 papers, 11 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Psilocybin Treatment in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: a Preliminary Efficacy Study and Exploratory Investigation of Neural Correlates.
Who cites it
448 citing papers in PubMed, 11 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 1,149 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Use of Psychedelics in the Treatment of Adult ADHD: A Systematic and Mechanistic Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Pooled it
- Rethinking Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Systematic Review of Novel Therapeutic Strategies and Precision Medicine Approaches.Actas espanolas de psiquiatria · 2025Pooled it
- A Systematic Review of Interventions for Demoralization in Patients with Chronic Diseases.International journal of behavioral medicine · 2025Pooled it
- What fMRI studies say about the nature of the psychedelic effect: a scoping review.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- Synergistic, multi-level understanding of psychedelics: three systematic reviews and meta-analyses of their pharmacology, neuroimaging and phenomenology.Translational psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Impact of psilocybin on cognitive function: A systematic review.Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2024Pooled it
- Psychedelic-assisted therapy for treating anxiety, depression, and existential distress in people with life-threatening diseases.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Functional imaging studies of acute administration of classic psychedelics, ketamine, and MDMA: Methodological limitations and convergent results.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Default Mode Network Modulation by Psychedelics: A Systematic Review.The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Pooled it
- The Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments (CANMAT) Task Force Report: Serotonergic Psychedelic Treatments for Major Depressive Disorder.Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie · 2023Pooled it
- Therapeutic uses of psychedelics for eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2023Pooled it
- Mixed-methods analysis on psychedelic-augmented meditation experiences from a randomized controlled mindfulness retreat.Scientific reports · 2026Trial
- Negative affective bias in depression following treatment with psilocybin or escitalopram - a secondary analysis from a randomized trial.Translational psychiatry · 2025Trial
- Neural mechanisms of psychedelic visual imagery.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Trial
- Multimodal creativity assessments following acute and sustained microdosing of lysergic acid diethylamide.Psychopharmacology · 2025Trial
- Psilocybin Therapy for Clinicians With Symptoms of Depression From Frontline Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2024Trial
- Psilocybin-induced default mode network hypoconnectivity is blunted in alcohol-dependent rats.Translational psychiatry · 2023Trial
- Investigation of the pharmacological and circuit basis for psychedelic drug effects on interval timing in mice.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Acute anxiogenic effects of psilocybin and the related tryptamine, norbaeocystin, in male and female rats.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Investigating molecular and hemodynamic effects of LSD in the human brain.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
388 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Psychedelic drugs have a long history of use in healing ceremonies, but despite renewed interest in their therapeutic potential, we continue to know very little about how they work in the brain. Here we used psilocybin, a classic psychedelic found in magic mushrooms, and a task-free functional MRI (fMRI) protocol designed to capture the transition from normal waking consciousness to the psychedelic state. Arterial spin labeling perfusion and blood-oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI were used to map cerebral blood flow and changes in venous oxygenation before and after intravenous infusions of placebo and psilocybin. Fifteen healthy volunteers were scanned with arterial spin labeling and a separate 15 with BOLD. As predicted, profound changes in consciousness were observed after psilocybin, but surprisingly, only decreases in cerebral blood flow and BOLD signal were seen, and these were maximal in hub regions, such as the thalamus and anterior and posterior cingulate cortex (ACC and PCC). Decreased activity in the ACC/medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) was a consistent finding and the magnitude of this decrease predicted the intensity of the subjective effects. Based on these results, a seed-based pharmaco-physiological interaction/functional connectivity analysis was performed using a medial prefrontal seed. Psilocybin caused a significant decrease in the positive coupling between the mPFC and PCC. These results strongly imply that the subjective effects of psychedelic drugs are caused by decreased activity and connectivity in the brain's key connector hubs, enabling a state of unconstrained cognition.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.