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Psilocybin-induced modulation of visual salience processing

Summary

When people take psilocybin mushrooms, they look at images differently – they focus more on visually striking regions while keeping their eyes in smaller areas. Brain recordings showed changes in electrical activity patterns. The research suggests psilocybin alters how the brain balances what naturally catches attention versus where we intentionally choose to look.

Background

Psychedelic compounds like psilocybin significantly alter sensory perception, yet their effects on complex visual-guided behaviors remain poorly understood. Visual attention involves dynamic interactions between bottom-up sensory salience and top-down cognitive control, which psychedelics may modulate at multiple levels.

Objective

To investigate how psilocybin modulates visual salience processing and gaze behavior during natural scene perception using eye-tracking and electroencephalography in a self-blinded, naturalistic study design.

Results

High-dose psilocybin increased fixation on salient regions and reduced inter-fixation distance, indicating heightened sensitivity to visual salience. Shannon entropy increased in high-saliency regions, suggesting more exploratory scanning. EEG showed broadband spectral power reduction and increased Lempel-Ziv complexity, with delta power negatively correlating with salience metrics.

Conclusion

Psilocybin induces a significant shift in attentional dynamics, enhancing sensitivity to visual salience while producing more localized gaze behavior. These findings suggest altered balance between bottom-up sensory input and top-down predictive control during psychedelic states.
  • Published in:Neuroscience of Consciousness,
  • Study Type:Experimental Study,
  • Source: PMID: 41458361, DOI: 10.1093/nc/niaf060
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