DMT alters cortical travelling waves

Abstract
Data availability
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Abstract

Psychedelic drugs are potent modulators of conscious states and therefore powerful tools for investigating their neurobiology. N,N, Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) can rapidly induce an extremely immersive state of consciousness characterized by vivid and elaborate visual imagery. Here, we investigated the electrophysiological correlates of the DMT induced altered state from a pool of participants receiving DMT and (separately) placebo (saline) while instructed to keep their eyes closed. Consistent with our hypotheses, results revealed a spatio-temporal pattern of cortical activation (i.e., travelling waves) similar to that elicited by visual stimulation. Moreover, the typical top-down alpha-band rhythms of closed-eyes rest were significantly decreased, while the bottom-up forward wave was significantly increased. These results support a recent model proposing that psychedelics reduce the 'precision-weighting of priors', thus altering the balance of top-down versus bottom-up information passing. The robust hypothesis-confirming nature of these findings imply the discovery of an important mechanistic principle underpinning psychedelic-induced altered states.

Data availability

The data and the code to perform the analysis are available at : https://osf.io/wujgp/

The following data sets were generated

1. Alamia A
(2020) DMT alters cortical travelling waves
OSF, 10.17605/OSF.IO/WUJGP.

https://osf.io/wujgp/

Article and author information

Author details

Andrea Alamia

CerCo, CNRS - Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France

For correspondence
andrea.alamia@cnrs.fr

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9826-2161
Christopher Timmermann

Medicine, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-2281-377X
Rufin VanRullen

CNRS, CNRS, UMR5549, Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition, Faculté de Médecine de Purpan, Toulouse, France

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3611-7716
Robin L Carhart-Harris

Psychedelic Research Group, Centre for Psychiatry, Division of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

Alex Mosley Charitable Trust

Robin L Carhart-Harris

Ad Astra Chandaria Foundation

Robin L Carhart-Harris

CRCNS ANR-NSF (ANR-19-NEUC-0004)

Rufin VanRullen

Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica de Chile

Christopher Timmermann

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: All participants provided written informed consent, and the study was approved by the National Research Ethics (NRES) Committee London - Brent and the Health Research Authority (16/LO/0897). The study was conducted in line with the Declaration of Helsinki and the National Health Service Research Governance Framework.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.