© CATHERINE DELPHIA
Key brain areas involved in the effects of psychedelic drugs are located in the default mode network (DMN), which is more active at rest than when attention is focused on the external environment. Neuroscientists first discovered this network while scanning participants’ brains at rest: rather than a decrease in activity across the brain, they found that activity in some regions was actually higher when people were not engaged in a goal-directed task. Over the years, researchers have linked the DMN to a variety of functions, including autobiographical recollection, mind wandering, and processing self-related information.
Key hubs of the DMN include the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and the posterior inferior parietal lobule (pIPL). Through neuroimaging, researchers have discovered that psychedelic drug ...
