PsiConnect: A Multimodal Neuroimaging Study of Psilocybin-Induced Changes in Brain and Behaviour
Leonardo Novelli, Devon Stoliker, Tamrin Barta, Matthew D. Greaves, Sidhant Chopra, James Jackson, Jessica Kwee, Bryan Williams, Adeel Razi
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) April 14, 2025 preprint DOI: 10.1101/2025.04.11.643415 via OpenAlex
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractPsiConnect is a large-scale neuroimaging study that examined brain activity in 62 participants before and after a 19 mg dose of psilocybin using functional, structural, and diffusion-weighted MRI combined with EEG. The design included resting-state scans and three naturalistic conditions: guided meditation, music listening, and movie watching. Half of the participants completed an 8-week meditation training program, allowing exploration of interactions among meditation, psilocybin, and brain function. Multi-echo fMRI improved signal-to-noise ratio and reduced artifacts. Behavioral and self-report measures captured acute and longitudinal effects, with follow-ups extending to one year. The data is curated according to open science principles.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Observational cohort Longitudinal |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 62 |
| Population | Participants receiving a 19 mg dose of psilocybin, half of whom underwent an 8-week meditation training program |
| Interventions | Psilocybin Meditation training program |
| Dose | 19 mg |
| Duration | 8-week meditation training program, follow-ups extending to one year post-administration |
| Topics | Psilocybin |
| Keywords | Neuroscience Neuroimaging Hallucinogen Cognitive psychology |
| Citations | 3 |
| Key finding | PsiConnect provides a highly reusable resource for investigating psilocybin-induced changes in brain and behavior with unprecedented detail and reliability. |
Abstract
ABSTRACT PsiConnect is a large-scale neuroimaging study designed to investigate the neural and subjective effects of psilocybin using multimodal neuroimaging. It combines functional, structural, and diffusion-weighted MRI with EEG to examine brain activity in 62 participants before and after a 19 mg dose of psilocybin. The design includes resting-state scans and three naturalistic conditions: guided meditation, music listening, and movie watching. Half of the cohort underwent an 8-week meditation training program, enabling the exploration of interactions among meditation, psilocybin, and brain function. The fMRI data was obtained through multi-echo fMRI, which enhances the signal-to-noise ratio and reduces susceptibility artifacts, thereby improving the reliability of the analyses. A comprehensive battery of behavioural and self-report measures captured both acute and longitudinal cognitive and subjective effects, with follow-ups extending to one year post-administration. The large sample size, multimodal neuroimaging, diversity of contexts, and longitudinal behavioural follow-ups enable the study of psilocybin-induced changes in brain and behaviour with an unprecedented level of detail and reliability. Furthermore, the data is curated according to open science principles to ensure accessibility and interoperability with established neuroimaging processing pipelines. These factors make PsiConnect a valuable and highly reusable resource for researchers in cognitive and computational neuroscience.