Investigating the Mechanisms of the Effects of Psilocybin on Visual Perception and Visual Representations in the Brain

The long-term objective of this project is to characterize how psilocybin affects visual perception and the brain's representation of the visual environment. We know that psilocybin alters aspects of visual perception, but the underlying brain mechanisms contributing to these effects are poorly understood. The proposed work will address these questions in a large, diverse sample of healthy human subjects by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the brain's responses to visual stimuli. The proposed research will document which brain areas mediate the effects of psilocybin. The technique of fMRI will be employed to measure brain activity in different brain areas while subjects are performing a visual perceptual task.