The Impact of Psychedelic Drugs on Brain Function and Cognition

Manoj Doss will be talking about how psychedelics uniquely impact the formation of new episodic memories and what the positive and negative consequences might be of these “psychedelic memories.” Whereas psychedelics impair the formation of hippocampally-dependent recollections that come with autonoetic consciousness, they may spare or even enhance cortical information processing that can produce familiarity and noetic consciousness. The findings from this work support a new account of psychedelic drug action called FLUX (FLUency eXaggeration). Fred Barrett will be talking about how psychedelic therapy may lead to an enduring shift in psychological, cognitive, and neural flexibility. These dimensions are fundamental to the development and maintenance of both mood and substance use disorders, as well as other psychiatric disorders. Psychedelic-induced shifts in these dimensions point to a potential transdiagnostic target of psychedelic drugs that could, in part, help to explain why psychedelic drugs seem promising for such a wide range of indications.