Pt. 1, Psychedelic Ethics: Badly Needed & Sorely Lacking
This problem isn't new
I’ve been thinking about Tripsitter’s excellent article from a couple weeks ago that explores a recently published study by Jiang et al. titled Psilocybin triggers an activity-dependent rewiring of large-scale cortical networks. Using modified rabies virus tracing in mice, researchers at Cornell mapped—for the first time—exactly how psilocybin reshapes large-scale brain networks. Their findings reveal that psilocybin doesn’t just temporarily alter brain activity or induce a generalized state of plasticity; instead, it produces targeted, activity-dependent rewiring of neural circuits. Whichever pathways are active during the psychedelic experience get strengthened, while whichever remain quiet get weakened. As Justin Cooke writes for Tripsitter,
It shows that psilocybin doesn’t just alter brain activity in the moment, and it’s not random — it produces a physical and specific rewiring of large-scale neural networks. Those c…
