5-year study uncovers "hidden order" in brains under psilocybin

Australia is the first country in the world to legalise psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression and MDMA for PTSD. The brains of 62 adults offer new insights.

A five-year study combined advanced brain-imaging (by Dr Leonardo Novelli) with AI (by Dr Moein Khajehnejad) analyses to understand what happens in the brains of 62 healthy adults using psilocybin during rest, meditation and while they were listening to music and watching a movie.

Psilocybin — the psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms — is, according to Monash University, legal for treatment-resistant depression and MDMA for PTSD in Australia, and the United States and other nations are now exploring similar pathways.

Dr Devon Stoliker. Credit: Monash University

The lead author is Dr Devon Stoliker — a Turner Impact Research Fellow at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health in the Monash School of Psychological Sciences — who said that, while previous research has shown psychedelics disrupt the usual organisation of brain networks, “We uncovered hidden order within that disruption.

“Under psilocybin, brain networks that help us process our inner world and the world around us became less distinct, but reorganised into patterns that reflected what people were experiencing,” Stoliker added. “This was strongest in people who had more positive psychedelic experiences and felt less separate from the world around them.”

Professor Adeel Razi. Credit: Monash University

The changes in brain pattern organisation also changed with participants’ surroundings and focus, said Professor Adeel Razi, senior author and principal investigator, also from Monash’s Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health. “The patterns changed depending on whether participants were resting, listening to music, meditating or watching a movie,” Razi said.

“This shows that context is not just background to the psychedelic experience,” Razi added. “What a person is doing and focusing on shapes how their brain responds,” he said, adding: “For treatment, that reinforces why the environment and what a person does and experiences during the psychedelic session matter.”

The study’s findings can, Stoliker said, work towards developing therapies that help patients achieve greater clarity, psychological flexibility and new perspectives. “People who showed stronger reorganisation also reported greater positive psychological changes the following day,” Stoliker said. “Until now, brain-imaging studies have mainly told us what happens on average across a group,” he added. “Using artificial intelligence, we could measure this reorganisation in each person.”

The ability to measure individual responses could, Razi said, have important implications for treatment. “If translated to patients, this could eventually help clinicians understand how someone is responding and predict who is most likely to benefit,” Razi said.

Credit: Monash University

Credit: Monash University

Credit: Monash University

This study was carried out at Monash Biomedical Imaging, co-located with the BrainPark — where the psilocybin therapy sessions were performed. The study was published open access (doi: 10.1038/s41586-026-10910-z) in Nature.

Top image credit: Monash University