University Hospital Frankfurt, Departement of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Psychiatric Hospital Zürich, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Zürich, Switzerland.
Psychiatric Hospital Zürich, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Zürich, Switzerland.
Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 2018 Jun;28(6):691-700. doi: 10.1016/j.euroneuro.2018.03.016. Epub 2018 Apr 25.
Recent studies suggest that the antidepressant effects of the psychedelic 5-HT2A receptor agonist psilocybin are mediated through its modulatory properties on prefrontal and limbic brain regions including the amygdala. To further investigate the effects of psilocybin on emotion processing networks, we studied for the first-time psilocybin's acute effects on amygdala seed-to-voxel connectivity in an event-related face discrimination task in 18 healthy volunteers who received psilocybin and placebo in a double-blind balanced cross-over design. The amygdala has been implicated as a salience detector especially involved in the immediate response to emotional face content. We used beta-series amygdala seed-to-voxel connectivity during an emotional face discrimination task to elucidate the connectivity pattern of the amygdala over the entire brain. When we compared psilocybin to placebo, an increase in reaction time for all three categories of affective stimuli was found. Psilocybin decreased the connectivity between amygdala and the striatum during angry face discrimination. During happy face discrimination, the connectivity between the amygdala and the frontal pole was decreased. No effect was seen during discrimination of fearful faces. Thus, we show psilocybin's effect as a modulator of major connectivity hubs of the amygdala. Psilocybin decreases the connectivity between important nodes linked to emotion processing like the frontal pole or the striatum. Future studies are needed to clarify whether connectivity changes predict therapeutic effects in psychiatric patients.
最近的研究表明，迷幻 5-HT2A 受体激动剂裸盖菇素的抗抑郁作用是通过其对前额叶和边缘脑区（包括杏仁核）的调节特性介导的。为了进一步研究裸盖菇素对情绪处理网络的影响，我们首次研究了裸盖菇素在 18 名健康志愿者中的急性作用，这些志愿者在双盲平衡交叉设计中接受了裸盖菇素和安慰剂，在一项与情绪相关的面孔辨别任务中，对杏仁核种子到体素的连接进行了研究。杏仁核被认为是一个突显探测器，特别是在对情绪面孔内容的即时反应中起作用。我们使用情绪面孔辨别任务中的β系列杏仁核种子到体素连接来阐明整个大脑中杏仁核的连接模式。当我们将裸盖菇素与安慰剂进行比较时，发现所有三种情感刺激的反应时间都增加了。裸盖菇素降低了愤怒面孔辨别过程中杏仁核与纹状体之间的连接。在快乐面孔辨别过程中，杏仁核与额极之间的连接减少了。在辨别恐惧面孔时没有观察到这种效果。因此，我们显示了裸盖菇素作为杏仁核主要连接枢纽调节剂的作用。裸盖菇素降低了与情绪处理相关的重要节点（如额极或纹状体）之间的连接。需要进一步的研究来阐明连接变化是否可以预测精神病患者的治疗效果。
