Armand Sophia, Larsen Kristian, Madsen Martin K, Ozenne Brice, Preller Katrin H, Knudsen Gitte M, Stenbæk Dea S, Fisher Patrick M
Neurobiology Research Unit and NeuroPharm, Copenhagen University Hospital Rigshospitalet, Denmark.
Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Neurosci Appl. 2023 Dec 30;3:103934. doi: 10.1016/j.nsa.2023.103934. eCollection 2024.
The serotonergic psychedelic psilocybin acutely induces changes in emotional states. However, it remains unresolved whether psilocybin acutely modulates amygdala reactivity to emotions, a brain region critically involved in emotion processing. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined in 26 healthy individuals whether amygdala responses to angry, fearful and neutral faces differ between acute exposure to psilocybin and at baseline. We also evaluated whether plasma psilocin levels (PPL) and subjective drug intensity (SDI) during psilocybin are related to amygdala responses to the emotional faces. We found that amygdala response to angry faces was significantly reduced during exposure to psilocybin as compared to baseline (mean difference = -0.54, P = 0.03), whereas no significant changes in amygdala responses to fearful or neutral faces were observed. We further found that the amygdala response to fearful faces was significantly negatively associated with SDI (slope = -0.13, P = 0.04), whereas no significant association with PPL was observed. Our findings indicate that psilocybin attenuates amygdala reactivity to angry faces and that a more intense subjective psilocybin response (SDI) is associated with attenuated amygdala reactivity to fearful faces, in accordance with previously reported results. Future studies should investigate whether exposure to psilocybin acutely changes emotion processing in individuals with depression and whether such changes are related to therapeutic outcomes.
血清素能致幻剂裸盖菇素可急性诱发情绪状态的变化。然而，裸盖菇素是否能急性调节杏仁核对情绪的反应性，这一在情绪处理中起关键作用的脑区，仍未得到解决。我们使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI），在26名健康个体中研究了急性暴露于裸盖菇素期间与基线时相比，杏仁核对愤怒、恐惧和中性面孔的反应是否存在差异。我们还评估了裸盖菇素给药期间的血浆脱磷酸裸盖菇素水平（PPL）和主观药物强度（SDI）是否与杏仁核对情绪面孔的反应相关。我们发现，与基线相比，暴露于裸盖菇素期间杏仁核对愤怒面孔的反应显著降低（平均差异=-0.54，P=0.03），而杏仁核对恐惧或中性面孔的反应未观察到显著变化。我们进一步发现，杏仁核对恐惧面孔的反应与SDI显著负相关（斜率=-0.13，P=0.04），而与PPL未观察到显著相关性。我们的研究结果表明，裸盖菇素可减弱杏仁核对愤怒面孔的反应性，并且更强烈的主观裸盖菇素反应（SDI）与杏仁核对恐惧面孔的反应减弱相关，这与先前报道的结果一致。未来的研究应调查急性暴露于裸盖菇素是否会改变抑郁症患者的情绪处理，以及这种变化是否与治疗结果相关。
