Abstract:
Psychedelics like LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) and psilocybin are known to modulate perceptual modalities due to the activation of mostly serotonin receptors in specific cortical (e.g., visual cortex) and subcortical (e.g., thalamus) regions of the brain. In the visual domain, these psychedelic modulations often result in peculiar disturbances of viewed objects and light and sometimes even in hallucinations of non-existent environments, objects, and creatures. Although the underlying processes are poorly understood, research conducted over the past twenty years on the subjective experience of psychedelics details theories that attempt to explain these perceptual alterations due to a disruption of communication between cortical and subcortical regions. However, rare medical conditions in the visual system like Charles Bonnet syndrome that cause perceptual distortions may shed new light on the additional importance of the retinofugal pathway in psychedelic subjective experiences. Interneurons in the retina called amacrine cells could be the first site of visual psychedelic modulation and aid in disrupting the hierarchical structure of how humans perceive visual information. This paper presents an understanding of how the retinofugal pathway communicates and modulates visual information in psychedelic and clinical conditions. Therefore, we elucidate a new theory of psychedelic modulation in the retinofugal pathway.
摘要:
已知迷幻药如LSD(麦角酸二乙酰胺)和psilocybin会调节感知模式,这是由于在特定皮质中激活了大部分5-羟色胺受体(例如,视觉皮层)和皮层下(例如,丘脑)大脑的区域。在视觉领域,这些迷幻调制通常会导致对被观察物体和光线的特殊干扰,有时甚至会导致不存在环境的幻觉,对象,和生物。尽管基本过程知之甚少,在过去的20年中,关于迷幻药的主观经验的研究详细介绍了一些理论,这些理论试图解释由于皮层和皮层下区域之间的交流中断而引起的这些知觉改变。然而,视觉系统中罕见的医学状况,如引起知觉扭曲的CharlesBonnet综合征,可能为视黄醇通路在迷幻主观体验中的额外重要性提供了新的启示。视网膜中称为无长突细胞的中间神经元可能是视觉迷幻调节的第一个部位,并有助于破坏人类感知视觉信息的层次结构。本文介绍了视黄醇途径如何在迷幻和临床条件下传达和调节视觉信息的理解。因此,我们阐明了视黄醇通路中迷幻药调节的新理论。