Original title: LSD reconfigures cortical dynamics through faster brain rhythms and increased fractal dimension
The researchers compared brain signals under LSD and placebo, with and without music. They found that some brain rhythms ran faster under LSD, even as those rhythms became weaker. The brain's background signal also became flatter, and its patterns more complex. These changes were stronger in areas linked to sensing, language, emotion, and imagery than in the area linked to movement.
Imagine listening to a band while its instruments change how they play. The beat can get faster while each instrument grows quieter, and the music can become less predictable. In this paper, the instruments stand for brain rhythms, their speed and loudness for rhythm frequency and power, and the changing music for the brain's more complex signals under LSD.
For people studying consciousness and psychedelic effects, the results show why measuring only the strength of brain rhythms can miss important changes. LSD also shifts how fast rhythms run and how complex brain signals are, with effects varying across brain regions.
The abstract does not establish how these neural changes relate to specific parts of the conscious experience, how long they last, or whether they occur with other psychedelics. It reports that music does not robustly amplify the measured signatures and only trends toward attenuating them.
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LSD reconfigures cortical dynamics through faster brain rhythms and increased fractal dimension — Venkatesh Subramani, Timothy Nest, Annalisa Pascarella et al. — Communications Biology — doi:10.1038/s42003-026-10629-7
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.