• Posted April 9, 2026

Brain Scans Reveal How Psychedelics Change Perception

Scientists may be getting closer to understanding how psychedelic drugs affect the brain.

A study published April 6 in the journal Nature Medicine looked at more than 500 brain scans from 267 people across five countries. 

The research analyzed how drugs like LSD, psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”), DMT, mescaline and ayahuasca change brain activity.

Researchers found that these drugs increase communication between parts of the brain that usually work more independently.

This includes areas involved in:

• Senses like vision and hearing

• Abstract thought and self-reflection

The findings suggest psychedelics temporarily blur the line between how people think and how they actually experience the world.

That may help explain why some folks report strong visual changes, emotional experiences and a dramatic sense of losing themselves while using these drugs.

Scientists say understanding how these drugs work could help explain how they could treat mental health conditions.

Research has suggested psychedelics may help with depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“It helps shift the conversation from hype to clarity,” lead author Manesh Girn, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, told The New York Times.

"If psychedelics are going to become part of medicine, we need reliable bench marks for how they actually affect the brain," he added.

The study combined data from nearly a dozen previous studies published since 2012.

By analyzing the data together, researchers were able to better identify patterns and question some past assumptions.

For example, earlier studies suggested psychedelics break down certain brain networks. This study found the effects may be more complex than that.

Dr. Joshua Siegel is a researcher at the NYU Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine in New York City, who worked on the study.

“For each of these drugs, there are questions like: Is it a psychedelic? What brain networks does it hit? Is it having the same brain effects?” he remarked to The Times. “Having consensus on the brain biomarkers is going to be useful for the 150 new psychedelic-like drugs that are in development.”

Another researcher said more work is needed to better understand how factors like age and sex may affect how people respond to these drugs.

More information

The Cleveland Clinic has more on hallucinogens.

SOURCE: The New York Times, April 7, 2026