Psilocybin reduces functional correlation and the encoding of spatial information by neurons in mouse retrosplenial cortex.

Psychedelic drugs have profound effects on perception, cognition and mood. How psychedelics affect neural signaling to produce these effects remains poorly understood. We investigated the effect of the classic psychedelic psilocybin on neural activity patterns and spatial encoding in the retrosplenial cortex of head-fixed mice navigating on a treadmill.

The Nonclassic Psychedelic Ibogaine Disrupts Cognitive Maps.

Background: The ability of psychedelic compounds to profoundly alter mental function has been long known, but the underlying changes in cellular-level information encoding remain poorly understood.

Methods: We used two-photon microscopy to record from the retrosplenial cortex in head-fixed mice running on a treadmill before and after injection of the nonclassic psychedelic ibogaine (40 mg/kg intraperitoneally).

Results: We found that the cognitive map, formed by the representation of position encoded by ensembles of individual neurons in the retrosplenial cortex, was destabilized by ibogaine when mice had to infer position between tactile landmarks.