Psychedelics Restructure the Global Workspace of Consciousness
- 1Stanford University
Abstract
Psychoactive drugs profoundly alter consciousness, but the neural mechanisms by which they do so remain poorly understood. Global workspace theory may provide a framework for investigating these mechanisms. The global workspace, a candidate neural substrate of consciousness, is a set of brain regions that integrate and disseminate information to the rest of the brain. According to a recent model, the integrators, or 'gateways,' are characterized by synergistic interactions with other brain regions, while the disseminators, or 'broadcasters,' exhibit redundant interactions. Here, we measured the effects of various psychoactive drugs, including 'classic' psychedelics like LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin, 'atypical' psychedelics (entactogens) like MDMA, and the stimulant D-amphetamine, on the global workspace. In a secondary analysis of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data on all these drugs, we found that classic psychedelics are associated with significant increases in the number of gateways in the frontoparietal control and dorsal attention networks. Meanwhile, MDMA and amphetamine reduced the number of gateways in the visual and somatomotor networks. The regional topographies of both synergy and redundancy distinguished classic psychedelics from other drugs. Finally, drugs producing similar changes in synergy and redundancy also produced similar profiles of subjective effects. Overall, our findings provide the first direct evidence that psychedelics may alter the synergistic and redundant interactions that characterize the global workspace of consciousness.
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BibTeX
@misc{yousefi2026psychedelics,
title = {{Psychedelics Restructure the Global Workspace of Consciousness}},
author = {P. Yousefi and K. Shinozuka and P. Vizeli and F. Holze and A. M. Becker and F. Muller and M. E. Liechti and G. Hasler and C. I. Rodriguez and A. Luppi and P. A. M. Mediano},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.28.755172},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.28.755172v1},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Psychedelics Restructure the Global Workspace of Consciousness
AU - P. Yousefi
AU - K. Shinozuka
AU - P. Vizeli
AU - F. Holze
AU - A. M. Becker
AU - F. Muller
AU - M. E. Liechti
AU - G. Hasler
AU - C. I. Rodriguez
AU - A. Luppi
AU - P. A. M. Mediano
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/28
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.28.755172
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.28.755172v1
AB - Psychoactive drugs profoundly alter consciousness, but the neural mechanisms by which they do so remain poorly understood. Global workspace theory may provide a framework for investigating these mechanisms. The global workspace, a candidate neural substrate of consciousness, is a set of brain regions that integrate and disseminate information to the rest of the brain. According to a recent model, the integrators, or 'gateways,' are characterized by synergistic interactions with other brain regions, while the disseminators, or 'broadcasters,' exhibit redundant interactions. Here, we measured the effects of various psychoactive drugs, including 'classic' psychedelics like LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin, 'atypical' psychedelics (entactogens) like MDMA, and the stimulant D-amphetamine, on the global workspace. In a secondary analysis of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data on all these drugs, we found that classic psychedelics are associated with significant increases in the number of gateways in the frontoparietal control and dorsal attention networks. Meanwhile, MDMA and amphetamine reduced the number of gateways in the visual and somatomotor networks. The regional topographies of both synergy and redundancy distinguished classic psychedelics from other drugs. Finally, drugs producing similar changes in synergy and redundancy also produced similar profiles of subjective effects. Overall, our findings provide the first direct evidence that psychedelics may alter the synergistic and redundant interactions that characterize the global workspace of consciousness.
ER -