Credit: Johns Hopkins Medicine
Media Contact: Vanessa McMains, Ph.D., vmcmain1@jhmi.edu
Recent interest in developing therapies from hallucinogenic drugs has scientists exploring how these chemicals work in the brain. Recently, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers imaged the brains of people who had vaped salvinorin A, a drug used in Native Mexican rituals, and found that, like other psychedelic drugs, it increased the communication across parts of the brain. However, the primary effects of the drug that they observed as reported in their paper published Oct. 2, 2020, in
Scientific Reports suggest that salvinorin A results in more random or disconnected signaling within the default mode network, which is the part of the brain most active when a person is sitting still, relaxing, daydreaming or otherwise not engaged in externally directed mental exercise.
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