After providing all the funding for The Brain from Top to Bottom for over 10 years, the CIHR Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction informed us that because of budget cuts, they were going to be forced to stop sponsoring us as of March 31st, 2013.

We have approached a number of organizations, all of which have recognized the value of our work. But we have not managed to find the funding we need. We must therefore ask our readers for donations so that we can continue updating and adding new content to The Brain from Top to Bottom web site and blog.

Please, rest assured that we are doing our utmost to continue our mission of providing the general public with the best possible information about the brain and neuroscience in the original spirit of the Internet: the desire to share information free of charge and with no adverstising.

Whether your support is moral, financial, or both, thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Bruno Dubuc, Patrick Robert, Denis Paquet, and Al Daigen





Monday, 29 May 2023
How psychedelic drugs modulate brain activity

For many decades, the officially illegal status of psychedelic drugs such as LSD made research about them difficult. But more recently, studies done using various forms of brain imaging and in accordance with sound scientific practices have begun to show how these substances modulate brain activity to produce their surprising, varied effects. Broadly speaking, psychedelic drugs alter the functional connectivity between various parts of the brain while modulating the power of certain brain waves. The results are typical of the many cases in which molecules of a neuromodulating substance (in this case, an exogenous one) minimize the effects of certain natural neuromodulating systems by binding to their receptors—in the case of LSD, the receptors for dopamine and serotonin. (more…)

The Emergence of Consciousness | Comments Closed

Wednesday, 9 September 2020
The combined effects of meditation and magic mushrooms

Today I want to tell you about a study entitled “Psilocybin-assisted mindfulness training modulates self-consciousness and brain default mode network connectivity with lasting effects,” which a research team from the University of Zurich published in the journal NeuroImage in August 2019. As the title suggests, this study combined two methods of modulating the brain: engaging inmindfulness meditation and taking the hallucinogen psilocybin, a psychoactive molecule found in “magic mushrooms”. Previous studies had shown that both of these methods produced a similar effect: they gave subjects the impression that the boundaries between their bodies and their environments were dissolving (a state of consciousness often referred to as ego dissolution). But in this study, the research team wanted to find out whether combining these two methods might make this effect stronger and longer-lasting. (more…)

The Emergence of Consciousness | Comments Closed

Tuesday, 30 June 2015
The Physiology of Expanded Consciousness

The results of some studies are exactly what you would have predicted, but that doesn’t make them any less interesting. For example, the study reported in the link below found that taking psilocybin (the psychoactive substance in “magic mushrooms”) puts the brain in a state that is conducive to freer associations, somewhat as in dreams. (more…)

The Emergence of Consciousness | Comments Closed