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NeuroDataReHack 2026

Psilocybin influence on mice behavior and brain state

Yuxin Pan

Project Description

Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in over 200 species of mushrooms, often called “magic mushrooms.” In the body, psilocybin is rapidly converted into psilocin, which is the active molecule that affects the brain. It mainly activates serotonin 5-HT2A receptors, which are abundant in the cerebral cortex. Here I want to use the OpenScope dataset with multiple stimuli, sex, and behavioral measurements to explore how it influences animal behavior and brain state.

Objectives and Approach

My goal is to explore how psilocybin influences mice behavior (pupil size and running) and brain state, trying to answer following question:

  • Which variables influence neural population activity most
  • Does different variables influence independent aspects of population activity or pose common influence
  • Does psilocybin influence behavior, such as pupil size and running?
  • Does psilocybin influence brain state, such as neuronal firing rate, population dimensionality, how information is organized in population activity, etc.

Progress and Next Steps

  • Done: downloaded openscope NWB dataset and explored data organization, tried several packages such as pynapple, cicada, NeMoS, etc. to do basic analysis to get a feel for how each data modality looks. did dimension reduction, got subspaces for different sensory or motor variables, quantified relationship between subspaces for different brain regions
  • TODO: learn to do cell-cell correlation and see how psilocybin influences that.

Background and References

  1. Elsayed, G., Lara, A., Kaufman, M. et al. Reorganization between preparatory and movement population responses in motor cortex. Nat Commun 7, 13239 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13239