Psilocybin triggers an activity-dependent rewiring of large-scale cortical networks

SUMMARY Psilocybin holds promise as a treatment for mental illnesses. One dose of psilocybin induces structural remodeling of dendritic spines in the medial frontal cortex in mice. The dendritic spines would be innervated by presynaptic neurons, but the sources of these inputs have not been identified. Here, using monosynaptic rabies tracing, we map the brain-wide distribution of inputs to frontal cortical pyramidal neurons. We discover that psilocybin’s effect on connectivity is network-specific: strengthening the routing of inputs from perceptual and medial regions (homolog of default mode network) to subcortical targets, while weakening inputs that are part of cortico-cortical recurrent loops. The pattern of synaptic reorganization depends on the drug-evoked spiking activity, because silencing a presynaptic region during psilocybin administration disrupts the rewiring. Collectively, the results reveal the impact of psilocybin on the connectivity of large-scale cortical networks and demonstrate neural activity modulation as an approach to sculpt the psychedelic-evoked neural plasticity.