Hey Brian — yeah, great question. There's research that finds people continue to *subjectively report* that their experiences were impactful (like this Griffiths paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269881108094300), or that the insights they had altered their metaphysical beliefs in a way that endures (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01209-2), but as to the question of neurobiological changes that endure, no I'm not aware of much research there.
Neuroplasticity spikes tend to settle back to baseline pretty quickly, and same with spikes in entropy levels. I'm not aware of any changes to one's neurobiological baseline that are found to be sustainably altered on psychedelics. It's very common to hear folks say that after a life-changing psychedelic trip, they mostly just settle back into feeling like their old selves again. I think this is why there's a lot of emphasis placed on the therapy aspect of psychedelic therapy, because the neurobiology alone doesn't seem to produce lasting change (though there's a line of research that disagrees), but if you couple it with therapy.
This is still early-stage research, but there are claims that spikes in neuroplasticity help regenerate neurons that have suffered atrophy through exposure to chronic stress, so you could make the argument that psychedelics have lasting benefits for those who've experienced lots of stress by regenerating the neurons that stress ground down.
But none of this really gets at what I think is the spirit of your question. As I wrote in the piece, I think there's enduring value to experiencing a contrast between 'ordinary' consciousness and psychedelic states, but I can't think of how that'd be measured either. But who knows, maybe someone will figure out ways to measure this sort of thing.
Hey Brian — yeah, great question. There's research that finds people continue to *subjectively report* that their experiences were impactful (like this Griffiths paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269881108094300), or that the insights they had altered their metaphysical beliefs in a way that endures (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01209-2), but as to the question of neurobiological changes that endure, no I'm not aware of much research there.
Neuroplasticity spikes tend to settle back to baseline pretty quickly, and same with spikes in entropy levels. I'm not aware of any changes to one's neurobiological baseline that are found to be sustainably altered on psychedelics. It's very common to hear folks say that after a life-changing psychedelic trip, they mostly just settle back into feeling like their old selves again. I think this is why there's a lot of emphasis placed on the therapy aspect of psychedelic therapy, because the neurobiology alone doesn't seem to produce lasting change (though there's a line of research that disagrees), but if you couple it with therapy.
This is still early-stage research, but there are claims that spikes in neuroplasticity help regenerate neurons that have suffered atrophy through exposure to chronic stress, so you could make the argument that psychedelics have lasting benefits for those who've experienced lots of stress by regenerating the neurons that stress ground down.
But none of this really gets at what I think is the spirit of your question. As I wrote in the piece, I think there's enduring value to experiencing a contrast between 'ordinary' consciousness and psychedelic states, but I can't think of how that'd be measured either. But who knows, maybe someone will figure out ways to measure this sort of thing.