Nobody knows why some mushrooms are psychedelic. I mean, we know that they contain a compound called psilocybin, which messes with the brain chemistry of lots of animals, including humans. But we don’t know why being psychedelic would be useful to mushrooms in the first place. Here are three of our best theories.

LEARN MORE

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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:

• Psilocybin: a hallucinogenic alkaloid, found in some toadstools.
• Psychedelic: relating to or denoting drugs (especially LSD) that produce hallucinations and apparent expansion of consciousness.

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Cameron Duke | Script Writer, Narrator and Director Lizah van der Aart | Storyboard Artist Sarah Berman | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation Nathaniel Schroeder | Music

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Lizah van der Aart • Sarah Berman • Cameron Duke Arcadi Garcia i Rius • David Goldenberg • Melissa Hayes Henry Reich • Ever Salazar • Leonardo Souza • Kate Yoshida

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REFERENCES

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Awan, Ali R., et al. Convergent Evolution of Psilocybin Biosynthesis by Psychedelic Mushrooms. 25 July 2018, www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/374199v2, https://doi.org/10.1101/374199

Bradshaw, Alexander J, et al. “Phylogenomics of the Psychoactive Mushroom Genus Psilocybe and Evolution of the Psilocybin Biosynthetic Gene Cluster.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 121, no. 3, 9 Jan. 2024, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2311245121

Meyer, Matthew, and Jason Slot. “The Evolution and Ecology of Psilocybin in Nature.” Fungal Genetics and Biology: FG & B, vol. 167, 1 June 2023, p. 103812, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fgb.2023.103812

Pollan, Michael. How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics. London, Penguin Books, 15 May 2018.

Rodríguez Arce, José Manuel, and Michael James Winkelman. “Psychedelics, Sociality, and Human Evolution.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 12, 29 Sept. 2021, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.729425

Rokas, Antonis, et al. “Biosynthetic Gene Clusters and the Evolution of Fungal Chemodiversity.” Natural Product Reports, vol. 37, no. 7, 2020, pp. 868–878, https://doi.org/10.1039/c9np00045c