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Systems Neuroscience of
Psychedelic Drug Action
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Dr. rer. nat. Tobias Buchborn
(Dipl. Psych.)
tobias.buchborn[at]psyborn.com
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Profiles: CIMH Mannheim | Google Scholar | ResearchGate

Who I am

I am a neuroscientist investigating serotonergic hallucinogens (psychedelics) across biological scales. I link receptor pharmacology to neural and physiological dynamics to explain how these compounds alter brain states.

Academic background

I studied Psychology at the Otto-von-Guericke University (OvGU; Magdeburg, Germany), where I investigated the antidepressant-like effects of LSD in an animal model during my Diploma thesis.

I obtained my PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) in Neurobiology at the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology (OvGU), focusing on the behavioural and molecular mechanisms of tolerance to psychedelics (LSD, DMT, and DOB), with particular emphasis on 5-HT2A receptor regulation.

In 2016, I was awarded an Individual Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship and joined the Laboratory for Neuronal Circuit Dynamics at Imperial College London. There, in collaboration with the Beckley/Imperial Psychedelic Research Programme, I applied in vivo voltage imaging alongside behavioural and physiological approaches to study cortical and haemodynamic effects of the selective 5-HT2A agonist 25CN-NBOH.

In 2021, I joined the Institute of Psychopharmacology at the Central Institute of Mental Health (Mannheim, University of Heidelberg). There I have conducted multisite fibre photometry recordings of calcium and glutamate signals, complemented by physiological measures and custom analysis pipelines to characterise neural and systemic effects of LSD, with a focus on thalamo-cortical and cortico-hippocampal dynamics.
In parallel, I have employed chemogenetic manipulations to examine psilocybin effects in animal models of alcohol addiction.

My research has produced a series of first-author publications spanning pharmacological tolerance, cortical dynamics, and physiological correlates of psychedelic drug action, and extends to translational and conceptual work on altered states, including therapeutic effects, addiction, and psychodynamic theory.

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 Psychedelic drugs make consciousness an experimental variable