Neuroscientists believe our brains' natural DMT production could explain why people experience consciousness so differently. If confirmed, it could change how we approach psychiatry and mental health

Our brains contain the enzymes INMT and AADC, both of which are needed to synthesize N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, one of the most potent psychedelic compounds known. Trace amounts of DMT have actually been detected in human cerebrospinal fluid. However, we still don't understand what this endogenous DMT is doing to our brain's wiring. We know what happens when psychedelics are given externally. A major study published this year in Nature Medicine combined 11 independent neuroimaging datasets across 267 participants and over 500 brain scans covering DMT, psilocybin, LSD, mescaline, and ayahuasca. The clearest finding was that all of these compounds increased connectivity between higher-level brain networks and sensory networks. Now, a neuroscientist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine is trying to figure out whether our brain's own production of DMT leave a detectable signature in how our neural networks are organized? The idea is to scan participants with combined fMRI and EEG and look for distinct connectivity profiles, called "brain biotypes," that correlate with endogenous DMT activity. The hypothesis is that people aren't all starting from the same neurochemical baseline. Some brains may synthesize more endogenous DMT than others and that variation might show up as different patterns of network organization. If confirmed, it could eventually reshape how we approach mental health, from predicting who responds to certain psychiatric treatments to understanding why some people are naturally more susceptible to altered states.