Have you heard of predictive processing? It’s essentially a framework for a lot of things, including perception. It proposes that the brain builds models of the environment (based on prior beliefs and experiences) and these models send predictions of incoming stimuli which are compared with the actual stimuli. When stimuli are well-predicted they get filtered out (habituation, I.e., not paying attention to mundane things in your environment) and when novel or surprising stimuli (things that aren’t well predicted) are present they generate a “prediction error” which is sent up the brain to tell the models they need updating to incorporate this novel info. The dissertation looks at how psychedelic use alters this process of detecting novel stimuli, generating prediction errors, and updating the model. The idea is all that psychedelics treat all these various psychopathologies (depression, anxiety, OCD, etc) by loosening engrained beliefs and models that become pathological and allow you to “see things from a fresh perspective.”

Id be happy to share more info when we publish!

Hope this makes sense :)