The psychedelic appears to bring the brain regions that are involved in pro-social effects into a more flexible state. But they do not guarantee a pro-social effect.

If you provide the right stimulus during the time that the brain is flexible, this can have a pro-social effect on the mice. But in principle it is also possible to apply the "wrong" stimulus and restructure the brain into a more anti-social state.

Psychedelics are on the path of potentially becoming a very important class of medicines because they appear to have the ability to allow the brain's neural pathways to be re-wired in a relatively short period of time. Psychedelic therapies are an interesting combination of the psychiatrist and the classical psychotherapist - the idea is that the person is given a psychedelic drug, bringing the brain into a flexible state, and the therapist attempts to provide the correct stimuli during this state to strengthen certain neural pathways associated with processes such as the reward cycles.

The value of these therapies have been recognized by our ancestors for a very long time, but only recently have they begun to be taken seriously by the scientific and medical fields. Traditionally, the stimuli are provided via set and setting and guided meditations - but the scientific field has not yet gotten that far yet. Scientists and doctors work with a much higher standard than the shamans from the past when it comes to showing that things actually work. We can't just assume that the way our ancestors did it was optimal. This is becoming an active field of research, and there is still a lot to be tested....