Table 1.

Comparison between schizophrenia and psychedelic effects

Abnormalities	Psychedelics	Schizophrenia	References
Behavioral response
Psychosis	Mainly visual hallucinations, geometric, complex, reality assessment present, transient psychotic episodes, lasting a few hours	Visual hallucinations in the acute stage life-size images, real, detailed, anchored in space, auditory hallucinations in the chronic phase, poor reality monitoring, recurrent psychotic episodes lasting weeks or months	[4, 50]
	Existential/metaphysical meaning	Existential/metaphysical meaning
Sensorimotor gating	Mainly impaired, depending on psychedelics	Impaired	[61–63, 70–73]
Working memory	Impaired	Impaired	[5, 75, 76, 79–83]
Neurochemical background
Neuronal activity	Hyperfrontality	Hyperfrontality in acute episodes, hypofrontality in the chronic phase	[49, 51–59]
5-HT2A receptor	Activation: hallucinogens Gq11 and Gi/o pathways,  non-hallucinogens Gq11 pathway	polymorphism, inconsistent data related to 5-HT2A level	[20–22, 45–47, 67, 68, 77, 78]
Glutamatergic transmission	5-HT2A–mGlu2 complex, indirect activation of NMDA, AMPA receptors	Genetic predisposition, NMDA hypofunction	[39, 40, 84, 85, 95]