EEG ERP Psychoactives, Responsibility, and Plasticity after 35 Years - FALAN SfN 2025 Brain Bee Ideas

First-Person Consciousness

I am matured Consciousness. No longer dragged by emotions as before age 25, nor only a critical apprentice between 25 and 35. Now, after 35, I carry both stability and responsibility: every substance, every emotion, every narrative can crystallize more deeply within me. If I choose psychoactives, it is not just play — it is also reprogramming. I may open creative doors, but I may also build invisible prisons.

1. The Brain after 35: Stability and Risk

• After 35, the brain shows greater synaptic stability and reduced spontaneous plasticity.
  
  

• This favors safety and consolidation of narratives but makes the creation of new flexible connections more difficult.
  
  

• Memories and feelings already established tend to resist change.
  
  

2. Psychoactive Use across Age Windows

• Before 25 years: risk that psychoactives mold a brain still in formation, hijacking fragile identities.
  
  

• Between 25–35 years: more metacognition, still enough plasticity for reorganization.
  
  

• After 35 years: psychoactive use implies greater responsibility, since substances can crystallize patterns and narratives in lasting ways.
  
  

3. How Psychoactives Act

• Alcohol: reduces prefrontal control, favoring Stone (automatic reactions).
  
  

• Cannabis: modulates interoception and time perception; risk of anergia if use is chronic.
  
  

• Stimulants (cocaine, amphetamines): intensify dopamine → fast but unstable reinforcement.
  
  

• Entactogens (MDMA, ecstasy): boost serotonin/oxytocin → artificial belonging.
  
  

• Hallucinogens (LSD, ayahuasca): amplify synchronies → may open Paper (contemplation), but can also crystallize illusory narratives.
  
  

4. The Role of Late Plasticity

• Plasticity after 35 is more dependent on conscious effort (sustained attention, Zone 2, reflective practice).
  
  

• Psychoactives can induce artificial windows of plasticity, but:
  
  

• Without critique → they generate rigid narratives (fixations).
  
  

• With metacognition → they can be integrated into therapeutic and creative processes.
  
  

5. Comparative Frame – Age, Psychoactives, and Narratives

6. The Importance of Responsibility

• After 35, the brain no longer rebuilds as easily: what is crystallized, remains.
  
  

• Each psychoactive experience should therefore be seen as an act of narrative responsibility: it can open horizons or close possibilities.
  
  

• The key is to use metacognition to integrate experiences rather than be imprisoned by them.
  
  

7. Critical Conclusion

At age 35 and beyond, consciousness reaches a point of balance between stability and responsibility.

• Emotions may still open creative pathways.
  
  

• But psychoactives, when used without critique, can crystallize rigid and anergic narratives.
  
  

Late plasticity is not the absence of change: it is an invitation to change with intentionality.
Recognizing this moment means understanding that every chemical or emotional choice is also a narrative choice about who we will become.

References

• Volkow, N. D., et al. (2021). Substance use and brain development across the lifespan. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
  
  

• Hutten, N. R. P. W., et al. (2020). Psychedelics and plasticity: neurobiological perspectives. European Neuropsychopharmacology.
  
  

• Guloksuz, S., et al. (2021). Cannabis use and anhedonia: longitudinal brain studies. Biological Psychiatry.
  
  

• Nutt, D., et al. (2022). Psychoactive substances and therapeutic contexts. Journal of Psychopharmacology.
  
  

• Koob, G. F., & Volkow, N. D. (2023). Neurobiology of addiction and responsibility. Annual Review of Neuroscience.