what is the significance of the study in research writing

The Savvy Scientist

Experiences of a London PhD student and beyond

What is the Significance of a Study? Examples and Guide

If you’re reading this post you’re probably wondering: what is the significance of a study?

No matter where you’re at with a piece of research, it is a good idea to think about the potential significance of your work. And sometimes you’ll have to explicitly write a statement of significance in your papers, it addition to it forming part of your thesis.

In this post I’ll cover what the significance of a study is, how to measure it, how to describe it with examples and add in some of my own experiences having now worked in research for over nine years.

If you’re reading this because you’re writing up your first paper, welcome! You may also like my how-to guide for all aspects of writing your first research paper .

Looking for guidance on writing the statement of significance for a paper or thesis? Click here to skip straight to that section.

What is the Significance of a Study?

For research papers, theses or dissertations it’s common to explicitly write a section describing the significance of the study. We’ll come onto what to include in that section in just a moment.

However the significance of a study can actually refer to several different things.

Working our way from the most technical to the broadest, depending on the context, the significance of a study may refer to:

• Within your study: Statistical significance. Can we trust the findings?
• Wider research field: Research significance. How does your study progress the field?
• Commercial / economic significance: Could there be business opportunities for your findings?
• Societal significance: What impact could your study have on the wider society.
• And probably other domain-specific significance!

We’ll shortly cover each of them in turn, including how they’re measured and some examples for each type of study significance.

But first, let’s touch on why you should consider the significance of your research at an early stage.

Why Care About the Significance of a Study?

No matter what is motivating you to carry out your research, it is sensible to think about the potential significance of your work. In the broadest sense this asks, how does the study contribute to the world?

After all, for many people research is only worth doing if it will result in some expected significance. For the vast majority of us our studies won’t be significant enough to reach the evening news, but most studies will help to enhance knowledge in a particular field and when research has at least some significance it makes for a far more fulfilling longterm pursuit.

Furthermore, a lot of us are carrying out research funded by the public. It therefore makes sense to keep an eye on what benefits the work could bring to the wider community.

Often in research you’ll come to a crossroads where you must decide which path of research to pursue. Thinking about the potential benefits of a strand of research can be useful for deciding how to spend your time, money and resources.

It’s worth noting though, that not all research activities have to work towards obvious significance. This is especially true while you’re a PhD student, where you’re figuring out what you enjoy and may simply be looking for an opportunity to learn a new skill.

However, if you’re trying to decide between two potential projects, it can be useful to weigh up the potential significance of each.

Let’s now dive into the different types of significance, starting with research significance.

Research Significance

What is the research significance of a study.

Unless someone specifies which type of significance they’re referring to, it is fair to assume that they want to know about the research significance of your study.

Research significance describes how your work has contributed to the field, how it could inform future studies and progress research.

Where should I write about my study’s significance in my thesis?

Typically you should write about your study’s significance in the Introduction and Conclusions sections of your thesis.

It’s important to mention it in the Introduction so that the relevance of your work and the potential impact and benefits it could have on the field are immediately apparent. Explaining why your work matters will help to engage readers (and examiners!) early on.

It’s also a good idea to detail the study’s significance in your Conclusions section. This adds weight to your findings and helps explain what your study contributes to the field.

On occasion you may also choose to include a brief description in your Abstract.

What is expected when submitting an article to a journal

It is common for journals to request a statement of significance, although this can sometimes be called other things such as:

• Impact statement
• Significance statement
• Advances in knowledge section

Here is one such example of what is expected:

Impact Statement:  An Impact Statement is required for all submissions.  Your impact statement will be evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief, Global Editors, and appropriate Associate Editor. For your manuscript to receive full review, the editors must be convinced that it is an important advance in for the field. The Impact Statement is not a restating of the abstract. It should address the following: Why is the work submitted important to the field? How does the work submitted advance the field? What new information does this work impart to the field? How does this new information impact the field? Experimental Biology and Medicine journal, author guidelines

Typically the impact statement will be shorter than the Abstract, around 150 words.

Defining the study’s significance is helpful not just for the impact statement (if the journal asks for one) but also for building a more compelling argument throughout your submission. For instance, usually you’ll start the Discussion section of a paper by highlighting the research significance of your work. You’ll also include a short description in your Abstract too.

How to describe the research significance of a study, with examples

Whether you’re writing a thesis or a journal article, the approach to writing about the significance of a study are broadly the same.

I’d therefore suggest using the questions above as a starting point to base your statements on.

• Why is the work submitted important to the field?
• How does the work submitted advance the field?
• What new information does this work impart to the field?
• How does this new information impact the field?

Answer those questions and you’ll have a much clearer idea of the research significance of your work.

When describing it, try to clearly state what is novel about your study’s contribution to the literature. Then go on to discuss what impact it could have on progressing the field along with recommendations for future work.

Potential sentence starters

If you’re not sure where to start, why not set a 10 minute timer and have a go at trying to finish a few of the following sentences. Not sure on what to put? Have a chat to your supervisor or lab mates and they may be able to suggest some ideas.

• This study is important to the field because…
• These findings advance the field by…
• Our results highlight the importance of…
• Our discoveries impact the field by…

Now you’ve had a go let’s have a look at some real life examples.

Statement of significance examples

A statement of significance / impact:

Impact Statement This review highlights the historical development of the concept of “ideal protein” that began in the 1950s and 1980s for poultry and swine diets, respectively, and the major conceptual deficiencies of the long-standing concept of “ideal protein” in animal nutrition based on recent advances in amino acid (AA) metabolism and functions. Nutritionists should move beyond the “ideal protein” concept to consider optimum ratios and amounts of all proteinogenic AAs in animal foods and, in the case of carnivores, also taurine. This will help formulate effective low-protein diets for livestock, poultry, and fish, while sustaining global animal production. Because they are not only species of agricultural importance, but also useful models to study the biology and diseases of humans as well as companion (e.g. dogs and cats), zoo, and extinct animals in the world, our work applies to a more general readership than the nutritionists and producers of farm animals. Wu G, Li P. The “ideal protein” concept is not ideal in animal nutrition.  Experimental Biology and Medicine . 2022;247(13):1191-1201. doi: 10.1177/15353702221082658

And the same type of section but this time called “Advances in knowledge”:

Advances in knowledge: According to the MY-RADs criteria, size measurements of focal lesions in MRI are now of relevance for response assessment in patients with monoclonal plasma cell disorders. Size changes of 1 or 2 mm are frequently observed due to uncertainty of the measurement only, while the actual focal lesion has not undergone any biological change. Size changes of at least 6 mm or more in  T 1  weighted or  T 2  weighted short tau inversion recovery sequences occur in only 5% or less of cases when the focal lesion has not undergone any biological change. Wennmann M, Grözinger M, Weru V, et al. Test-retest, inter- and intra-rater reproducibility of size measurements of focal bone marrow lesions in MRI in patients with multiple myeloma [published online ahead of print, 2023 Apr 12].  Br J Radiol . 2023;20220745. doi: 10.1259/bjr.20220745

Other examples of research significance

Moving beyond the formal statement of significance, here is how you can describe research significance more broadly within your paper.

Describing research impact in an Abstract of a paper:

Three-dimensional visualisation and quantification of the chondrocyte population within articular cartilage can be achieved across a field of view of several millimetres using laboratory-based micro-CT. The ability to map chondrocytes in 3D opens possibilities for research in fields from skeletal development through to medical device design and treatment of cartilage degeneration. Conclusions section of the abstract in my first paper .

In the Discussion section of a paper:

We report for the utility of a standard laboratory micro-CT scanner to visualise and quantify features of the chondrocyte population within intact articular cartilage in 3D. This study represents a complimentary addition to the growing body of evidence supporting the non-destructive imaging of the constituents of articular cartilage. This offers researchers the opportunity to image chondrocyte distributions in 3D without specialised synchrotron equipment, enabling investigations such as chondrocyte morphology across grades of cartilage damage, 3D strain mapping techniques such as digital volume correlation to evaluate mechanical properties  in situ , and models for 3D finite element analysis  in silico  simulations. This enables an objective quantification of chondrocyte distribution and morphology in three dimensions allowing greater insight for investigations into studies of cartilage development, degeneration and repair. One such application of our method, is as a means to provide a 3D pattern in the cartilage which, when combined with digital volume correlation, could determine 3D strain gradient measurements enabling potential treatment and repair of cartilage degeneration. Moreover, the method proposed here will allow evaluation of cartilage implanted with tissue engineered scaffolds designed to promote chondral repair, providing valuable insight into the induced regenerative process. The Discussion section of the paper is laced with references to research significance.

How is longer term research significance measured?

Looking beyond writing impact statements within papers, sometimes you’ll want to quantify the long term research significance of your work. For instance when applying for jobs.

The most obvious measure of a study’s long term research significance is the number of citations it receives from future publications. The thinking is that a study which receives more citations will have had more research impact, and therefore significance , than a study which received less citations. Citations can give a broad indication of how useful the work is to other researchers but citations aren’t really a good measure of significance.

Bear in mind that us researchers can be lazy folks and sometimes are simply looking to cite the first paper which backs up one of our claims. You can find studies which receive a lot of citations simply for packaging up the obvious in a form which can be easily found and referenced, for instance by having a catchy or optimised title.

Likewise, research activity varies wildly between fields. Therefore a certain study may have had a big impact on a particular field but receive a modest number of citations, simply because not many other researchers are working in the field.

Nevertheless, citations are a standard measure of significance and for better or worse it remains impressive for someone to be the first author of a publication receiving lots of citations.

Other measures for the research significance of a study include:

• Accolades: best paper awards at conferences, thesis awards, “most downloaded” titles for articles, press coverage.
• How much follow-on research the study creates. For instance, part of my PhD involved a novel material initially developed by another PhD student in the lab. That PhD student’s research had unlocked lots of potential new studies and now lots of people in the group were using the same material and developing it for different applications. The initial study may not receive a high number of citations yet long term it generated a lot of research activity.

That covers research significance, but you’ll often want to consider other types of significance for your study and we’ll cover those next.

Statistical Significance

What is the statistical significance of a study.

Often as part of a study you’ll carry out statistical tests and then state the statistical significance of your findings: think p-values eg <0.05. It is useful to describe the outcome of these tests within your report or paper, to give a measure of statistical significance.

Effectively you are trying to show whether the performance of your innovation is actually better than a control or baseline and not just chance. Statistical significance deserves a whole other post so I won’t go into a huge amount of depth here.

Things that make publication in  The BMJ  impossible or unlikely Internal validity/robustness of the study • It had insufficient statistical power, making interpretation difficult; • Lack of statistical power; The British Medical Journal’s guide for authors

Calculating statistical significance isn’t always necessary (or valid) for a study, such as if you have a very small number of samples, but it is a very common requirement for scientific articles.

Writing a journal article? Check the journal’s guide for authors to see what they expect. Generally if you have approximately five or more samples or replicates it makes sense to start thinking about statistical tests. Speak to your supervisor and lab mates for advice, and look at other published articles in your field.

How is statistical significance measured?

Statistical significance is quantified using p-values . Depending on your study design you’ll choose different statistical tests to compute the p-value.

A p-value of 0.05 is a common threshold value. The 0.05 means that there is a 1/20 chance that the difference in performance you’re reporting is just down to random chance.

• p-values above 0.05 mean that the result isn’t statistically significant enough to be trusted: it is too likely that the effect you’re showing is just luck.
• p-values less than or equal to 0.05 mean that the result is statistically significant. In other words: unlikely to just be chance, which is usually considered a good outcome.

Low p-values (eg p = 0.001) mean that it is highly unlikely to be random chance (1/1000 in the case of p = 0.001), therefore more statistically significant.

It is important to clarify that, although low p-values mean that your findings are statistically significant, it doesn’t automatically mean that the result is scientifically important. More on that in the next section on research significance.

How to describe the statistical significance of your study, with examples

In the first paper from my PhD I ran some statistical tests to see if different staining techniques (basically dyes) increased how well you could see cells in cow tissue using micro-CT scanning (a 3D imaging technique).

In your methods section you should mention the statistical tests you conducted and then in the results you will have statements such as:

Between mediums for the two scan protocols C/N [contrast to noise ratio] was greater for EtOH than the PBS in both scanning methods (both  p  < 0.0001) with mean differences of 1.243 (95% CI [confidence interval] 0.709 to 1.778) for absorption contrast and 6.231 (95% CI 5.772 to 6.690) for propagation contrast. … Two repeat propagation scans were taken of samples from the PTA-stained groups. No difference in mean C/N was found with either medium: PBS had a mean difference of 0.058 ( p  = 0.852, 95% CI -0.560 to 0.676), EtOH had a mean difference of 1.183 ( p  = 0.112, 95% CI 0.281 to 2.648). From the Results section of my first paper, available here . Square brackets added for this post to aid clarity.

From this text the reader can infer from the first paragraph that there was a statistically significant difference in using EtOH compared to PBS (really small p-value of <0.0001). However, from the second paragraph, the difference between two repeat scans was statistically insignificant for both PBS (p = 0.852) and EtOH (p = 0.112).

By conducting these statistical tests you have then earned your right to make bold statements, such as these from the discussion section:

Propagation phase-contrast increases the contrast of individual chondrocytes [cartilage cells] compared to using absorption contrast. From the Discussion section from the same paper.

Without statistical tests you have no evidence that your results are not just down to random chance.

Beyond describing the statistical significance of a study in the main body text of your work, you can also show it in your figures.

In figures such as bar charts you’ll often see asterisks to represent statistical significance, and “n.s.” to show differences between groups which are not statistically significant. Here is one such figure, with some subplots, from the same paper:

In this example an asterisk (*) between two bars represents p < 0.05. Two asterisks (**) represents p < 0.001 and three asterisks (***) represents p < 0.0001. This should always be stated in the caption of your figure since the values that each asterisk refers to can vary.

Now that we know if a study is showing statistically and research significance, let’s zoom out a little and consider the potential for commercial significance.

Commercial and Industrial Significance

What are commercial and industrial significance.

Moving beyond significance in relation to academia, your research may also have commercial or economic significance.

Simply put:

• Commercial significance: could the research be commercialised as a product or service? Perhaps the underlying technology described in your study could be licensed to a company or you could even start your own business using it.
• Industrial significance: more widely than just providing a product which could be sold, does your research provide insights which may affect a whole industry? Such as: revealing insights or issues with current practices, performance gains you don’t want to commercialise (e.g. solar power efficiency), providing suggested frameworks or improvements which could be employed industry-wide.

I’ve grouped these two together because there can certainly be overlap. For instance, perhaps your new technology could be commercialised whilst providing wider improvements for the whole industry.

Commercial and industrial significance are not relevant to most studies, so only write about it if you and your supervisor can think of reasonable routes to your work having an impact in these ways.

How are commercial and industrial significance measured?

Unlike statistical and research significances, the measures of commercial and industrial significance can be much more broad.

Here are some potential measures of significance:

Commercial significance:

• How much value does your technology bring to potential customers or users?
• How big is the potential market and how much revenue could the product potentially generate?
• Is the intellectual property protectable? i.e. patentable, or if not could the novelty be protected with trade secrets: if so publish your method with caution!
• If commercialised, could the product bring employment to a geographical area?

Industrial significance:

What impact could it have on the industry? For instance if you’re revealing an issue with something, such as unintended negative consequences of a drug , what does that mean for the industry and the public? This could be:

• Reduced overhead costs
• Better safety
• Faster production methods
• Improved scaleability

How to describe the commercial and industrial significance of a study, with examples

Commercial significance.

If your technology could be commercially viable, and you’ve got an interest in commercialising it yourself, it is likely that you and your university may not want to immediately publish the study in a journal.

You’ll probably want to consider routes to exploiting the technology and your university may have a “technology transfer” team to help researchers navigate the various options.

However, if instead of publishing a paper you’re submitting a thesis or dissertation then it can be useful to highlight the commercial significance of your work. In this instance you could include statements of commercial significance such as:

The measurement technology described in this study provides state of the art performance and could enable the development of low cost devices for aerospace applications. An example of commercial significance I invented for this post

Industrial significance

First, think about the industrial sectors who could benefit from the developments described in your study.

For example if you’re working to improve battery efficiency it is easy to think of how it could lead to performance gains for certain industries, like personal electronics or electric vehicles. In these instances you can describe the industrial significance relatively easily, based off your findings.

For example:

By utilising abundant materials in the described battery fabrication process we provide a framework for battery manufacturers to reduce dependence on rare earth components. Again, an invented example

For other technologies there may well be industrial applications but they are less immediately obvious and applicable. In these scenarios the best you can do is to simply reframe your research significance statement in terms of potential commercial applications in a broad way.

As a reminder: not all studies should address industrial significance, so don’t try to invent applications just for the sake of it!

Societal Significance

What is the societal significance of a study.

The most broad category of significance is the societal impact which could stem from it.

If you’re working in an applied field it may be quite easy to see a route for your research to impact society. For others, the route to societal significance may be less immediate or clear.

Studies can help with big issues facing society such as:

• Medical applications : vaccines, surgical implants, drugs, improving patient safety. For instance this medical device and drug combination I worked on which has a very direct route to societal significance.
• Political significance : Your research may provide insights which could contribute towards potential changes in policy or better understanding of issues facing society.
• Public health : for instance COVID-19 transmission and related decisions.
• Climate change : mitigation such as more efficient solar panels and lower cost battery solutions, and studying required adaptation efforts and technologies. Also, better understanding around related societal issues, for instance this study on the effects of temperature on hate speech.

How is societal significance measured?

Societal significance at a high level can be quantified by the size of its potential societal effect. Just like a lab risk assessment, you can think of it in terms of probability (or how many people it could help) and impact magnitude.

Societal impact = How many people it could help x the magnitude of the impact

Think about how widely applicable the findings are: for instance does it affect only certain people? Then think about the potential size of the impact: what kind of difference could it make to those people?

Between these two metrics you can get a pretty good overview of the potential societal significance of your research study.

How to describe the societal significance of a study, with examples

Quite often the broad societal significance of your study is what you’re setting the scene for in your Introduction. In addition to describing the existing literature, it is common to for the study’s motivation to touch on its wider impact for society.

For those of us working in healthcare research it is usually pretty easy to see a path towards societal significance.

Our CLOUT model has state-of-the-art performance in mortality prediction, surpassing other competitive NN models and a logistic regression model … Our results show that the risk factors identified by the CLOUT model agree with physicians’ assessment, suggesting that CLOUT could be used in real-world clinicalsettings. Our results strongly support that CLOUT may be a useful tool to generate clinical prediction models, especially among hospitalized and critically ill patient populations. Learning Latent Space Representations to Predict Patient Outcomes: Model Development and Validation

In other domains the societal significance may either take longer or be more indirect, meaning that it can be more difficult to describe the societal impact.

Even so, here are some examples I’ve found from studies in non-healthcare domains:

We examined food waste as an initial investigation and test of this methodology, and there is clear potential for the examination of not only other policy texts related to food waste (e.g., liability protection, tax incentives, etc.; Broad Leib et al., 2020) but related to sustainable fishing (Worm et al., 2006) and energy use (Hawken, 2017). These other areas are of obvious relevance to climate change… AI-Based Text Analysis for Evaluating Food Waste Policies

The continued development of state-of-the art NLP tools tailored to climate policy will allow climate researchers and policy makers to extract meaningful information from this growing body of text, to monitor trends over time and administrative units, and to identify potential policy improvements. BERT Classification of Paris Agreement Climate Action Plans

Top Tips For Identifying & Writing About the Significance of Your Study

• Writing a thesis? Describe the significance of your study in the Introduction and the Conclusion .
• Submitting a paper? Read the journal’s guidelines. If you’re writing a statement of significance for a journal, make sure you read any guidance they give for what they’re expecting.
• Take a step back from your research and consider your study’s main contributions.
• Read previously published studies in your field . Use this for inspiration and ideas on how to describe the significance of your own study
• Discuss the study with your supervisor and potential co-authors or collaborators and brainstorm potential types of significance for it.

Now you’ve finished reading up on the significance of a study you may also like my how-to guide for all aspects of writing your first research paper .

Writing an academic journal paper

I hope that you’ve learned something useful from this article about the significance of a study. If you have any more research-related questions let me know, I’m here to help.

To gain access to my content library you can subscribe below for free:

Share this:

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Related Posts

Minor Corrections: How To Make Them and Succeed With Your PhD Thesis

2nd June 2024 2nd June 2024

How to Master Data Management in Research

25th April 2024 27th April 2024

Thesis Title: Examples and Suggestions from a PhD Grad

23rd February 2024 21st July 2024

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Privacy Overview

How To Write Significance of the Study (With Examples) 

Whether you’re writing a research paper or thesis, a portion called Significance of the Study ensures your readers understand the impact of your work. Learn how to effectively write this vital part of your research paper or thesis through our detailed steps, guidelines, and examples.

Related: How to Write a Concept Paper for Academic Research

Table of Contents

What is the significance of the study.

The Significance of the Study presents the importance of your research. It allows you to prove the study’s impact on your field of research, the new knowledge it contributes, and the people who will benefit from it.

Related: How To Write Scope and Delimitation of a Research Paper (With Examples)

Where Should I Put the Significance of the Study?

The Significance of the Study is part of the first chapter or the Introduction. It comes after the research’s rationale, problem statement, and hypothesis.

Related: How to Make Conceptual Framework (with Examples and Templates)

Why Should I Include the Significance of the Study?

The purpose of the Significance of the Study is to give you space to explain to your readers how exactly your research will be contributing to the literature of the field you are studying 1 . It’s where you explain why your research is worth conducting and its significance to the community, the people, and various institutions.

How To Write Significance of the Study: 5 Steps

Below are the steps and guidelines for writing your research’s Significance of the Study.

1. Use Your Research Problem as a Starting Point

Your problem statement can provide clues to your research study’s outcome and who will benefit from it 2 .

Ask yourself, “How will the answers to my research problem be beneficial?”. In this manner, you will know how valuable it is to conduct your study. 

Let’s say your research problem is “What is the level of effectiveness of the lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) in lowering the blood glucose level of Swiss mice (Mus musculus)?”

Discovering a positive correlation between the use of lemongrass and lower blood glucose level may lead to the following results:

• Increased public understanding of the plant’s medical properties;
• Higher appreciation of the importance of lemongrass  by the community;
• Adoption of lemongrass tea as a cheap, readily available, and natural remedy to lower their blood glucose level.

Once you’ve zeroed in on the general benefits of your study, it’s time to break it down into specific beneficiaries.

2. State How Your Research Will Contribute to the Existing Literature in the Field

Think of the things that were not explored by previous studies. Then, write how your research tackles those unexplored areas. Through this, you can convince your readers that you are studying something new and adding value to the field.

3. Explain How Your Research Will Benefit Society

In this part, tell how your research will impact society. Think of how the results of your study will change something in your community. 

For example, in the study about using lemongrass tea to lower blood glucose levels, you may indicate that through your research, the community will realize the significance of lemongrass and other herbal plants. As a result, the community will be encouraged to promote the cultivation and use of medicinal plants.

4. Mention the Specific Persons or Institutions Who Will Benefit From Your Study

Using the same example above, you may indicate that this research’s results will benefit those seeking an alternative supplement to prevent high blood glucose levels.

5. Indicate How Your Study May Help Future Studies in the Field

You must also specifically indicate how your research will be part of the literature of your field and how it will benefit future researchers. In our example above, you may indicate that through the data and analysis your research will provide, future researchers may explore other capabilities of herbal plants in preventing different diseases.

Tips and Warnings

• Think ahead . By visualizing your study in its complete form, it will be easier for you to connect the dots and identify the beneficiaries of your research.
• Write concisely. Make it straightforward, clear, and easy to understand so that the readers will appreciate the benefits of your research. Avoid making it too long and wordy.
• Go from general to specific . Like an inverted pyramid, you start from above by discussing the general contribution of your study and become more specific as you go along. For instance, if your research is about the effect of remote learning setup on the mental health of college students of a specific university , you may start by discussing the benefits of the research to society, to the educational institution, to the learning facilitators, and finally, to the students.
• Seek help . For example, you may ask your research adviser for insights on how your research may contribute to the existing literature. If you ask the right questions, your research adviser can point you in the right direction.
• Revise, revise, revise. Be ready to apply necessary changes to your research on the fly. Unexpected things require adaptability, whether it’s the respondents or variables involved in your study. There’s always room for improvement, so never assume your work is done until you have reached the finish line.

Significance of the Study Examples

This section presents examples of the Significance of the Study using the steps and guidelines presented above.

Example 1: STEM-Related Research

Research Topic: Level of Effectiveness of the Lemongrass ( Cymbopogon citratus ) Tea in Lowering the Blood Glucose Level of Swiss Mice ( Mus musculus ).

Significance of the Study .

This research will provide new insights into the medicinal benefit of lemongrass ( Cymbopogon citratus ), specifically on its hypoglycemic ability.

Through this research, the community will further realize promoting medicinal plants, especially lemongrass, as a preventive measure against various diseases. People and medical institutions may also consider lemongrass tea as an alternative supplement against hyperglycemia. 

Moreover, the analysis presented in this study will convey valuable information for future research exploring the medicinal benefits of lemongrass and other medicinal plants.  

Example 2: Business and Management-Related Research

Research Topic: A Comparative Analysis of Traditional and Social Media Marketing of Small Clothing Enterprises.

Significance of the Study:

By comparing the two marketing strategies presented by this research, there will be an expansion on the current understanding of the firms on these marketing strategies in terms of cost, acceptability, and sustainability. This study presents these marketing strategies for small clothing enterprises, giving them insights into which method is more appropriate and valuable for them. 

Specifically, this research will benefit start-up clothing enterprises in deciding which marketing strategy they should employ. Long-time clothing enterprises may also consider the result of this research to review their current marketing strategy.

Furthermore, a detailed presentation on the comparison of the marketing strategies involved in this research may serve as a tool for further studies to innovate the current method employed in the clothing Industry.

Example 3: Social Science -Related Research.

Research Topic:  Divide Et Impera : An Overview of How the Divide-and-Conquer Strategy Prevailed on Philippine Political History.

Significance of the Study :

Through the comprehensive exploration of this study on Philippine political history, the influence of the Divide et Impera, or political decentralization, on the political discernment across the history of the Philippines will be unraveled, emphasized, and scrutinized. Moreover, this research will elucidate how this principle prevailed until the current political theatre of the Philippines.

In this regard, this study will give awareness to society on how this principle might affect the current political context. Moreover, through the analysis made by this study, political entities and institutions will have a new approach to how to deal with this principle by learning about its influence in the past.

In addition, the overview presented in this research will push for new paradigms, which will be helpful for future discussion of the Divide et Impera principle and may lead to a more in-depth analysis.

Example 4: Humanities-Related Research

Research Topic: Effectiveness of Meditation on Reducing the Anxiety Levels of College Students.

Significance of the Study: 

This research will provide new perspectives in approaching anxiety issues of college students through meditation. 

Specifically, this research will benefit the following:

 Community – this study spreads awareness on recognizing anxiety as a mental health concern and how meditation can be a valuable approach to alleviating it.

Academic Institutions and Administrators – through this research, educational institutions and administrators may promote programs and advocacies regarding meditation to help students deal with their anxiety issues.

Mental health advocates – the result of this research will provide valuable information for the advocates to further their campaign on spreading awareness on dealing with various mental health issues, including anxiety, and how to stop stigmatizing those with mental health disorders.

Parents – this research may convince parents to consider programs involving meditation that may help the students deal with their anxiety issues.

Students will benefit directly from this research as its findings may encourage them to consider meditation to lower anxiety levels.

Future researchers – this study covers information involving meditation as an approach to reducing anxiety levels. Thus, the result of this study can be used for future discussions on the capabilities of meditation in alleviating other mental health concerns.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. what is the difference between the significance of the study and the rationale of the study.

Both aim to justify the conduct of the research. However, the Significance of the Study focuses on the specific benefits of your research in the field, society, and various people and institutions. On the other hand, the Rationale of the Study gives context on why the researcher initiated the conduct of the study.

Let’s take the research about the Effectiveness of Meditation in Reducing Anxiety Levels of College Students as an example. Suppose you are writing about the Significance of the Study. In that case, you must explain how your research will help society, the academic institution, and students deal with anxiety issues through meditation. Meanwhile, for the Rationale of the Study, you may state that due to the prevalence of anxiety attacks among college students, you’ve decided to make it the focal point of your research work.

2. What is the difference between Justification and the Significance of the Study?

In Justification, you express the logical reasoning behind the conduct of the study. On the other hand, the Significance of the Study aims to present to your readers the specific benefits your research will contribute to the field you are studying, community, people, and institutions.

Suppose again that your research is about the Effectiveness of Meditation in Reducing the Anxiety Levels of College Students. Suppose you are writing the Significance of the Study. In that case, you may state that your research will provide new insights and evidence regarding meditation’s ability to reduce college students’ anxiety levels. Meanwhile, you may note in the Justification that studies are saying how people used meditation in dealing with their mental health concerns. You may also indicate how meditation is a feasible approach to managing anxiety using the analysis presented by previous literature.

3. How should I start my research’s Significance of the Study section?

– This research will contribute… – The findings of this research… – This study aims to… – This study will provide… – Through the analysis presented in this study… – This study will benefit…

Moreover, you may start the Significance of the Study by elaborating on the contribution of your research in the field you are studying.

4. What is the difference between the Purpose of the Study and the Significance of the Study?

The Purpose of the Study focuses on why your research was conducted, while the Significance of the Study tells how the results of your research will benefit anyone.

Suppose your research is about the Effectiveness of Lemongrass Tea in Lowering the Blood Glucose Level of Swiss Mice . You may include in your Significance of the Study that the research results will provide new information and analysis on the medical ability of lemongrass to solve hyperglycemia. Meanwhile, you may include in your Purpose of the Study that your research wants to provide a cheaper and natural way to lower blood glucose levels since commercial supplements are expensive.

5. What is the Significance of the Study in Tagalog?

In Filipino research, the Significance of the Study is referred to as Kahalagahan ng Pag-aaral.

• Draft your Significance of the Study. Retrieved 18 April 2021, from http://dissertationedd.usc.edu/draft-your-significance-of-the-study.html
• Regoniel, P. (2015). Two Tips on How to Write the Significance of the Study. Retrieved 18 April 2021, from https://simplyeducate.me/2015/02/09/significance-of-the-study/

Written by Jewel Kyle Fabula

in Career and Education , Juander How

Jewel Kyle Fabula

Jewel Kyle Fabula is a Bachelor of Science in Economics student at the University of the Philippines Diliman. His passion for learning mathematics developed as he competed in some mathematics competitions during his Junior High School years. He loves cats, playing video games, and listening to music.

Browse all articles written by Jewel Kyle Fabula

Copyright Notice

All materials contained on this site are protected by the Republic of the Philippines copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published, or broadcast without the prior written permission of filipiknow.net or in the case of third party materials, the owner of that content. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright, or other notice from copies of the content. Be warned that we have already reported and helped terminate several websites and YouTube channels for blatantly stealing our content. If you wish to use filipiknow.net content for commercial purposes, such as for content syndication, etc., please contact us at legal(at)filipiknow(dot)net

Community Blog

Keep up-to-date on postgraduate related issues with our quick reads written by students, postdocs, professors and industry leaders.

What is the Significance of the Study?

• By DiscoverPhDs
• August 25, 2020

• what the significance of the study means,
• why it’s important to include in your research work,
• where you would include it in your paper, thesis or dissertation,
• how you write one
• and finally an example of a well written section about the significance of the study.

What does Significance of the Study mean?

The significance of the study is a written statement that explains why your research was needed. It’s a justification of the importance of your work and impact it has on your research field, it’s contribution to new knowledge and how others will benefit from it.

Why is the Significance of the Study important?

The significance of the study, also known as the rationale of the study, is important to convey to the reader why the research work was important. This may be an academic reviewer assessing your manuscript under peer-review, an examiner reading your PhD thesis, a funder reading your grant application or another research group reading your published journal paper. Your academic writing should make clear to the reader what the significance of the research that you performed was, the contribution you made and the benefits of it.

How do you write the Significance of the Study?

When writing this section, first think about where the gaps in knowledge are in your research field. What are the areas that are poorly understood with little or no previously published literature? Or what topics have others previously published on that still require further work. This is often referred to as the problem statement.

The introduction section within the significance of the study should include you writing the problem statement and explaining to the reader where the gap in literature is.

Then think about the significance of your research and thesis study from two perspectives: (1) what is the general contribution of your research on your field and (2) what specific contribution have you made to the knowledge and who does this benefit the most.

For example, the gap in knowledge may be that the benefits of dumbbell exercises for patients recovering from a broken arm are not fully understood. You may have performed a study investigating the impact of dumbbell training in patients with fractures versus those that did not perform dumbbell exercises and shown there to be a benefit in their use. The broad significance of the study would be the improvement in the understanding of effective physiotherapy methods. Your specific contribution has been to show a significant improvement in the rate of recovery in patients with broken arms when performing certain dumbbell exercise routines.

This statement should be no more than 500 words in length when written for a thesis. Within a research paper, the statement should be shorter and around 200 words at most.

Significance of the Study: An example

Building on the above hypothetical academic study, the following is an example of a full statement of the significance of the study for you to consider when writing your own. Keep in mind though that there’s no single way of writing the perfect significance statement and it may well depend on the subject area and the study content.

Here’s another example to help demonstrate how a significance of the study can also be applied to non-technical fields:

The significance of this research lies in its potential to inform clinical practices and patient counseling. By understanding the psychological outcomes associated with non-surgical facial aesthetics, practitioners can better guide their patients in making informed decisions about their treatment plans. Additionally, this study contributes to the body of academic knowledge by providing empirical evidence on the effects of these cosmetic procedures, which have been largely anecdotal up to this point.

The statement of the significance of the study is used by students and researchers in academic writing to convey the importance of the research performed; this section is written at the end of the introduction and should describe the specific contribution made and who it benefits.

The term monotonic relationship is a statistical definition that is used to describe the link between two variables.

How should you spend your first week as a PhD student? Here’s are 7 steps to help you get started on your journey.

Find out how you can use Scrivener for PhD Thesis & Dissertation writing to streamline your workflow and make academic writing fun again!

Join thousands of other students and stay up to date with the latest PhD programmes, funding opportunities and advice.

Browse PhDs Now

Thinking about applying to a PhD? Then don’t miss out on these 4 tips on how to best prepare your application.

A science investigatory project is a science-based research project or study that is performed by school children in a classroom, exhibition or science fair.

Elmira is in the third year of her PhD program at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology, researching the mechanisms of acute myeloid leukemia cells resistance to targeted therapy.

Daisy’s a year and half into her PhD at the University of Surrey. Her research project is based around the control of electron spin state in InSb quantum wells using quantum point contacts.

Join Thousands of Students

How To Write a Significance Statement for Your Research

A significance statement is an essential part of a research paper. It explains the importance and relevance of the study to the academic community and the world at large. To write a compelling significance statement, identify the research problem, explain why it is significant, provide evidence of its importance, and highlight its potential impact on future research, policy, or practice. A well-crafted significance statement should effectively communicate the value of the research to readers and help them understand why it matters.

Updated on May 4, 2023

A significance statement is a clearly stated, non-technical paragraph that explains why your research matters. It’s central in making the public aware of and gaining support for your research.

Write it in jargon-free language that a reader from any field can understand. Well-crafted, easily readable significance statements can improve your chances for citation and impact and make it easier for readers outside your field to find and understand your work.

Read on for more details on what a significance statement is, how it can enhance the impact of your research, and, of course, how to write one.

What is a significance statement in research?

A significance statement answers the question: How will your research advance scientific knowledge and impact society at large (as well as specific populations)? 

You might also see it called a “Significance of the study” statement. Some professional organizations in the STEM sciences and social sciences now recommended that journals in their disciplines make such statements a standard feature of each published article. Funding agencies also consider “significance” a key criterion for their awards.

Read some examples of significance statements from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) here .

Depending upon the specific journal or funding agency’s requirements, your statement may be around 100 words and answer these questions:

1. What’s the purpose of this research?

2. What are its key findings?

3. Why do they matter?

4. Who benefits from the research results?

Readers will want to know: “What is interesting or important about this research?” Keep asking yourself that question.

Where to place the significance statement in your manuscript

Most journals ask you to place the significance statement before or after the abstract, so check with each journal’s guide. 

This article is focused on the formal significance statement, even though you’ll naturally highlight your project’s significance elsewhere in your manuscript. (In the introduction, you’ll set out your research aims, and in the conclusion, you’ll explain the potential applications of your research and recommend areas for future research. You’re building an overall case for the value of your work.)

Developing the significance statement

The main steps in planning and developing your statement are to assess the gaps to which your study contributes, and then define your work’s implications and impact.

Identify what gaps your study fills and what it contributes

Your literature review was a big part of how you planned your study. To develop your research aims and objectives, you identified gaps or unanswered questions in the preceding research and designed your study to address them.

Go back to that lit review and look at those gaps again. Review your research proposal to refresh your memory. Ask:

• How have my research findings advanced knowledge or provided notable new insights?
• How has my research helped to prove (or disprove) a hypothesis or answer a research question?
• Why are those results important?

Consider your study’s potential impact at two levels: 

• What contribution does my research make to my field?
• How does it specifically contribute to knowledge; that is, who will benefit the most from it?

Define the implications and potential impact

As you make notes, keep the reasons in mind for why you are writing this statement. Whom will it impact, and why?

The first audience for your significance statement will be journal reviewers when you submit your article for publishing. Many journals require one for manuscript submissions. Study the author’s guide of your desired journal to see its criteria ( here’s an example ). Peer reviewers who can clearly understand the value of your research will be more likely to recommend publication. 

Second, when you apply for funding, your significance statement will help justify why your research deserves a grant from a funding agency . The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), for example, wants to see that a project will “exert a sustained, powerful influence on the research field(s) involved.” Clear, simple language is always valuable because not all reviewers will be specialists in your field.

Third, this concise statement about your study’s importance can affect how potential readers engage with your work. Science journalists and interested readers can promote and spread your work, enhancing your reputation and influence. Help them understand your work.

You’re now ready to express the importance of your research clearly and concisely. Time to start writing.

How to write a significance statement: Key elements 

When drafting your statement, focus on both the content and writing style.

• In terms of content, emphasize the importance, timeliness, and relevance of your research results. 
• Write the statement in plain, clear language rather than scientific or technical jargon. Your audience will include not just your fellow scientists but also non-specialists like journalists, funding reviewers, and members of the public. 

Follow the process we outline below to build a solid, well-crafted, and informative statement. 

Get started

Some suggested opening lines to help you get started might be:

• The implications of this study are… 
• Building upon previous contributions, our study moves the field forward because…
• Our study furthers previous understanding about…

Alternatively, you may start with a statement about the phenomenon you’re studying, leading to the problem statement.

Include these components

Next, draft some sentences that include the following elements. A good example, which we’ll use here, is a significance statement by Rogers et al. (2022) published in the Journal of Climate .

1. Briefly situate your research study in its larger context . Start by introducing the topic, leading to a problem statement. Here’s an example:

‘Heatwaves pose a major threat to human health, ecosystems, and human systems.”

2. State the research problem.

“Simultaneous heatwaves affecting multiple regions can exacerbate such threats. For example, multiple food-producing regions simultaneously undergoing heat-related crop damage could drive global food shortages.”

3. Tell what your study does to address it.

“We assess recent changes in the occurrence of simultaneous large heatwaves.”

4. Provide brief but powerful evidence to support the claims your statement is making , Use quantifiable terms rather than vague ones (e.g., instead of “This phenomenon is happening now more than ever,” see below how Rogers et al. (2022) explained it). This evidence intensifies and illustrates the problem more vividly:

“Such simultaneous heatwaves are 7 times more likely now than 40 years ago. They are also hotter and affect a larger area. Their increasing occurrence is mainly driven by warming baseline temperatures due to global heating, but changes in weather patterns contribute to disproportionate increases over parts of Europe, the eastern United States, and Asia.

5. Relate your study’s impact to the broader context , starting with its general significance to society—then, when possible, move to the particular as you name specific applications of your research findings. (Our example lacks this second level of application.) 

“Better understanding the drivers of weather pattern changes is therefore important for understanding future concurrent heatwave characteristics and their impacts.”

Refine your English

Don’t understate or overstate your findings – just make clear what your study contributes. When you have all the elements in place, review your draft to simplify and polish your language. Even better, get an expert AJE edit . Be sure to use “plain” language rather than academic jargon.

• Avoid acronyms, scientific jargon, and technical terms 
• Use active verbs in your sentence structure rather than passive voice (e.g., instead of “It was found that...”, use “We found...”)
• Make sentence structures short, easy to understand – readable
• Try to address only one idea in each sentence and keep sentences within 25 words (15 words is even better)
• Eliminate nonessential words and phrases (“fluff” and wordiness)

Enhance your significance statement’s impact

Always take time to review your draft multiple times. Make sure that you:

• Keep your language focused
• Provide evidence to support your claims
• Relate the significance to the broader research context in your field

After revising your significance statement, request feedback from a reading mentor about how to make it even clearer. If you’re not a native English speaker, seek help from a native-English-speaking colleague or use an editing service like AJE to make sure your work is at a native level.

Understanding the significance of your study

Your readers may have much less interest than you do in the specific details of your research methods and measures. Many readers will scan your article to learn how your findings might apply to them and their own research. 

Different types of significance

Your findings may have different types of significance, relevant to different populations or fields of study for different reasons. You can emphasize your work’s statistical, clinical, or practical significance. Editors or reviewers in the social sciences might also evaluate your work’s social or political significance.

Statistical significance means that the results are unlikely to have occurred randomly. Instead, it implies a true cause-and-effect relationship.

Clinical significance means that your findings are applicable for treating patients and improving quality of life.

Practical significance is when your research outcomes are meaningful to society at large, in the “real world.” Practical significance is usually measured by the study’s  effect size . Similarly, evaluators may attribute social or political significance to research that addresses “real and immediate” social problems.

The AJE Team

See our "Privacy Policy"

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

11.1 The Purpose of Research Writing

Learning objectives.

• Identify reasons to research writing projects.
• Outline the steps of the research writing process.

Why was the Great Wall of China built? What have scientists learned about the possibility of life on Mars? What roles did women play in the American Revolution? How does the human brain create, store, and retrieve memories? Who invented the game of football, and how has it changed over the years?

You may know the answers to these questions off the top of your head. If you are like most people, however, you find answers to tough questions like these by searching the Internet, visiting the library, or asking others for information. To put it simply, you perform research.

Whether you are a scientist, an artist, a paralegal, or a parent, you probably perform research in your everyday life. When your boss, your instructor, or a family member asks you a question that you do not know the answer to, you locate relevant information, analyze your findings, and share your results. Locating, analyzing, and sharing information are key steps in the research process, and in this chapter, you will learn more about each step. By developing your research writing skills, you will prepare yourself to answer any question no matter how challenging.

Reasons for Research

When you perform research, you are essentially trying to solve a mystery—you want to know how something works or why something happened. In other words, you want to answer a question that you (and other people) have about the world. This is one of the most basic reasons for performing research.

But the research process does not end when you have solved your mystery. Imagine what would happen if a detective collected enough evidence to solve a criminal case, but she never shared her solution with the authorities. Presenting what you have learned from research can be just as important as performing the research. Research results can be presented in a variety of ways, but one of the most popular—and effective—presentation forms is the research paper . A research paper presents an original thesis, or purpose statement, about a topic and develops that thesis with information gathered from a variety of sources.

If you are curious about the possibility of life on Mars, for example, you might choose to research the topic. What will you do, though, when your research is complete? You will need a way to put your thoughts together in a logical, coherent manner. You may want to use the facts you have learned to create a narrative or to support an argument. And you may want to show the results of your research to your friends, your teachers, or even the editors of magazines and journals. Writing a research paper is an ideal way to organize thoughts, craft narratives or make arguments based on research, and share your newfound knowledge with the world.

Write a paragraph about a time when you used research in your everyday life. Did you look for the cheapest way to travel from Houston to Denver? Did you search for a way to remove gum from the bottom of your shoe? In your paragraph, explain what you wanted to research, how you performed the research, and what you learned as a result.

Research Writing and the Academic Paper

No matter what field of study you are interested in, you will most likely be asked to write a research paper during your academic career. For example, a student in an art history course might write a research paper about an artist’s work. Similarly, a student in a psychology course might write a research paper about current findings in childhood development.

Having to write a research paper may feel intimidating at first. After all, researching and writing a long paper requires a lot of time, effort, and organization. However, writing a research paper can also be a great opportunity to explore a topic that is particularly interesting to you. The research process allows you to gain expertise on a topic of your choice, and the writing process helps you remember what you have learned and understand it on a deeper level.

Research Writing at Work

Knowing how to write a good research paper is a valuable skill that will serve you well throughout your career. Whether you are developing a new product, studying the best way to perform a procedure, or learning about challenges and opportunities in your field of employment, you will use research techniques to guide your exploration. You may even need to create a written report of your findings. And because effective communication is essential to any company, employers seek to hire people who can write clearly and professionally.

Writing at Work

Take a few minutes to think about each of the following careers. How might each of these professionals use researching and research writing skills on the job?

• Medical laboratory technician
• Small business owner
• Information technology professional
• Freelance magazine writer

A medical laboratory technician or information technology professional might do research to learn about the latest technological developments in either of these fields. A small business owner might conduct research to learn about the latest trends in his or her industry. A freelance magazine writer may need to research a given topic to write an informed, up-to-date article.

Think about the job of your dreams. How might you use research writing skills to perform that job? Create a list of ways in which strong researching, organizing, writing, and critical thinking skills could help you succeed at your dream job. How might these skills help you obtain that job?

Steps of the Research Writing Process

How does a research paper grow from a folder of brainstormed notes to a polished final draft? No two projects are identical, but most projects follow a series of six basic steps.

These are the steps in the research writing process:

• Choose a topic.
• Plan and schedule time to research and write.
• Conduct research.
• Organize research and ideas.
• Draft your paper.
• Revise and edit your paper.

Each of these steps will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter. For now, though, we will take a brief look at what each step involves.

Step 1: Choosing a Topic

As you may recall from Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” , to narrow the focus of your topic, you may try freewriting exercises, such as brainstorming. You may also need to ask a specific research question —a broad, open-ended question that will guide your research—as well as propose a possible answer, or a working thesis . You may use your research question and your working thesis to create a research proposal . In a research proposal, you present your main research question, any related subquestions you plan to explore, and your working thesis.

Step 2: Planning and Scheduling

Before you start researching your topic, take time to plan your researching and writing schedule. Research projects can take days, weeks, or even months to complete. Creating a schedule is a good way to ensure that you do not end up being overwhelmed by all the work you have to do as the deadline approaches.

During this step of the process, it is also a good idea to plan the resources and organizational tools you will use to keep yourself on track throughout the project. Flowcharts, calendars, and checklists can all help you stick to your schedule. See Chapter 11 “Writing from Research: What Will I Learn?” , Section 11.2 “Steps in Developing a Research Proposal” for an example of a research schedule.

Step 3: Conducting Research

When going about your research, you will likely use a variety of sources—anything from books and periodicals to video presentations and in-person interviews.

Your sources will include both primary sources and secondary sources . Primary sources provide firsthand information or raw data. For example, surveys, in-person interviews, and historical documents are primary sources. Secondary sources, such as biographies, literary reviews, or magazine articles, include some analysis or interpretation of the information presented. As you conduct research, you will take detailed, careful notes about your discoveries. You will also evaluate the reliability of each source you find.

Step 4: Organizing Research and the Writer’s Ideas

When your research is complete, you will organize your findings and decide which sources to cite in your paper. You will also have an opportunity to evaluate the evidence you have collected and determine whether it supports your thesis, or the focus of your paper. You may decide to adjust your thesis or conduct additional research to ensure that your thesis is well supported.

Remember, your working thesis is not set in stone. You can and should change your working thesis throughout the research writing process if the evidence you find does not support your original thesis. Never try to force evidence to fit your argument. For example, your working thesis is “Mars cannot support life-forms.” Yet, a week into researching your topic, you find an article in the New York Times detailing new findings of bacteria under the Martian surface. Instead of trying to argue that bacteria are not life forms, you might instead alter your thesis to “Mars cannot support complex life-forms.”

Step 5: Drafting Your Paper

Now you are ready to combine your research findings with your critical analysis of the results in a rough draft. You will incorporate source materials into your paper and discuss each source thoughtfully in relation to your thesis or purpose statement.

When you cite your reference sources, it is important to pay close attention to standard conventions for citing sources in order to avoid plagiarism , or the practice of using someone else’s words without acknowledging the source. Later in this chapter, you will learn how to incorporate sources in your paper and avoid some of the most common pitfalls of attributing information.

Step 6: Revising and Editing Your Paper

In the final step of the research writing process, you will revise and polish your paper. You might reorganize your paper’s structure or revise for unity and cohesion, ensuring that each element in your paper flows into the next logically and naturally. You will also make sure that your paper uses an appropriate and consistent tone.

Once you feel confident in the strength of your writing, you will edit your paper for proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and formatting. When you complete this final step, you will have transformed a simple idea or question into a thoroughly researched and well-written paper you can be proud of!

Review the steps of the research writing process. Then answer the questions on your own sheet of paper.

• In which steps of the research writing process are you allowed to change your thesis?
• In step 2, which types of information should you include in your project schedule?
• What might happen if you eliminated step 4 from the research writing process?

Key Takeaways

• People undertake research projects throughout their academic and professional careers in order to answer specific questions, share their findings with others, increase their understanding of challenging topics, and strengthen their researching, writing, and analytical skills.
• The research writing process generally comprises six steps: choosing a topic, scheduling and planning time for research and writing, conducting research, organizing research and ideas, drafting a paper, and revising and editing the paper.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

• Privacy Policy

Home » Background of The Study – Examples and Writing Guide

Background of The Study – Examples and Writing Guide

Table of Contents

Background of The Study

Definition:

Background of the study refers to the context, circumstances, and history that led to the research problem or topic being studied. It provides the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter and the significance of the study.

The background of the study usually includes a discussion of the relevant literature, the gap in knowledge or understanding, and the research questions or hypotheses to be addressed. It also highlights the importance of the research topic and its potential contributions to the field. A well-written background of the study sets the stage for the research and helps the reader to appreciate the need for the study and its potential significance.

How to Write Background of The Study

Here are some steps to help you write the background of the study:

Identify the Research Problem

Start by identifying the research problem you are trying to address. This problem should be significant and relevant to your field of study.

Provide Context

Once you have identified the research problem, provide some context. This could include the historical, social, or political context of the problem.

Review Literature

Conduct a thorough review of the existing literature on the topic. This will help you understand what has been studied and what gaps exist in the current research.

Identify Research Gap

Based on your literature review, identify the gap in knowledge or understanding that your research aims to address. This gap will be the focus of your research question or hypothesis.

State Objectives

Clearly state the objectives of your research . These should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

Discuss Significance

Explain the significance of your research. This could include its potential impact on theory , practice, policy, or society.

Finally, summarize the key points of the background of the study. This will help the reader understand the research problem, its context, and its significance.

How to Write Background of The Study in Proposal

The background of the study is an essential part of any proposal as it sets the stage for the research project and provides the context and justification for why the research is needed. Here are the steps to write a compelling background of the study in your proposal:

• Identify the problem: Clearly state the research problem or gap in the current knowledge that you intend to address through your research.
• Provide context: Provide a brief overview of the research area and highlight its significance in the field.
• Review literature: Summarize the relevant literature related to the research problem and provide a critical evaluation of the current state of knowledge.
• Identify gaps : Identify the gaps or limitations in the existing literature and explain how your research will contribute to filling these gaps.
• Justify the study : Explain why your research is important and what practical or theoretical contributions it can make to the field.
• Highlight objectives: Clearly state the objectives of the study and how they relate to the research problem.
• Discuss methodology: Provide an overview of the methodology you will use to collect and analyze data, and explain why it is appropriate for the research problem.
• Conclude : Summarize the key points of the background of the study and explain how they support your research proposal.

How to Write Background of The Study In Thesis

The background of the study is a critical component of a thesis as it provides context for the research problem, rationale for conducting the study, and the significance of the research. Here are some steps to help you write a strong background of the study:

• Identify the research problem : Start by identifying the research problem that your thesis is addressing. What is the issue that you are trying to solve or explore? Be specific and concise in your problem statement.
• Review the literature: Conduct a thorough review of the relevant literature on the topic. This should include scholarly articles, books, and other sources that are directly related to your research question.
• I dentify gaps in the literature: After reviewing the literature, identify any gaps in the existing research. What questions remain unanswered? What areas have not been explored? This will help you to establish the need for your research.
• Establish the significance of the research: Clearly state the significance of your research. Why is it important to address this research problem? What are the potential implications of your research? How will it contribute to the field?
• Provide an overview of the research design: Provide an overview of the research design and methodology that you will be using in your study. This should include a brief explanation of the research approach, data collection methods, and data analysis techniques.
• State the research objectives and research questions: Clearly state the research objectives and research questions that your study aims to answer. These should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
• Summarize the chapter: Summarize the chapter by highlighting the key points and linking them back to the research problem, significance of the study, and research questions.

How to Write Background of The Study in Research Paper

Here are the steps to write the background of the study in a research paper:

• Identify the research problem: Start by identifying the research problem that your study aims to address. This can be a particular issue, a gap in the literature, or a need for further investigation.
• Conduct a literature review: Conduct a thorough literature review to gather information on the topic, identify existing studies, and understand the current state of research. This will help you identify the gap in the literature that your study aims to fill.
• Explain the significance of the study: Explain why your study is important and why it is necessary. This can include the potential impact on the field, the importance to society, or the need to address a particular issue.
• Provide context: Provide context for the research problem by discussing the broader social, economic, or political context that the study is situated in. This can help the reader understand the relevance of the study and its potential implications.
• State the research questions and objectives: State the research questions and objectives that your study aims to address. This will help the reader understand the scope of the study and its purpose.
• Summarize the methodology : Briefly summarize the methodology you used to conduct the study, including the data collection and analysis methods. This can help the reader understand how the study was conducted and its reliability.

Examples of Background of The Study

Here are some examples of the background of the study:

Problem : The prevalence of obesity among children in the United States has reached alarming levels, with nearly one in five children classified as obese.

Significance : Obesity in childhood is associated with numerous negative health outcomes, including increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers.

Gap in knowledge : Despite efforts to address the obesity epidemic, rates continue to rise. There is a need for effective interventions that target the unique needs of children and their families.

Problem : The use of antibiotics in agriculture has contributed to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which poses a significant threat to human health.

Significance : Antibiotic-resistant infections are responsible for thousands of deaths each year and are a major public health concern.

Gap in knowledge: While there is a growing body of research on the use of antibiotics in agriculture, there is still much to be learned about the mechanisms of resistance and the most effective strategies for reducing antibiotic use.

Edxample 3:

Problem : Many low-income communities lack access to healthy food options, leading to high rates of food insecurity and diet-related diseases.

Significance : Poor nutrition is a major contributor to chronic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Gap in knowledge : While there have been efforts to address food insecurity, there is a need for more research on the barriers to accessing healthy food in low-income communities and effective strategies for increasing access.

Examples of Background of The Study In Research

Here are some real-life examples of how the background of the study can be written in different fields of study:

Example 1 : “There has been a significant increase in the incidence of diabetes in recent years. This has led to an increased demand for effective diabetes management strategies. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a new diabetes management program in improving patient outcomes.”

Example 2 : “The use of social media has become increasingly prevalent in modern society. Despite its popularity, little is known about the effects of social media use on mental health. This study aims to investigate the relationship between social media use and mental health in young adults.”

Example 3: “Despite significant advancements in cancer treatment, the survival rate for patients with pancreatic cancer remains low. The purpose of this study is to identify potential biomarkers that can be used to improve early detection and treatment of pancreatic cancer.”

Examples of Background of The Study in Proposal

Here are some real-time examples of the background of the study in a proposal:

Example 1 : The prevalence of mental health issues among university students has been increasing over the past decade. This study aims to investigate the causes and impacts of mental health issues on academic performance and wellbeing.

Example 2 : Climate change is a global issue that has significant implications for agriculture in developing countries. This study aims to examine the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers to climate change and identify effective strategies to enhance their resilience.

Example 3 : The use of social media in political campaigns has become increasingly common in recent years. This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of social media campaigns in mobilizing young voters and influencing their voting behavior.

Example 4 : Employee turnover is a major challenge for organizations, especially in the service sector. This study aims to identify the key factors that influence employee turnover in the hospitality industry and explore effective strategies for reducing turnover rates.

Examples of Background of The Study in Thesis

Here are some real-time examples of the background of the study in the thesis:

Example 1 : “Women’s participation in the workforce has increased significantly over the past few decades. However, women continue to be underrepresented in leadership positions, particularly in male-dominated industries such as technology. This study aims to examine the factors that contribute to the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles in the technology industry, with a focus on organizational culture and gender bias.”

Example 2 : “Mental health is a critical component of overall health and well-being. Despite increased awareness of the importance of mental health, there are still significant gaps in access to mental health services, particularly in low-income and rural communities. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a community-based mental health intervention in improving mental health outcomes in underserved populations.”

Example 3: “The use of technology in education has become increasingly widespread, with many schools adopting online learning platforms and digital resources. However, there is limited research on the impact of technology on student learning outcomes and engagement. This study aims to explore the relationship between technology use and academic achievement among middle school students, as well as the factors that mediate this relationship.”

Examples of Background of The Study in Research Paper

Here are some examples of how the background of the study can be written in various fields:

Example 1: The prevalence of obesity has been on the rise globally, with the World Health Organization reporting that approximately 650 million adults were obese in 2016. Obesity is a major risk factor for several chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. In recent years, several interventions have been proposed to address this issue, including lifestyle changes, pharmacotherapy, and bariatric surgery. However, there is a lack of consensus on the most effective intervention for obesity management. This study aims to investigate the efficacy of different interventions for obesity management and identify the most effective one.

Example 2: Antibiotic resistance has become a major public health threat worldwide. Infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria are associated with longer hospital stays, higher healthcare costs, and increased mortality. The inappropriate use of antibiotics is one of the main factors contributing to the development of antibiotic resistance. Despite numerous efforts to promote the rational use of antibiotics, studies have shown that many healthcare providers continue to prescribe antibiotics inappropriately. This study aims to explore the factors influencing healthcare providers’ prescribing behavior and identify strategies to improve antibiotic prescribing practices.

Example 3: Social media has become an integral part of modern communication, with millions of people worldwide using platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Social media has several advantages, including facilitating communication, connecting people, and disseminating information. However, social media use has also been associated with several negative outcomes, including cyberbullying, addiction, and mental health problems. This study aims to investigate the impact of social media use on mental health and identify the factors that mediate this relationship.

Purpose of Background of The Study

The primary purpose of the background of the study is to help the reader understand the rationale for the research by presenting the historical, theoretical, and empirical background of the problem.

More specifically, the background of the study aims to:

• Provide a clear understanding of the research problem and its context.
• Identify the gap in knowledge that the study intends to fill.
• Establish the significance of the research problem and its potential contribution to the field.
• Highlight the key concepts, theories, and research findings related to the problem.
• Provide a rationale for the research questions or hypotheses and the research design.
• Identify the limitations and scope of the study.

When to Write Background of The Study

The background of the study should be written early on in the research process, ideally before the research design is finalized and data collection begins. This allows the researcher to clearly articulate the rationale for the study and establish a strong foundation for the research.

The background of the study typically comes after the introduction but before the literature review section. It should provide an overview of the research problem and its context, and also introduce the key concepts, theories, and research findings related to the problem.

Writing the background of the study early on in the research process also helps to identify potential gaps in knowledge and areas for further investigation, which can guide the development of the research questions or hypotheses and the research design. By establishing the significance of the research problem and its potential contribution to the field, the background of the study can also help to justify the research and secure funding or support from stakeholders.

Advantage of Background of The Study

The background of the study has several advantages, including:

• Provides context: The background of the study provides context for the research problem by highlighting the historical, theoretical, and empirical background of the problem. This allows the reader to understand the research problem in its broader context and appreciate its significance.
• Identifies gaps in knowledge: By reviewing the existing literature related to the research problem, the background of the study can identify gaps in knowledge that the study intends to fill. This helps to establish the novelty and originality of the research and its potential contribution to the field.
• Justifies the research : The background of the study helps to justify the research by demonstrating its significance and potential impact. This can be useful in securing funding or support for the research.
• Guides the research design: The background of the study can guide the development of the research questions or hypotheses and the research design by identifying key concepts, theories, and research findings related to the problem. This ensures that the research is grounded in existing knowledge and is designed to address the research problem effectively.
• Establishes credibility: By demonstrating the researcher’s knowledge of the field and the research problem, the background of the study can establish the researcher’s credibility and expertise, which can enhance the trustworthiness and validity of the research.

Disadvantages of Background of The Study

Some Disadvantages of Background of The Study are as follows:

• Time-consuming : Writing a comprehensive background of the study can be time-consuming, especially if the research problem is complex and multifaceted. This can delay the research process and impact the timeline for completing the study.
• Repetitive: The background of the study can sometimes be repetitive, as it often involves summarizing existing research and theories related to the research problem. This can be tedious for the reader and may make the section less engaging.
• Limitations of existing research: The background of the study can reveal the limitations of existing research related to the problem. This can create challenges for the researcher in developing research questions or hypotheses that address the gaps in knowledge identified in the background of the study.
• Bias : The researcher’s biases and perspectives can influence the content and tone of the background of the study. This can impact the reader’s perception of the research problem and may influence the validity of the research.
• Accessibility: Accessing and reviewing the literature related to the research problem can be challenging, especially if the researcher does not have access to a comprehensive database or if the literature is not available in the researcher’s language. This can limit the depth and scope of the background of the study.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

You may also like

References in Research – Types, Examples and...

Critical Analysis – Types, Examples and Writing...

Research Report – Example, Writing Guide and...

Research Contribution – Thesis Guide

Research Gap – Types, Examples and How to...

Purpose of Research – Objectives and Applications

• Link to facebook
• Link to linkedin
• Link to twitter
• Link to youtube
• Writing Tips

How to Discuss the Significance of Your Research

• 6-minute read
• 10th April 2023

Introduction

Research papers can be a real headache for college students . As a student, your research needs to be credible enough to support your thesis statement. You must also ensure you’ve discussed the literature review, findings, and results.

However, it’s also important to discuss the significance of your research . Your potential audience will care deeply about this. It will also help you conduct your research. By knowing the impact of your research, you’ll understand what important questions to answer.

If you’d like to know more about the impact of your research, read on! We’ll talk about why it’s important and how to discuss it in your paper.

What Is the Significance of Research?

This is the potential impact of your research on the field of study. It includes contributions from new knowledge from the research and those who would benefit from it. You should present this before conducting research, so you need to be aware of current issues associated with the thesis before discussing the significance of the research.

Why Does the Significance of Research Matter?

Potential readers need to know why your research is worth pursuing. Discussing the significance of research answers the following questions:

●  Why should people read your research paper ?

●  How will your research contribute to the current knowledge related to your topic?

●  What potential impact will it have on the community and professionals in the field?

Not including the significance of research in your paper would be like a knight trying to fight a dragon without weapons.

Where Do I Discuss the Significance of Research in My Paper?

As previously mentioned, the significance of research comes before you conduct it. Therefore, you should discuss the significance of your research in the Introduction section. Your reader should know the problem statement and hypothesis beforehand.

Steps to Discussing the Significance of Your Research

Discussing the significance of research might seem like a loaded question, so we’ve outlined some steps to help you tackle it.

Step 1: The Research Problem

The problem statement can reveal clues about the outcome of your research. Your research should provide answers to the problem, which is beneficial to all those concerned. For example, imagine the problem statement is, “To what extent do elementary and high school teachers believe cyberbullying affects student performance?”

Learning teachers’ opinions on the effects of cyberbullying on student performance could result in the following:

●  Increased public awareness of cyberbullying in elementary and high schools

●  Teachers’ perceptions of cyberbullying negatively affecting student performance

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

●  Whether cyberbullying is more prevalent in elementary or high schools

The research problem will steer your research in the right direction, so it’s best to start with the problem statement.

Step 2: Existing Literature in the Field

Think about current information on your topic, and then find out what information is missing. Are there any areas that haven’t been explored? Your research should add new information to the literature, so be sure to state this in your discussion. You’ll need to know the current literature on your topic anyway, as this is part of your literature review section .

Step 3: Your Research’s Impact on Society

Inform your readers about the impact on society your research could have on it. For example, in the study about teachers’ opinions on cyberbullying, you could mention that your research will educate the community about teachers’ perceptions of cyberbullying as it affects student performance. As a result, the community will know how many teachers believe cyberbullying affects student performance.

You can also mention specific individuals and institutions that would benefit from your study. In the example of cyberbullying, you might indicate that school principals and superintendents would benefit from your research.

Step 4: Future Studies in the Field

Next, discuss how the significance of your research will benefit future studies, which is especially helpful for future researchers in your field. In the example of cyberbullying affecting student performance, your research could provide further opportunities to assess teacher perceptions of cyberbullying and its effects on students from larger populations. This prepares future researchers for data collection and analysis.

Discussing the significance of your research may sound daunting when you haven’t conducted it yet. However, an audience might not read your paper if they don’t know the significance of the research. By focusing on the problem statement and the research benefits to society and future studies, you can convince your audience of the value of your research.

Remember that everything you write doesn’t have to be set in stone. You can go back and tweak the significance of your research after conducting it. At first, you might only include general contributions of your study, but as you research, your contributions will become more specific.

You should have a solid understanding of your topic in general, its associated problems, and the literature review before tackling the significance of your research. However, you’re not trying to prove your thesis statement at this point. The significance of research just convinces the audience that your study is worth reading.

Finally, we always recommend seeking help from your research advisor whenever you’re struggling with ideas. For a more visual idea of how to discuss the significance of your research, we suggest checking out this video .

1. Do I need to do my research before discussing its significance?

No, you’re discussing the significance of your research before you conduct it. However, you should be knowledgeable about your topic and the related literature.

2. Is the significance of research the same as its implications?

No, the research implications are potential questions from your study that justify further exploration, which comes after conducting the research.

 3. Discussing the significance of research seems overwhelming. Where should I start?

We recommend the problem statement as a starting point, which reveals clues to the potential outcome of your research.

4. How can I get feedback on my discussion of the significance of my research?

Our proofreading experts can help. They’ll check your writing for grammar, punctuation errors, spelling, and concision. Submit a 500-word document for free today!

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

9-minute read

How to Use Infographics to Boost Your Presentation

Is your content getting noticed? Capturing and maintaining an audience’s attention is a challenge when...

8-minute read

Why Interactive PDFs Are Better for Engagement

Are you looking to enhance engagement and captivate your audience through your professional documents? Interactive...

7-minute read

Seven Key Strategies for Voice Search Optimization

Voice search optimization is rapidly shaping the digital landscape, requiring content professionals to adapt their...

4-minute read

Five Creative Ways to Showcase Your Digital Portfolio

Are you a creative freelancer looking to make a lasting impression on potential clients or...

How to Ace Slack Messaging for Contractors and Freelancers

Effective professional communication is an important skill for contractors and freelancers navigating remote work environments....

3-minute read

How to Insert a Text Box in a Google Doc

Google Docs is a powerful collaborative tool, and mastering its features can significantly enhance your...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

Significance of the Study

Ai generator.

The significance of the study underscores the research’s importance, illustrating its impact on existing knowledge and potential applications. It highlights how the findings address gaps, resolve problems, or contribute to advancements in a specific field. By emphasizing the study’s relevance, it demonstrates the broader implications for society, academia, or industry, justifying the research effort and investment.

What is the Significance of the Study?

The significance of the study illustrates the research’s importance, highlighting its impact on existing knowledge and potential applications. It addresses gaps, resolves problems, or contributes to advancements in a specific field. Emphasizing the study’s relevance, it demonstrates broader implications for society, academia, or industry, justifying the research effort and investment.

Significance of the Study Format

When writing the “Significance of the Study” section in a research paper , follow this format to ensure clarity and impact:

1. Introduction

• Contextual Background: Provide a brief background of the research topic.
• Research Problem: State the problem the study addresses.

2. Purpose of the Study

• Objective Statement: Clearly define the main objective of the study.
• Scope of the Study: Outline what the study covers.

3. Importance to the Field

• Contribution to Knowledge: Explain how the study will add to existing knowledge.
• Theoretical Significance: Discuss the study’s theoretical implications.

4. Practical Implications

• Real-world Application: Describe how the findings can be applied in practical setting .
• Beneficiaries: Identify who will benefit from the research (e.g., policymakers, practitioners, educators).

5. Advancement of Future Research

• Foundation for Future Studies: Indicate how the study can serve as a basis for further research.
• Research Gaps: Highlight any gaps the study aims to fill.

6. Societal Impact

• Broader Implications: Discuss the potential societal benefits or changes resulting from the study.
• Public Awareness: Explain how the study can raise awareness or understanding of the issue.

7. Conclusion

• Summary of Significance: Recap the main points that underline the importance of the study.
• Call to Action: Encourage specific actions or further studies based on the research findings.

Significance of the Study on Impact of Remote Work on Employee Productivity in the Tech Industry 1. Introduction The rapid shift to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the dynamics of workplace productivity, especially within the tech industry. This study aims to examine how remote work influences employee productivity compared to traditional office settings. 2. Purpose of the Study The primary objective of this research is to evaluate the productivity levels of tech employees working remotely versus those working in office environments. The study analyzes various productivity metrics, such as task completion rates, quality of work, and employee satisfaction. 3. Importance to the Field This research contributes significantly to the existing body of knowledge by providing empirical data on the productivity impacts of remote work. It refines theoretical models of workplace productivity and offers new insights into remote work dynamics specific to the tech sector. Understanding these dynamics helps scholars and practitioners alike in shaping effective productivity strategies in the evolving work landscape. 4. Practical Implications The findings from this study have crucial practical implications for tech companies aiming to optimize their remote work policies. By understanding how remote work affects productivity, managers and HR departments can develop strategies to enhance employee performance and well-being in remote settings. These insights can also assist in designing training programs that equip employees with the skills needed for effective remote work. 5. Advancement of Future Research This study sets the stage for future research on long-term remote work trends and their impacts across various industries. It addresses existing gaps by providing a detailed analysis of how remote work influences productivity in the tech sector. Future researchers can build on this work to explore remote work dynamics in other fields and under different conditions. 6. Societal Impact The study highlights the broader societal implications of remote work, such as promoting work-life balance, reducing urban congestion, and lowering environmental pollution. By demonstrating the potential benefits of remote work, this research can influence public policy and corporate strategies towards more sustainable and flexible working conditions, ultimately contributing to societal well-being. 7. Conclusion Understanding the impact of remote work on productivity is essential for developing effective work policies and creating healthier work environments. This study provides valuable insights that can guide tech companies in optimizing their remote work strategies. Future research should explore the long-term effects of remote work across different sectors to provide a comprehensive understanding of its benefits and challenges.

Significance of the Study Examples

• Significance of the Study: Research Paper
• Significance of the Study: Qunatitive Research
• Significance of the Study: Qualitative Research

Research Paper

Qunatitive Research

Qualitative Research

More Significance of the Study Examples

• Educational Resources and Student Performance
• Business Innovation and Competitive Advantage
• Social Media Influencers and Brand Loyalty
• Mental Health Benefits of Physical Activ ity
• Sustainable Food Practices and Consumer Behavior
• Green Building and Energy Efficiency
• Technology in Healthcare
• Employee Engagement and Job Performance
• Business Strategies and Market Adaptation
• Mindfulness at Work

Purpose of Writing the Significance of a Study

When writing academic research or scholarly articles, one critical section is the significance of the study . This part addresses the importance and impact of the research, both theoretically and practically. Here are the main purposes of writing the significance of a study:

1. Establishing Relevance

The primary purpose is to explain why the study is relevant. It connects the research to existing literature, highlighting gaps or deficiencies that the current study aims to fill. This helps to justify the research problem and demonstrates the necessity of the study.

2. Highlighting Contributions

This section outlines the contributions the study will make to the field. It discusses how the findings can advance knowledge, theory, or practice. The significance emphasizes new insights, innovative approaches, or advancements that the study will provide.

3. Guiding Further Research

The significance of the study often includes suggestions for future research. By identifying limitations and unexplored areas, it encourages other researchers to pursue related questions. This helps to build a foundation for continuous inquiry and discovery.

4. Demonstrating Practical Applications

Beyond theoretical contributions, the significance of the study highlights practical applications. It shows how the research can solve real-world problems, improve practices, or influence policy-making. This connects academic research to practical outcomes that benefit society.

5. Engaging Stakeholders

Writing the significance of a study engages various stakeholders, including scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and funders. It communicates the value of the research to different audiences, making it easier to garner support, funding, or collaboration.

6. Enhancing Research Impact

A well-articulated significance section enhances the overall impact of the research. It underscores the importance and potential influence of the study, increasing its visibility and recognition in the academic community and beyond.

Benefits of Significance of the Study

Writing the significance of a study offers several benefits that enhance the research’s value and impact. Here are the key benefits:

1. Clarifies Research Value

The significance section clarifies the value of the research by explaining its importance and relevance. It helps readers understand why the study matters and what contributions it aims to make to the field.

2. Justifies the Research Problem

This section provides a rationale for the study by highlighting the research problem’s importance. It justifies the need for the study by identifying gaps in existing literature and explaining how the research will address these gaps.

3. Engages and Motivates Readers

A well-articulated significance section engages and motivates readers, including scholars, practitioners, and policymakers. It draws their interest by showcasing the study’s potential impact and benefits.

4. Secures Funding and Support

Explaining the significance of the study can help secure funding and support from stakeholders. Funding agencies and institutions are more likely to invest in research that demonstrates clear value and potential impact.

5. Guides Research Focus

The significance section helps guide the research focus by clearly defining the study’s contributions and goals. This clarity ensures that the research stays on track and aligns with its intended purpose.

6. Enhances Academic Credibility

Demonstrating the significance of a study enhances the researcher’s academic credibility. It shows a deep understanding of the field and the ability to identify and address important research questions.

7. Encourages Further Research

By identifying gaps and suggesting future research directions, the significance section encourages other researchers to build on the study’s findings. This fosters a continuous cycle of inquiry and discovery in the field.

8. Highlights Practical Applications

The significance section highlights practical applications of the research, showing how it can solve real-world problems. This makes the study more appealing to practitioners and policymakers who are interested in practical solutions.

9. Increases Research Impact

A clear and compelling significance section increases the overall impact of the research. It enhances the study’s visibility and recognition, leading to broader dissemination and application of the findings.

10. Supports Academic and Professional Goals

For researchers, writing a strong significance section supports academic and professional goals. It can contribute to career advancement, publication opportunities, and recognition within the academic community.

How to Write the Significance of the Study

Writing the significance of a study involves explaining the importance and impact of your research. This section should clearly articulate why your study matters, how it contributes to the field, and what practical applications it may have. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you write an effective significance of the study:

Start with the Context

Begin by providing a brief overview of the research context. This sets the stage for understanding the importance of your study. Example : “In today’s digital age, digital literacy has become a critical skill for students. As technology continues to integrate into education, understanding its impact on academic performance is essential.”

Identify the Research Gap

Explain the gap in existing literature or the problem your study aims to address. Highlighting this gap justifies the need for your research. Example: “Despite the growing importance of digital literacy, there is limited empirical evidence on its direct impact on high school students’ academic performance. This study seeks to fill this gap by investigating this relationship.”

Explain the Theoretical Contributions

Discuss how your study will contribute to existing theories or knowledge in the field. This shows the academic value of your research. Example : “The findings of this study will contribute to educational theory by providing new insights into how digital literacy skills influence student learning outcomes. It will expand the current understanding of the role of technology in education.”

Highlight Practical Implications

Describe the practical applications of your research. Explain how the findings can be used in real-world settings. Example : “Practically, the results of this study can inform educators and policymakers about the importance of incorporating digital literacy programs into the curriculum. It will help design more effective teaching strategies that enhance students’ digital competencies.”

Mention the Beneficiaries

Identify who will benefit from your study. This could include scholars, practitioners, policymakers, or specific groups affected by the research problem. Example: “This research will benefit educators, school administrators, and policymakers by providing evidence-based recommendations for integrating digital literacy into educational practices. Additionally, students will benefit from improved learning outcomes and better preparedness for the digital world.”

Suggest Future Research

Point out areas for future research that stem from your study. This shows the ongoing relevance and potential for further inquiry. Example : “Future research could explore the long-term effects of digital literacy on career readiness and job performance. Additionally, studies could examine the impact of specific digital literacy interventions on diverse student populations.”

Use Clear and Concise Language

Ensure your writing is clear and concise. Avoid jargon and overly complex sentences to make your significance easily understandable.

What is the significance of a study?

The significance explains the importance, contributions, and impact of the research, highlighting why the study is necessary and how it benefits the field and society.

Why is the significance of a study important?

It justifies the research, engages readers, secures funding, guides the research focus, and highlights practical and theoretical contributions, enhancing the study’s impact and visibility.

How do you identify the significance of a study?

Identify gaps in existing literature, potential contributions to theory and practice, and practical applications that address real-world problems, demonstrating the study’s relevance and importance.

What should be included in the significance of a study?

Include the research context, identified gaps, theoretical contributions, practical applications, beneficiaries, and suggestions for future research to comprehensively explain the study’s importance.

How long should the significance of a study be?

Typically, the significance section should be concise, around 1-2 paragraphs, providing enough detail to clearly convey the study’s importance and contributions.

Can the significance of a study influence funding decisions?

Yes, a well-articulated significance section can attract funding by demonstrating the study’s potential impact and relevance to funding agencies and stakeholders.

How does the significance of a study benefit researchers?

It clarifies the research focus, enhances credibility, guides the research process, and supports academic and professional goals by highlighting the study’s contributions and importance.

Should the significance of a study mention future research?

Yes, mentioning future research directions shows the ongoing relevance of the study and encourages further inquiry, contributing to continuous advancement in the field.

How does the significance of a study relate to the research problem?

The significance justifies the research problem by explaining its importance, highlighting gaps in existing knowledge, and showing how the study addresses these issues.

Can practical applications be part of the significance of a study?

Yes, practical applications are crucial, showing how the research can solve real-world problems, influence practices, and benefit specific groups or society overall.

Text prompt

• Instructive
• Professional

10 Examples of Public speaking

20 Examples of Gas lighting

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

• Annotated Bibliography
• Analyzing a Scholarly Journal Article
• Group Presentations
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Leading a Class Discussion
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Works
• Writing a Case Analysis Paper
• Writing a Case Study
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Reflective Paper
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Generative AI and Writing
• Acknowledgments

The goal of a research proposal is twofold: to present and justify the need to study a research problem and to present the practical ways in which the proposed study should be conducted. The design elements and procedures for conducting research are governed by standards of the predominant discipline in which the problem resides, therefore, the guidelines for research proposals are more exacting and less formal than a general project proposal. Research proposals contain extensive literature reviews. They must provide persuasive evidence that a need exists for the proposed study. In addition to providing a rationale, a proposal describes detailed methodology for conducting the research consistent with requirements of the professional or academic field and a statement on anticipated outcomes and benefits derived from the study's completion.

Krathwohl, David R. How to Prepare a Dissertation Proposal: Suggestions for Students in Education and the Social and Behavioral Sciences . Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005.

How to Approach Writing a Research Proposal

Your professor may assign the task of writing a research proposal for the following reasons:

• Develop your skills in thinking about and designing a comprehensive research study;
• Learn how to conduct a comprehensive review of the literature to determine that the research problem has not been adequately addressed or has been answered ineffectively and, in so doing, become better at locating pertinent scholarship related to your topic;
• Improve your general research and writing skills;
• Practice identifying the logical steps that must be taken to accomplish one's research goals;
• Critically review, examine, and consider the use of different methods for gathering and analyzing data related to the research problem; and,
• Nurture a sense of inquisitiveness within yourself and to help see yourself as an active participant in the process of conducting scholarly research.

A proposal should contain all the key elements involved in designing a completed research study, with sufficient information that allows readers to assess the validity and usefulness of your proposed study. The only elements missing from a research proposal are the findings of the study and your analysis of those findings. Finally, an effective proposal is judged on the quality of your writing and, therefore, it is important that your proposal is coherent, clear, and compelling.

Regardless of the research problem you are investigating and the methodology you choose, all research proposals must address the following questions:

• What do you plan to accomplish? Be clear and succinct in defining the research problem and what it is you are proposing to investigate.
• Why do you want to do the research? In addition to detailing your research design, you also must conduct a thorough review of the literature and provide convincing evidence that it is a topic worthy of in-depth study. A successful research proposal must answer the "So What?" question.
• How are you going to conduct the research? Be sure that what you propose is doable. If you're having difficulty formulating a research problem to propose investigating, go here for strategies in developing a problem to study.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Failure to be concise . A research proposal must be focused and not be "all over the map" or diverge into unrelated tangents without a clear sense of purpose.
• Failure to cite landmark works in your literature review . Proposals should be grounded in foundational research that lays a foundation for understanding the development and scope of the the topic and its relevance.
• Failure to delimit the contextual scope of your research [e.g., time, place, people, etc.]. As with any research paper, your proposed study must inform the reader how and in what ways the study will frame the problem.
• Failure to develop a coherent and persuasive argument for the proposed research . This is critical. In many workplace settings, the research proposal is a formal document intended to argue for why a study should be funded.
• Sloppy or imprecise writing, or poor grammar . Although a research proposal does not represent a completed research study, there is still an expectation that it is well-written and follows the style and rules of good academic writing.
• Too much detail on minor issues, but not enough detail on major issues . Your proposal should focus on only a few key research questions in order to support the argument that the research needs to be conducted. Minor issues, even if valid, can be mentioned but they should not dominate the overall narrative.

Procter, Margaret. The Academic Proposal.  The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Sanford, Keith. Information for Students: Writing a Research Proposal. Baylor University; Wong, Paul T. P. How to Write a Research Proposal. International Network on Personal Meaning. Trinity Western University; Writing Academic Proposals: Conferences, Articles, and Books. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Writing a Research Proposal. University Library. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Structure and Writing Style

Beginning the Proposal Process

As with writing most college-level academic papers, research proposals are generally organized the same way throughout most social science disciplines. The text of proposals generally vary in length between ten and thirty-five pages, followed by the list of references. However, before you begin, read the assignment carefully and, if anything seems unclear, ask your professor whether there are any specific requirements for organizing and writing the proposal.

A good place to begin is to ask yourself a series of questions:

• What do I want to study?
• Why is the topic important?
• How is it significant within the subject areas covered in my class?
• What problems will it help solve?
• How does it build upon [and hopefully go beyond] research already conducted on the topic?
• What exactly should I plan to do, and can I get it done in the time available?

In general, a compelling research proposal should document your knowledge of the topic and demonstrate your enthusiasm for conducting the study. Approach it with the intention of leaving your readers feeling like, "Wow, that's an exciting idea and I can’t wait to see how it turns out!"

Most proposals should include the following sections:

I.  Introduction

In the real world of higher education, a research proposal is most often written by scholars seeking grant funding for a research project or it's the first step in getting approval to write a doctoral dissertation. Even if this is just a course assignment, treat your introduction as the initial pitch of an idea based on a thorough examination of the significance of a research problem. After reading the introduction, your readers should not only have an understanding of what you want to do, but they should also be able to gain a sense of your passion for the topic and to be excited about the study's possible outcomes. Note that most proposals do not include an abstract [summary] before the introduction.

Think about your introduction as a narrative written in two to four paragraphs that succinctly answers the following four questions :

• What is the central research problem?
• What is the topic of study related to that research problem?
• What methods should be used to analyze the research problem?
• Answer the "So What?" question by explaining why this is important research, what is its significance, and why should someone reading the proposal care about the outcomes of the proposed study?

II.  Background and Significance

This is where you explain the scope and context of your proposal and describe in detail why it's important. It can be melded into your introduction or you can create a separate section to help with the organization and narrative flow of your proposal. Approach writing this section with the thought that you can’t assume your readers will know as much about the research problem as you do. Note that this section is not an essay going over everything you have learned about the topic; instead, you must choose what is most relevant in explaining the aims of your research.

To that end, while there are no prescribed rules for establishing the significance of your proposed study, you should attempt to address some or all of the following:

• State the research problem and give a more detailed explanation about the purpose of the study than what you stated in the introduction. This is particularly important if the problem is complex or multifaceted .
• Present the rationale of your proposed study and clearly indicate why it is worth doing; be sure to answer the "So What? question [i.e., why should anyone care?].
• Describe the major issues or problems examined by your research. This can be in the form of questions to be addressed. Be sure to note how your proposed study builds on previous assumptions about the research problem.
• Explain the methods you plan to use for conducting your research. Clearly identify the key sources you intend to use and explain how they will contribute to your analysis of the topic.
• Describe the boundaries of your proposed research in order to provide a clear focus. Where appropriate, state not only what you plan to study, but what aspects of the research problem will be excluded from the study.
• If necessary, provide definitions of key concepts, theories, or terms.

III.  Literature Review

Connected to the background and significance of your study is a section of your proposal devoted to a more deliberate review and synthesis of prior studies related to the research problem under investigation . The purpose here is to place your project within the larger whole of what is currently being explored, while at the same time, demonstrating to your readers that your work is original and innovative. Think about what questions other researchers have asked, what methodological approaches they have used, and what is your understanding of their findings and, when stated, their recommendations. Also pay attention to any suggestions for further research.

Since a literature review is information dense, it is crucial that this section is intelligently structured to enable a reader to grasp the key arguments underpinning your proposed study in relation to the arguments put forth by other researchers. A good strategy is to break the literature into "conceptual categories" [themes] rather than systematically or chronologically describing groups of materials one at a time. Note that conceptual categories generally reveal themselves after you have read most of the pertinent literature on your topic so adding new categories is an on-going process of discovery as you review more studies. How do you know you've covered the key conceptual categories underlying the research literature? Generally, you can have confidence that all of the significant conceptual categories have been identified if you start to see repetition in the conclusions or recommendations that are being made.

NOTE: Do not shy away from challenging the conclusions made in prior research as a basis for supporting the need for your proposal. Assess what you believe is missing and state how previous research has failed to adequately examine the issue that your study addresses. Highlighting the problematic conclusions strengthens your proposal. For more information on writing literature reviews, GO HERE .

To help frame your proposal's review of prior research, consider the "five C’s" of writing a literature review:

• Cite , so as to keep the primary focus on the literature pertinent to your research problem.
• Compare the various arguments, theories, methodologies, and findings expressed in the literature: what do the authors agree on? Who applies similar approaches to analyzing the research problem?
• Contrast the various arguments, themes, methodologies, approaches, and controversies expressed in the literature: describe what are the major areas of disagreement, controversy, or debate among scholars?
• Critique the literature: Which arguments are more persuasive, and why? Which approaches, findings, and methodologies seem most reliable, valid, or appropriate, and why? Pay attention to the verbs you use to describe what an author says/does [e.g., asserts, demonstrates, argues, etc.].
• Connect the literature to your own area of research and investigation: how does your own work draw upon, depart from, synthesize, or add a new perspective to what has been said in the literature?

IV.  Research Design and Methods

This section must be well-written and logically organized because you are not actually doing the research, yet, your reader must have confidence that you have a plan worth pursuing . The reader will never have a study outcome from which to evaluate whether your methodological choices were the correct ones. Thus, the objective here is to convince the reader that your overall research design and proposed methods of analysis will correctly address the problem and that the methods will provide the means to effectively interpret the potential results. Your design and methods should be unmistakably tied to the specific aims of your study.

Describe the overall research design by building upon and drawing examples from your review of the literature. Consider not only methods that other researchers have used, but methods of data gathering that have not been used but perhaps could be. Be specific about the methodological approaches you plan to undertake to obtain information, the techniques you would use to analyze the data, and the tests of external validity to which you commit yourself [i.e., the trustworthiness by which you can generalize from your study to other people, places, events, and/or periods of time].

When describing the methods you will use, be sure to cover the following:

• Specify the research process you will undertake and the way you will interpret the results obtained in relation to the research problem. Don't just describe what you intend to achieve from applying the methods you choose, but state how you will spend your time while applying these methods [e.g., coding text from interviews to find statements about the need to change school curriculum; running a regression to determine if there is a relationship between campaign advertising on social media sites and election outcomes in Europe ].
• Keep in mind that the methodology is not just a list of tasks; it is a deliberate argument as to why techniques for gathering information add up to the best way to investigate the research problem. This is an important point because the mere listing of tasks to be performed does not demonstrate that, collectively, they effectively address the research problem. Be sure you clearly explain this.
• Anticipate and acknowledge any potential barriers and pitfalls in carrying out your research design and explain how you plan to address them. No method applied to research in the social and behavioral sciences is perfect, so you need to describe where you believe challenges may exist in obtaining data or accessing information. It's always better to acknowledge this than to have it brought up by your professor!

V.  Preliminary Suppositions and Implications

Just because you don't have to actually conduct the study and analyze the results, doesn't mean you can skip talking about the analytical process and potential implications . The purpose of this section is to argue how and in what ways you believe your research will refine, revise, or extend existing knowledge in the subject area under investigation. Depending on the aims and objectives of your study, describe how the anticipated results will impact future scholarly research, theory, practice, forms of interventions, or policy making. Note that such discussions may have either substantive [a potential new policy], theoretical [a potential new understanding], or methodological [a potential new way of analyzing] significance.   When thinking about the potential implications of your study, ask the following questions:

• What might the results mean in regards to challenging the theoretical framework and underlying assumptions that support the study?
• What suggestions for subsequent research could arise from the potential outcomes of the study?
• What will the results mean to practitioners in the natural settings of their workplace, organization, or community?
• Will the results influence programs, methods, and/or forms of intervention?
• How might the results contribute to the solution of social, economic, or other types of problems?
• Will the results influence policy decisions?
• In what way do individuals or groups benefit should your study be pursued?
• What will be improved or changed as a result of the proposed research?
• How will the results of the study be implemented and what innovations or transformative insights could emerge from the process of implementation?

NOTE:   This section should not delve into idle speculation, opinion, or be formulated on the basis of unclear evidence . The purpose is to reflect upon gaps or understudied areas of the current literature and describe how your proposed research contributes to a new understanding of the research problem should the study be implemented as designed.

ANOTHER NOTE : This section is also where you describe any potential limitations to your proposed study. While it is impossible to highlight all potential limitations because the study has yet to be conducted, you still must tell the reader where and in what form impediments may arise and how you plan to address them.

VI.  Conclusion

The conclusion reiterates the importance or significance of your proposal and provides a brief summary of the entire study . This section should be only one or two paragraphs long, emphasizing why the research problem is worth investigating, why your research study is unique, and how it should advance existing knowledge.

Someone reading this section should come away with an understanding of:

• Why the study should be done;
• The specific purpose of the study and the research questions it attempts to answer;
• The decision for why the research design and methods used where chosen over other options;
• The potential implications emerging from your proposed study of the research problem; and
• A sense of how your study fits within the broader scholarship about the research problem.

VII.  Citations

As with any scholarly research paper, you must cite the sources you used . In a standard research proposal, this section can take two forms, so consult with your professor about which one is preferred.

• References -- a list of only the sources you actually used in creating your proposal.
• Bibliography -- a list of everything you used in creating your proposal, along with additional citations to any key sources relevant to understanding the research problem.

In either case, this section should testify to the fact that you did enough preparatory work to ensure the project will complement and not just duplicate the efforts of other researchers. It demonstrates to the reader that you have a thorough understanding of prior research on the topic.

Most proposal formats have you start a new page and use the heading "References" or "Bibliography" centered at the top of the page. Cited works should always use a standard format that follows the writing style advised by the discipline of your course [e.g., education=APA; history=Chicago] or that is preferred by your professor. This section normally does not count towards the total page length of your research proposal.

Develop a Research Proposal: Writing the Proposal. Office of Library Information Services. Baltimore County Public Schools; Heath, M. Teresa Pereira and Caroline Tynan. “Crafting a Research Proposal.” The Marketing Review 10 (Summer 2010): 147-168; Jones, Mark. “Writing a Research Proposal.” In MasterClass in Geography Education: Transforming Teaching and Learning . Graham Butt, editor. (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), pp. 113-127; Juni, Muhamad Hanafiah. “Writing a Research Proposal.” International Journal of Public Health and Clinical Sciences 1 (September/October 2014): 229-240; Krathwohl, David R. How to Prepare a Dissertation Proposal: Suggestions for Students in Education and the Social and Behavioral Sciences . Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005; Procter, Margaret. The Academic Proposal. The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Punch, Keith and Wayne McGowan. "Developing and Writing a Research Proposal." In From Postgraduate to Social Scientist: A Guide to Key Skills . Nigel Gilbert, ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006), 59-81; Wong, Paul T. P. How to Write a Research Proposal. International Network on Personal Meaning. Trinity Western University; Writing Academic Proposals: Conferences , Articles, and Books. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Writing a Research Proposal. University Library. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

• << Previous: Writing a Reflective Paper
• Next: Generative AI and Writing >>
• Last Updated: Jun 3, 2024 9:44 AM
• URL: https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/assignments

• Translation

Writing the Significance of a Study

By charlesworth author services.

• Charlesworth Author Services
• 20 July, 2022

The significance of a study is its importance . It refers to the contribution(s) to and impact of the study on a research field. The significance also signals who benefits from the research findings and how.

Purpose of writing the significance of a study

A study’s significance should spark the interest of the reader. Researchers will be able to appreciate your work better when they understand the relevance and its (potential) impact. Peer reviewers also assess the significance of the work, which will influence the decision made (acceptance/rejection) on the manuscript. 

Sections in which the significance of the study is written

Introduction.

In the Introduction of your paper, the significance appears where you talk about the potential importance and impact of the study. It should flow naturally from the problem , aims and objectives, and rationale .

The significance is described in more detail in the concluding paragraph(s) of the Discussion or the dedicated Conclusions section. Here, you put the findings into perspective and outline the contributions of the findings in terms of implications and applications.

The significance may or may not appear in the abstract . When it does, it is written in the concluding lines of the abstract.

Significance vs. other introductory elements of your paper

In the Introduction…

• The problem statement outlines the concern that needs to be addressed.
• The research aim describes the purpose of the study.
• The objectives indicate how that aim will be achieved.
• The rationale explains why you are performing the study.
• The significance tells the reader how the findings affect the topic/broad field. In other words, the significance is about how much the findings matter.

How to write the significance of the study

A good significance statement may be written in different ways. The approach to writing it also depends on the study area. In the arts and humanities , the significance statement might be longer and more descriptive. In applied sciences , it might be more direct.

a. Suggested sequence for writing the significance statement

• Think of the gaps your study is setting out to address.
• Look at your research from general and specific angles in terms of its (potential) contribution .
• Once you have these points ready, start writing them, connecting them to your study as a whole.

b. Some ways to begin your statement(s) of significance

Here are some opening lines to build on:

• The particular significance of this study lies in the… 
• We argue that this study moves the field forward because…
• This study makes some important contributions to…
• Our findings deepen the current understanding about…

c. Don’ts of writing a significance statement

• Don’t make it too long .
• Don’t repeat any information that has been presented in other sections.
• Don’t overstate or exaggerat e the importance; it should match your actual findings.

Example of significance of a study

Note the significance statements highlighted in the following fictional study.

Significance in the Introduction

The effects of Miyawaki forests on local biodiversity in urban housing complexes remain poorly understood. No formal studies on negative impacts on insect activity, populations or diversity have been undertaken thus far. In this study, we compared the effects that Miyawaki forests in urban dwellings have on local pollinator activity. The findings of this study will help improve the design of this afforestation technique in a way that balances local fauna, particularly pollinators, which are highly sensitive to microclimatic changes.

Significance in the Conclusion

[…] The findings provide valuable insights for guiding and informing Miyawaki afforestation in urban dwellings. We demonstrate that urban planning and landscaping policies need to consider potential declines.

A study’s significance usually appears at the end of the Introduction and in the Conclusion to describe the importance of the research findings. A strong and clear significance statement will pique the interest of readers, as well as that of relevant stakeholders.

Maximise your publication success with Charlesworth Author Services.

Charlesworth Author Services, a trusted brand supporting the world’s leading academic publishers, institutions and authors since 1928.

To know more about our services, visit: Our Services

Share with your colleagues

Scientific Editing Services

Sign up – stay updated.

We use cookies to offer you a personalized experience. By continuing to use this website, you consent to the use of cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy.

Understanding the Concept and Writing of Significance of the Study in a Research Work.

Significance of the Study is a section that is part of the introduction of a Project or Thesis work. The purpose of this article will be centered on how to write a good Significance of a study.

The sole aim of Significance of the study is to show at a glance the contribution of your Research to the body of existing or nonexistent knowledge or give your Supervisor/Reader an insight on how the study will be of benefit to them, your immediate environment and people that make it up.

Significance of the study is usually positive. It rallies around ‘stand to gain’, Benefits and contributions.

In Two paragraphs, I will tell you the two basic ingredients expected to be seen in a Significance of the study content.

Firstly, In writing the Significance of the study, always refer to the statement of the problem of the study. Simplifying this further, The problem your research study will tend to solve should be part of your significance of the study which is contributory and beneficial in nature.

Secondly, Write the significance of the study deductively, Meaning write from general to particular. This is done by looking into the general contribution of your study,such as its importance to the society as a whole, then move towards its contribution to individuals as yourself as a researcher.

Benefits of these tips: 1. It will give you a perfect Significance of the study. 2. It will prevent your mind from wandering wildly or aimlessly as you explore the significance of your study. 3. Applying them will save time thus allow you to focus on the next section of your thesis. 4. This section may also help justify why your study deserves approval.

credits: Simplyeducate.me Regoniel, Patrick A.

Share this:

3 thoughts on “ understanding the concept and writing of significance of the study in a research work. ”.

I’m really impressed with your writing skills and also with the layout on your weblog. Is this a paud theme or did you customize it yourself? Either way keep up the excellent quality writing, it’s rare to see a great blog like this one these days.

An interesting discussion is worth comment. There’s no doubt that that you should publish more on this subject, it might not be a taboo matter but generally folks don’t speak about these issues. To the next! Kind regards!!

That was a great article.I will go back to it again.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• Open access
• Published: 17 July 2024

Psilocybin desynchronizes the human brain

• Joshua S. Siegel   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5752-3641 1 ,
• Subha Subramanian 2 ,
• Demetrius Perry 1 ,
• Benjamin P. Kay   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3628-8029 3 ,
• Evan M. Gordon   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2276-5237 4 ,
• Timothy O. Laumann   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0428-427X 1 ,
• T. Rick Reneau   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0211-2482 4 ,
• Nicholas V. Metcalf 3 ,
• Ravi V. Chacko 5 ,
• Caterina Gratton   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4607-7401 6 ,
• Christine Horan 7 ,
• Samuel R. Krimmel 3 ,
• Joshua S. Shimony 4 ,
• Julie A. Schweiger 1 ,
• Dean F. Wong   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9343-8367 4 ,
• David A. Bender 1 ,
• Kristen M. Scheidter 3 ,
• Forrest I. Whiting 3 ,
• Jonah A. Padawer-Curry 8 ,
• Russell T. Shinohara 9 , 10 , 11 ,
• Yong Chen 11 ,
• Julia Moser   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6219-415X 12 , 13 ,
• Essa Yacoub 14 ,
• Steven M. Nelson 12 , 15 ,
• Luca Vizioli 14 ,
• Damien A. Fair   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8602-393X 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ,
• Eric J. Lenze 1 ,
• Robin Carhart-Harris   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6062-7150 16 , 17 ,
• Charles L. Raison 18 , 19 ,
• Marcus E. Raichle 3 , 4 , 8 , 20 , 21 ,
• Abraham Z. Snyder   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3379-9627 3 , 4 ,
• Ginger E. Nicol 1   na1 &
• Nico U. F. Dosenbach   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6876-7078 3 , 4 , 8 , 20 , 22   na1  

Nature ( 2024 ) Cite this article

178k Accesses

1 Citations

1542 Altmetric

Metrics details

• Consciousness
• Drug development
• Neural circuits
• Neuroscience

A single dose of psilocybin, a psychedelic that acutely causes distortions of space–time perception and ego dissolution, produces rapid and persistent therapeutic effects in human clinical trials 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 . In animal models, psilocybin induces neuroplasticity in cortex and hippocampus 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 . It remains unclear how human brain network changes relate to subjective and lasting effects of psychedelics. Here we tracked individual-specific brain changes with longitudinal precision functional mapping (roughly 18 magnetic resonance imaging visits per participant). Healthy adults were tracked before, during and for 3 weeks after high-dose psilocybin (25 mg) and methylphenidate (40 mg), and brought back for an additional psilocybin dose 6–12 months later. Psilocybin massively disrupted functional connectivity (FC) in cortex and subcortex, acutely causing more than threefold greater change than methylphenidate. These FC changes were driven by brain desynchronization across spatial scales (areal, global), which dissolved network distinctions by reducing correlations within and anticorrelations between networks. Psilocybin-driven FC changes were strongest in the default mode network, which is connected to the anterior hippocampus and is thought to create our sense of space, time and self. Individual differences in FC changes were strongly linked to the subjective psychedelic experience. Performing a perceptual task reduced psilocybin-driven FC changes. Psilocybin caused persistent decrease in FC between the anterior hippocampus and default mode network, lasting for weeks. Persistent reduction of hippocampal-default mode network connectivity may represent a neuroanatomical and mechanistic correlate of the proplasticity and therapeutic effects of psychedelics.

Similar content being viewed by others

Psilocybin therapy increases cognitive and neural flexibility in patients with major depressive disorder

Receptor-informed network control theory links LSD and psilocybin to a flattening of the brain’s control energy landscape

Me, myself, bye: regional alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin

Psychedelic drugs can reliably induce powerful acute changes in the perception of self, time and space by agonism of the serotonin 2A (5-HT 2A ) receptor 9 , 10 . In clinical trials, a single high dose of psilocybin (25 mg) has demonstrated rapid and sustained symptom relief in depression 1 , 2 , 3 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , addiction 4 , 15 and end-of-life anxiety 13 , 14 . Together, these observations indicate that psychedelics should induce potent acute (lasting roughly 6 hours) and persistent (24 hours to 21 days) neurobiological changes.

In rodent models, transient activation of the 5-HT 2A receptors by a psychedelic can alter neuronal communication in 5-HT 2A -rich regions (for example, the medial frontal lobe) and induce persistent plasticity-related phenomena 5 , 6 , 7 . Synaptogenesis in the medial frontal lobe and anterior hippocampus is thought to be key to the neurotrophic antidepressant effects of psilocybin 5 , 16 , 17 . Yet, inherent limitations of rodent models, and imperfect homology to the human 5-HT 2A receptor 18 , limit the generalizability of these assertions.

Understanding the effects of psychedelics on human brain networks is critical to unlocking their therapeutic mechanisms. In humans, during the roughly 6 hour duration of action, psilocybin increases glutamate signalling and glucose metabolism 19 , 20 , 21 , broadly decreases the power of electrophysiological signals 22 , reduces hemodynamic fluctuations 23 and decreases segregation between functional networks 24 . The drivers of these acute changes are poorly understood, particularly in the subcortex. Preliminary efforts to identify network changes in the weeks after psilocybin have yielded mixed results 25 , 26 , 27 . Persistent effects of psilocybin on clinically relevant circuits have yet to be characterized in humans.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex and anterior and middle hippocampus are functionally connected to the default mode network (DMN) 28 , 29 . Increased FC between the hippocampus and DMN has been associated with depression symptoms 30 and decreased FC is associated with treatment 31 , 32 . These 5-HT 2A receptor rich 33 and depression associated default mode regions 34 , 35 , 36 are candidates for mediating the neurotrophic antidepressant effects of psychedelics.

Precision functional mapping uses dense repeated functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sampling 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 to reveal the time course of individual-specific intervention-driven brain changes 42 . This approach accounts for inter-individual variability in brain networks 37 and capitalizes on the high stability of networks within individuals from day to day 38 . Using precision functional mapping, we observed individual-specific acute and persistent brain changes following a single high dose of psilocybin.

Healthy young adults received 25 mg psilocybin and 40 mg methylphenidate (MTP, generic name Ritalin, dose-matched for arousal effects) 1–2 weeks apart and underwent regular MRI sessions (roughly 18 per participant) before, during, between and after the two drug doses (Extended Data Fig. 1 , Supplementary Table 1 and Supplementary Video  1 : data quality metrics for 129 total MRI visits). Dense predrug sampling familiarized participants with the scanner and established baseline variability.

Psilocybin disrupts brain connectivity

Psilocybin acutely caused profound and widespread brain FC changes (Fig. 1a ) across most of the cerebral cortex ( P  < 0.05 based on two-sided linear mixed-effects (LME) model and permutation testing), but most prominent in association networks (FC change mean (standard deviation, s.d.): association cortex 0.44 (0.03), primary cortex 0.36 (0.05)). In the subcortex the largest psilocybin-associated FC changes were seen in DMN connected parts of the thalamus, basal ganglia, cerebellum and hippocampus 29 , 43 , 44 (Fig. 1a and Extended Data Fig. 2 ). In the hippocampus, foci of strong FC disruption were located in the anterior hippocampus (Montreal Neurological Institute coordinates −24, −22, −16 and 24, −18, −16). Other large FC disruptions were seen in mediodorsal and paraventricular thalamus 45 and anteromedial caudate. In the cerebellum, the largest FC changes were seen in the DMN connected areas 44 (Fig. 1a ).

FC change (Euclidean distance) was calculated across the cortex and subcortical structures. Effects of drug condition were tested with an LME model in n  = 6 longitudinally sampled participants over ten sessions with psilocybin and six sessions with methylphenidate (MTP) ( a and b are thresholded at P  < 0.05 based on permutation testing with TFCE; see unthresholded statistical maps in Extended Data Fig. 2 ). a , Psilocybin-associated FC change, including in subcortex. a, anterior; p, posterior; L, left; R, right. b , MTP-associated FC change. c , Typical day-to-day variability as a control to the drug conditions (unthresholded: not included in LME model). d , Average FC change in individual-defined networks. Open circles represent individual participants. FC change is larger in DMN than other networks. Rotation-based null model (spin test 62 , 97 ): ten psilocybin doses, 1,000 permutations, one-sided P spin  < 0.001, ( P spin  > 0.05 for all other networks). ** P  < 0.001, uncorrected. e , Whole-brain FC change (Euclidean distance from baseline) for all rest scans across conditions. FC change for MTP, psilocybin and day-to-day are in comparison to same-participant baseline. White dots indicate median, vertical lines indicate quartiles. LME model predicting whole-brain FC change: ten psilocybin doses (275 observations), estimate (95% CI) = 15.83 (13.50, 18.15), t (266)  = 13.39, P  = 1.36 × 10 −31 , uncorrected. For the full FC distance matrix with session labels, see Extended Data Fig. 3 . f , g , Comparison of the differences in FC change to differences in psychedelic experiences. f , Individual FC change maps and MEQ30 scores for two exemplars (see Extended Data Fig. 4 for all drug sessions). g , The relationship between whole-brain FC change and mystical experience rating is plotted for all drug sessions (psilocybin and MTP). The LME model demonstrated a significant relationship: 16 drug doses (ten psilocybin, six MTP), estimate (95% CI) = 69.78 (50.15, 89.41), t (13)  = 7.68, P  = 3.5 × 10 −6 , uncorrected. h , The relationship between FC change and MEQ30 ( r 2 ) is mapped across the cortical surface.

By comparison, MTP-associated FC changes localized to sensorimotor systems (Fig. 1b and Extended Data Fig. 2 ) and paralleled the map of day-to-day variability (Fig. 1c ) probably due to arousal effects 39 . Psilocybin-associated FC change was largest in the DMN (Fig. 1d and Supplementary Fig. 1 ; averaged across all psilocybin sessions; spin test, 1,000 permutations, one-sided P spin  < 0.001; P spin  > 0.05 for all other networks). However, MTP-associated FC change was largest in motor and action networks ( P spin  = 0.002; P spin  > 0.05 for all other networks; Supplementary Fig. 1b ).

Despite MTP and psilocybin causing similar increases in heart rate (Supplementary Fig. 2 ), the effects of psilocybin on FC were more than threefold larger than the effects of MTP (Fig. 1e ; post hoc two-sided t -test; P  = 3.6 × 10 −6 , uncorrected). The psilocybin effects also dwarfed those of other control conditions (Fig. 1e ; day-to-day change (normalized) 1; task 1.22, MTP 1.10, high head motion 1.29, psilocybin 3.52, between person 3.53; Extended Data Fig. 3 ; these effects were robust to preprocessing choices: Supplementary Figs. 3 and 4 ). To put the effects of psilocybin into perspective, it helps to consider that the mean changes in brain organization caused by the drug were as large as the differences in brain organization between different people (Fig. 1e ).

The psychedelic experience

The large amount of data collected per participant, under the individual-specific imaging model, allowed us to move beyond group-analyses and compare the subjective psychedelic experience (30-item Mystical Experience Questionnaire, MEQ30) 46 to brain function data session-by-session (Fig. 1f ). The MEQ30 is a self-assessment instrument used to measure the intensity and quality of mystical experiences, including feelings of connectedness, transcendence of time and space, and a sense of awe, with a maximum score of 150 (ref. 46 ). Across psilocybin sessions and participants, FC change tracked with the intensity of the subjective experience (Fig. 1f and Extended Data Fig. 4 ). Correlating the whole-brain FC change ( x axis) against the MEQ30 scores ( y axis) for all drug sessions (Fig. 1g ) revealed an r 2  = 0.81 (LME model predicting MEQ30 score: effect of FC change, t (13)  = 7.68; P  = 3.5 × 10 −6 , uncorrected). Head motion was not significantly correlated with MEQ30 scores (effect of framewise displacement, t (13)  = −1.26, P  = 0.23, uncorrected). Projecting the relationship between someone’s mystical experience and the corresponding FC change onto the brain (Fig. 1h , vertex-wise) showed it to be driven by association cortex, relatively sparing primary motor and sensory regions. Of the four MEQ30 dimensions (mystical, positive mood, transcendence of time and space, and ineffability), the one most strongly correlating with brain change was transcendence (for example, ‘loss of your usual sense of time or space’, r 2  = 0.86, Supplementary Fig. 5 ), however, all dimensions were highly correlated ( r  > 0.8). Repeated sampling enabled us to determine that the inter-individual variability in the effects of psilocybin in the brain was more likely related to differences in drug effects than measurement error (likelihood ratio test of participant-specific response to psilocybin, P  = 0.00245, uncorrected) 47 , 48 .

The psychedelic dimension

To examine the latent dimensions of brain network changes we performed multidimensional scaling (MDS) on the parcellated FC matrices from every fMRI scan 38 . MDS is blind to session labels (for example, drug, participant). Yet, dimension 1, which explained the largest amount of variability, separated psilocybin from other scans (Fig. 2a ), apart from one session during which the participant (P5R) had emesis 30 minutes after taking psilocybin (dark red dots on the left of Fig. 2a ). The higher score on dimension 1 associated with psilocybin, corresponded to reduced segregation between the DMN and other networks (fronto-parietal 49 , dorsal attention 50 , salience 51 and action-mode 52 , 53 ) that are typically anticorrelated with it 54 (Fig. 2b and Extended Data Fig. 5 ). To determine whether this reflects a common effect of psilocybin that generalizes across datasets and psychedelics, we calculated dimension 1 scores for extant datasets from participants receiving intravenous (i.v.) psilocybin 55 and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) 56 . Psychedelic treatment increased dimension 1 in nearly every participant in the psilocybin and LSD datasets (Fig. 2c ), suggesting that this is a common effect across psychedelic drugs and individuals.

MDS blind to session labels was used to assess brain changes across conditions. a , In the scatter plots, each point represents whole-brain FC from a single 15 min scan, plotted in a multidimensional space on the basis of the similarity between scans. Dimensions 1 and 4 showed strong effects of psilocybin. The top shows scans coded on the basis of drug condition. Dark red denotes that the participant had an episode of emesis shortly after taking psilocybin. The bottom shows scans coloured on the basis of participant identity. Dimension 1 separates psilocybin from non-drug and MTP scans in most cases. See Extended Data Fig. 5 for the dimension 1–4 weight matrices. b , Visualization of dimension 1 weights. The top 1% of edges (connections) are projected onto the brain (green indicates connections that are increased by psilocybin). Cerebellar connections are included although the structure is not shown. c , Re-analysis of dimension 1 in extant datasets with intravenous psilocybin (left, ref. 55 , paired two-sided t -test of change in dimension 1 score, n  = 9, t (8)  = 2.97, P  = 0.0177, uncorrected) and LSD (right, ref. 56 , paired two-sided t -test: n  = 16, t (15)  = 4.58, P  = 3.63 × 10 −4 , uncorrected). * P  < 0.05, ** P  < 0.001, uncorrected. d , Average effects of psilocybin on network FC, shown separately for within-network integration (left) and between network segregation (right). For network integration (left), blue indicates a loss of FC (correlations) between regions within the same network. For network segregation (right), blue indicates a loss of FC (anticorrelations) to all other regions in different networks; see Extended Data Fig. 6 for a full correlation matrix. Dissolution of functional brain organization corresponds to decreased within-network integration and decreased between network segregation.

Subtraction of average FC (psilocybin minus baseline) revealed a pattern of FC change similar to dimension 1 (Fig. 2d and Extended Data Figs. 5 and 6 ). Consistent with previous psychedelics studies 24 , psilocybin increased FC between networks (particularly fronto-parietal, default mode and dorsal attention), whereas FC within networks was relatively less affected. A similar pattern of loss of segregation between brain networks is produced by nitrous oxide and ketamine 57 , suggesting that the psychedelic dimension observed here may generalize to psychedelic-like dissociative drugs.

By comparison, MTP decreased within-network FC in the sensory, motor and auditory regions (Extended Data Fig. 6 ), consistent with previous reports 58 and similar to the effects of caffeine 39 . To verify that observations in our sample ( n  = 6) were generalizable, we compared stimulant effects in our study to those in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study 59 ( n  = 487 taking stimulants). The effect of stimulant use in ABCD was consistent with MTP-associated FC changes in our dataset (Extended Data Fig. 6 ).

Desynchronization explains FC change

Multi-unit recording studies suggest that agonism of 5-HT 2A receptors by psychedelics desynchronizes populations of neurons that typically co-activate 60 . We proposed that this phenomenon, observed at a larger spatial scale, might account for psilocybin-associated FC change (Fig. 1 ). We observed that the typically stable spatial structure of resting fMRI fluctuations was disrupted and desynchronized by psilocybin (Supplementary Videos  2 – 7 : brain activity time courses during drug sessions for each participant). Therefore, we quantified brain signal synchrony using normalized global spatial complexity (NGSC): a measure of spatial entropy that is independent of the number of signals 61 . NGSC calculates cumulative variance explained by subsequent spatiotemporal patterns (Fig. 3a ). The lowest value of NGSC (0) means that the time course for every vertex and/or voxel is identical. The highest value of NGSC (equal to one) means that the time course for every vertex and/or voxel is independent, indicating maximal desynchronization (or spatial entropy).

a , NGSC captures the complexity of brain activity patterns. It is derived from the number of spatial principal components needed to explain the underlying structure. Higher entropy equals desynchronized activity. On the right is variance explained by subsequent principal components for psilocybin in red, MTP in blue and no drug in grey for P6. b , Whole-brain entropy (NGSC) is shown for every fMRI scan for a single participant (P6). At right, increases during psilocybin were present in all participants. Sample sizes are provided in Supplementary Table 1 . Grey bars indicate condition means. c , Parcel entropy (computed on individual-specific parcels) within functional brain areas shows similar psilocybin-driven increases as whole-brain entropy. d , Psilocybin-associated spatial entropy (individual-specific parcels, averaged across participants) is visualized on the cortical surface. Psilocybin-associated increases in entropy were largest in association cortex. e , LSD-associated increases in spatial entropy were similar to those induced by psilocybin (using data from ref. 56 ). f , Increases corresponded spatially to 5-HT 2A receptor density 33 . In b – d , n  = 6 participants, 272 observations (scans). For e , n  = 16 participants.

Psilocybin significantly increased NGSC acutely with values returning to predrug baseline by the following session (Fig. 3b,c ). The increase in NGSC was observed at the whole-brain level (Fig. 3b ; LME model, estimate (95% confidence interval (CI)) = 0.0510 (0.0343, 0.0676), t (265)  = 6.8, P  = 2.0 × 10 −6 , uncorrected) and correlated with the subjective experience (MEQ30: Extended Data Fig. 7 ; r  = 0.80, P  = 3.52 × 10 −4 , uncorrected, after single outlier removal), whereas nuisance variables did not. Increased NGSC was also observed for individual-defined brain areas 62 (Fig. 3c ; LME model, estimate (95% CI) = 0.0149 (0.0071, 0.0228), t (265)  = 3.74, P  = 2.30 × 10 −4 , uncorrected), with the largest increases in association cortex and minimal changes in primary cortex (Fig. 3d ). Global and local desynchronization replicated in an LSD dataset 56 (Fig. 3e ) and the distribution of these effects correlated with 5-HT 2A receptor density (Fig. 3f ; bivariate correlation NGSC psilocybin to Cimbi-36 binding, r  = 0.39, P  = 1.9 × 10 −13 ; NGSC LSD to Cimbi-36 binding, r  = 0.32, P  = 4.5 × 10 −9 , uncorrected) 33 , 63 .

Task engagement reduces desynchronization

To investigate how psilocybin-driven brain changes are influenced by task states, participants were asked to complete a simple auditory–visual matching task in the scanner ( Methods , perceptual fMRI task). Participants performed this task with more than 80% accuracy during drug sessions (Extended Data Fig. 8a–c ). Engagement in the task significantly decreased the magnitude of psilocybin-associated network disruption and desynchronization (Fig. 4 ; LME model interaction of task × psilocybin: FC change P  = 5.49 × 10 −5 , NGSC P  = 4.82 × 10 −8 , uncorrected). These results were robust to scan order effects (Supplementary Fig. 6 ) and regression of evoked responses (Supplementary Fig. 7 ).

a , Psilocybin-associated FC change from resting scans (left) and from task scans (right). b , Regional NGSC change (psilocybin minus baseline) from rest scans (left) and from task scans (right). Bar graphs on the bottom indicate the corresponding whole-brain FC change ( a ) and whole-brain NGSC values ( b ) during rest and task for baseline and drug conditions. LME models indicated an interaction of task × psilocybin on FC change ( n  = 7 with task data on psilocybin, estimate (95% CI) = −6.48 (−9.59, −3.37), t (265)  = −6.48, P  = 5.49 × 10 −5 , uncorrected) and an interaction of task × psilocybin on NGSC ( n  = 7 with task data on psilocybin, estimate (95% CI) = −0.042 (−0.056, −0.027), t (265)  = −5.62, P  = 4.82 × 10 −8 , uncorrected). Bars indicate mean and error bars indicate s.e.m.. ** P  < 0.001, uncorrected.

The reduction of psilocybin-driven brain changes during task performance seems to parallel the psychological principle of ‘grounding’: directing one’s attention externally as a means of alleviating intense or distressing thoughts or emotions. Grounding techniques are commonly used in psychedelic-associated psychotherapy to lessen overwhelming or distressing effects of psilocybin 64 . Task-related reductions in network desynchronization provide strong evidence for context-dependent effects of psilocybin on brain activity and FC 65 and fill an important gap between preclinical studies of context dependence 66 , 67 and clinical observations 68 .

Classical animal studies documented that psychedelics reduce optic tract responses to photic stimulation of the retina, indirectly reducing visual cortex activation 69 , 70 . We replicated these effects by documenting reduced task-evoked responses in primary visual cortex (Extended Data Fig. 8d–g ). To assess whether psilocybin affects the magnitude of hemodynamic responses elsewhere, we analysed evoked responses during the perceptual task in other task-related regions of interest (Extended Data Fig. 8f,g ). But the magnitudes of other evoked responses were not significantly changed by psilocybin (two-way analysis of variance of drug and participant; effect of drug: left V1 P  = 0.03, right V1 P  = 0.02, all other P  > 0.1, uncorrected).

Persistent decrease in hippocampal FC

To assess whether persistent neurotrophic and psychological effects of psychedelics might be associated with persistent FC changes after psilocybin, we compared FC changes 1–21 days post-psilocybin to pre-psilocybin. Whole-brain FC change scores were small (normalized FC change (range) of 1.05 (0.94, 1.27)), indicating that the brain’s network structure had mostly returned to baseline (Extended Data Fig. 2 ).

Atypical cortico-hippocampal connectivity has been associated with affective symptoms 30 and hippocampus neurogenesis is observed after psilocybin 6 . Further, acute decreases in hippocampal glutamate after psilocybin correlate with decreased DMN connectivity and ego dissolution 21 . Thus, we investigated whether the same region of the anterior hippocampus that showed strong acute FC change also showed persistent FC change. We observed significant FC change in the 3 week postdrug period (Fig. 5a,b ; LME mean change 0.095, P pre– post-psilocybin  = 0.0033, uncorrected). No persistent FC differences were observed post-MTP ( Methods , section ‘Persistent effects analysis’; LME ‘FC change’ 90% CI (−0.056, 0.080); equivalence δ  = ±0.086, P pre– post-MTP  = 0.77).

a , Hippocampus FC change maps (left hippocampus; unthresholded t -maps, as in Extended Data Fig. 2 ). Acute psilocybin FC change is shown on top and persistent FC change (3 weeks after psilocybin) on the bottom. b , Each dot represents the FC change score for the anterior hippocampus for a single scan before (left) and after (right) psilocybin for every participant (coloured as in Fig. 2 ). Participants showed a post-psilocybin increase in FC change in the anterior hippocampus (LME model, pre- versus post-psilocybin; n  = 6 participants, 186 observations, estimate (95% CI) = 0.095 (0.032, 0.168), t (182)  = 2.97, P  = 0.0033, uncorrected). c , Connectivity from an anterior hippocampus seed (Montreal Neurological Institute coordinates −24, −22, −16 and 24, −18, −16) pre-psilocybin (left), post-psilocybin (middle) and persistent change (post- minus pre-) for an exemplar participant (P3). The red border on the right-most brain outlines the individual-specific DMN. A decrease in hippocampal FC with parietal and frontal components of the DMN is seen. d , Time course of anterior hippocampus minus DMN for all participants and scans (participant colours as in b ). A moving average is shown in black. e , Schematic of hippocampal-cortical circuits, reproduced from ref. 29 , CC BY 4.0 .

FC between the anterior hippocampus and DMN was decreased postpsilocybin (Fig. 5c,d ). Time-course visualization, after aligning them so that psilocybin dose was day 0, suggests that connectivity is reduced for 3 weeks following a single psilocybin dose (Fig. 5d ; AntHip-DMN FC mean (95% CI): pre-psilocybin was 0.180 (0.169, 0.192); post-psilocybin was 0.163 (0.150, 0.176)). AntHip-DMN FC values returned to pre-psilocybin baseline by the replication visit 6–12 months later, however, the smaller replication sample ( n  = 4 with one pre-psilocybin visit each) was not statistically powered to detect small changes. This observation is compelling, as it localized to the anterior hippocampus, a brain region showing substantial synaptogenesis following psilocybin 6 . Reduced hippocampal-cortical FC may reflect increased plasticity of self-oriented hippocampal circuits 31 (Fig. 5e ).

From micro- to macro-scale psychedelic effects

The synchronized patterns of cofluctuations during the resting state are believed to reflect the brain’s perpetual task of modelling reality 71 . It follows that the stability of functional network organization across day, task, MTP and arousal levels (but not between individuals), reflects the subjective stability of waking consciousness. By contrast, the much larger changes induced by psilocybin fit with participants’ subjective reports of a radical change in consciousness. The large magnitude of effects of psilocybin, in comparison to the effects of MTP, suggests that observed changes are not merely due to increased arousal or non-specific effects of monoaminergic stimulation 72 .

Our observation that psychedelics desynchronize brain activity regionally and globally provides a bridge between previous findings at the micro- and macro-scales of neuroscience. Multi-unit recording studies suggest that agonism of 5-HT 2A receptors by psychedelics does not uniformly increase or decrease firing of pyramidal neurons, but rather serves to desynchronize pairs or populations of neurons that co-activate under typical conditions 60 . Meanwhile, previous resting fMRI studies have reported a range of acute changes following ingestion of psilocybin 55 , 63 , ayahuasca 73 and LSD 56 , 74 , which broadly converge on a loss of network connectivity and an increase in global integration 24 , 75 . Disruption of synchronized activity at several scales may explain the paradoxical observation that psychedelics produce an increase in metabolic activity 19 , 20 , a decrease in the power of local fluctuations 22 , 76 and a loss of the brain’s segregated network structure 23 , 56 . This desynchronization of neural activity has been described as an increase in entropy or randomness of brain activity in the psychedelic state 77 , 78 . Our results support the hypothesis that these changes underpin the cognitive and perceptual changes associated with psychedelics.

Desynchrony may drive persistent change

The dramatic departure from typical synchronized patterns of co-activity may be key to understanding the acute effects of psilocybin and also its persistent neurotrophic effects. Changes in resting activity are linked to shifts in glutamate-dependent signalling during psilocybin exposure 21 , 79 , 80 . This phenomenon, shared by ketamine and psychedelics, engages homeostatic plasticity mechanisms 81 , 82 , a neurobiological response to large deviations in typical network activity patterns 83 , 84 , 85 . This response to novelty includes rapid upregulation in expression of BDNF , M TOR , E EF2 and other plasticity-related immediate early genes 8 , 80 , which are thought to have a key role in the antidepressant response 86 . Consistent with this notion, psilocybin produced the largest changes in the DMN, frequently associated with neuropsychiatric disorders 34 , 35 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , and in a region of the anterior and middle hippocampus associated with the self 29 , 92 and the present moment 93 .

Psychedelics rapidly induce synaptogenesis in the hippocampus and cortex, effects that seem to be necessary for rapid antidepressant-like effects in animal models 7 , 17 . However, understanding the underpinnings of the behavioural effects of psychedelics requires human studies. Advances in precision functional mapping 37 , 94 , 95 and individual-level characterization enabled us to identify desynchronization of resting-state fMRI signals, connect these changes with subjective psychedelic effects and localize these changes to depression-relevant circuits (DMN, hippocampus). These analyses rely on precise characterization of an individuals’ baseline brain organization (for example, individual definition of brain areas, networks and day-to-day variability) to understand how that organization is altered by an intervention. This precision drug mechanism study was conducted in non-depressed volunteers. Verification of the proposed antidepressant mechanism of psilocybin will require precision patient studies. New methods to measure neurotrophic markers in the human brain 96 will provide a critical link between mechanistic observations at the cellular, brain networks and psychological levels.

Regulatory approvals and registrations

Written informed consent was obtained from all participants in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and procedures established by the Washington University in Saint Louis Institutional Review Board. All participants were compensated for their time. All aspects of this study were approved by the Washington University School of Medicine (WUSOM) Internal Review Board, the Washington University Human Research Protection Office (WU HRPO), the Federal Drug Administration (IND no. 202002165) and the Missouri Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) under a federal DEA schedule 1 research licence and registered with ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT04501653. Psilocybin was supplied by Usona Institute through Almac Clinical Services.

Study design

Healthy young adults ( n  = 7, 18–45 years) were enrolled between April 2021 and March 2023 in a randomized cross-over precision functional brain mapping study at Washington University in Saint Louis (see  Supplementary Methods for inclusion and exclusion criteria). The purpose of the study was to evaluate differences in individual-level connectomics before, during and after psilocybin exposure. Participants underwent imaging during drug sessions (with MRI starting 1 h after drug ingestion) with 25 mg psilocybin or 40 mg MTP, as well as non-drug imaging sessions. Drug condition categories were (1) baseline, (2) drug 1 (MTP or psilocybin), (3) between, (4) drug 2 and (5) after. Randomization allocation was conducted using REDCap and generated by team members who prepared study materials including drug or placebo but otherwise had no contact with participants. A minimum of three non-drug imaging sessions were completed during each non-drug window: baseline, between and after drug sessions. The number of non-drug MRI sessions was dependent on availability of the participant, scanner and scanner support staff. Dosing day imaging sessions were conducted 60–180 min following drug administration during peak blood concentration 98 . One participant (P2) was not able tolerate fMRI while on psilocybin, and had trouble staying awake on numerous fMRI visits after psilocybin and was thus excluded from analysis (except for data quality metrics in Extended Data Fig. 1 ).

MTP was selected as the active control condition to simulate the cardiovascular effects and physiological arousal (that is, controlling for dopaminergic effects) associated with psilocybin 99 . Usona Institute, a US non-profit medical research organization, provided good manufacturing practices for psilocybin.

Drug sessions were facilitated by two clinical research staff who completed an approved in-person or online facilitator training programme provided by Usona Institute, as part of the phase 2 study (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT03866174). The role of the study facilitators was to build a therapeutic alliance with the participant throughout the study, prepare them for their drug dosing days and to observe and maintain participant safety during dosing day visits 64 . The pair consisted of an experienced clinician (lead clinical facilitator) and a trainee (cofacilitator).

The predefined primary outcome measure was precision functional mapping (numerous visits, very long scans to produce individual connectomes) examining the effects of psilocybin on cortical and cortico- subcortical brain networks that could explain its rapid and sustained behavioural effects. Predefined secondary outcome measures included (1) assessment of hemodynamic response to evaluate how 5-HT 2A receptor agonism by psychedelics may alter neurovascular coupling, (2) assessment of acute psychological effects of psilocybin using the MEQ30 score ( Supplementary Methods ) and (3) assessment of personality change using the International Personality Item Pool-Five-Factor Model 100 . Changes in pulse rate and respiratory rate during psilocybin and placebo were later added as secondary outcome measures and personality change was abandoned because it was clear that we would not be powered to detect personality change.

Replication protocol

Participants were invited to return 6–12 months after completing the initial cross-over study for a replication protocol. This included 1–2 baseline fMRIs, a psilocybin session (identical to the initial session, except for lack of blinding) and 1–2 ‘after’ sessions within 4 days of the dose.

Participants

Healthy adults aged 18–45 years were recruited by campus-wide advertisement and colleague referral. Participants ( n  = 7) were enrolled from March 2021 to May 2023. Participants were required to have had at least one previous lifetime psychedelic exposure (for example, psilocybin, mescaline, ayahuasca, LSD), but no psychedelics exposure within the past 6 months. Individuals with psychiatric illness (depression, psychosis or addiction) based on the DSM-5 were excluded. Demographics and data summary details are provided in Supplementary Table 1 . One of the authors (N.U.F.D.) was a study participant.

Participants were scanned roughly every other day over the course of the experiment (Extended Data Fig. 1 ). Imaging was performed at a consistent time of day to minimize diurnal effects in FC 101 . Neuroimaging was performed on a Siemens Prisma scanner (Siemens) in the neuroimaging laboratories at the Washington University Medical Center.

Structural scans (T1w and T2w) were acquired for each participant at 0.9 mm isotropic resolution, with real-time motion correction. Structural scans from different sessions were averaged together for the purposes of Freesurfer segmentation and nonlinear atlas registrations.

To capture high-resolution images of blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal, we used an echo-planar imaging sequence 102 with 2 mm isotropic voxels, multiband 6, multi-echo 5 (times to echo: 14.20, 38.93, 63.66, 88.39, 113.12 ms) 103 , repetition or relaxation time: 1,761 ms, flip angle of 68° and in-plane acceleration 104 (IPAT or grappa) of 2. This sequence acquired 72 axial slices (144 mm coverage). Each resting scan included 510 frames (lasting 15 min, 49 s) as well as three frames at the end used to provide estimate electronic noise.

Every session included two 15-min resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) scans, during which participants were instructed to hold still and look at a white fixation crosshair presented on a black background. Head motion was tracked in real time using Framewise Integrated Real-time MRI Monitoring software (FIRMM) 105 . An eye-tracking camera (EyeLink) was used to monitor participants for drowsiness.

Perceptual (matching) fMRI task

Participants also completed a previously validated event-related fMRI task. This was a suprathreshold auditory–visual matching task in which participants were presented with a naturalistic visual image (duration 500 ms) and coincident spoken English phrase, and were asked to respond with a button press to indicate whether the image and phrase were ‘congruent’ (for example, an image of a beach and the spoken word ‘beach’) or ‘incongruent’. Both accuracy and response time of button presses were recorded. Each trial was followed by a jittered inter-stimulus interval optimized for event-related designs. In a subset of imaging sessions, two task fMRI scans were completed following the two resting scans. Task fMRI scans used the same sequence used in resting fMRI, included 48 trials (24 congruent, 24 incongruent) and lasted a total of 410 s. In analyses, high motion frames were censored 106 and the two task scans were concatenated to better match the length of the rs-fMRI scans. Note the stimulus order in the two trials did not vary across session. The order of rest and task scans was not counterbalanced across sessions to avoid concern that task scans may influence subsequent rest scans.

Resting fMRI processing and resting-state network definition

Resting fMRI data were preprocessed using an in-house processing pipeline. In brief, this included removal of thermal noise using NORDIC denoising 107 , 108 , 109 , correction for slice timing and field distortions, alignment, optimal combination of many echoes by weighted summation 110 , normalization, nonlinear registration, bandpass filtering and scrubbing at a movement threshold of 0.3 mm to remove reduce the influence of confounds 111 . Tissue-based regressors were computed in volume (white matter, ventricles, extra-axial cerebrospinal fluid) 112 and applied following projection to surface. Task-based regressors were only applied when indicated. Details on rs-fMRI preprocessing are provided in  Supplementary Methods . Visualizations of motion, physiological traces and signal across the brain (‘grayplots’) before and after processing 113 are provided in Supplementary Video  1 .

Surface generation and brain areal parcellation

Surface generation and processing of functional data followed similar procedures to Glasser et al. 114 . To compare FC and resting-state networks across participants, we used a group-based surface parcellation and community assignments generated previously 62 .

For subcortical regions, we used a set of regions of interest 115 generated to achieve full coverage and optimal region homogeneity. A subcortical limbic network was defined on the basis of neuroanatomy: amygdala, anteromedial thalamus, nucleus accumbens, anterior hippocampus and posterior hippocampus 116 , 117 . These regions were expanded to cover anatomical structures (for example, anterior hippocampus) 31 .

To generate region-wise connectivity matrices, time courses of all surface vertices or subcortical voxels within a region were averaged. FC was then computed between each region timeseries using a bivariate correlation and then Fisher z -transformed for group comparison.

Individualized network and brain area mapping

We identified canonical large-scale networks using the individual-specific network matching approach described previously 43 , 44 , 62 . In brief, cortical surface and subcortical volume assignments were derived using the graph-theory-based Infomap algorithm 118 . In this approach, we calculated the correlation matrix from all cortical vertices and subcortical voxels, concatenated across all a participant’s scans. Correlations between vertices within 30 mm of each other were set to zero. The Infomap algorithm was applied to each participant’s correlation matrix thresholded at a range of edge densities spanning from 0.01 to 2%. At each threshold, the algorithm returned community identities for each vertex and voxel. Communities were labelled by matching them at each threshold to a set of independent group average networks described previously 62 . In each individual and in the average, a ‘consensus’ network assignment was derived by collapsing assignments across thresholds, giving each node the assignment it had at the sparsest possible threshold at which it was successfully assigned to one of the known group networks. See Extended Data Fig. 4 and Supplementary Fig. 1 for individual and group mode assignments, respectively. The following networks were included: the association networks including the DMN, fronto-parietal, dorsal attention, parietal memory, ventral attention, action-mode, salience and context networks; and the primary networks including the visual, somato-motor, somato-motor face and auditory networks.

To compute local (areal) desynchronization, we also defined brain areas at the individual level using a previously described areal parcellation approach 39 . In brief, for each participant, vertex-wise FC was averaged across all sessions to generate a dense connectome. Then, abrupt transitions in FC values across neighbouring vertices were used to identify boundaries between distinct functional areas.

To take advantage of the multilevel precision functional mapping study design, a LME model was used. Every scan was labelled on the following dimensions: participant identity (ID), MRI visit, task (task or rest), drug condition (prepsilocybin, psilocybin, MTP, postpsilocybin) and head motion (average framewise displacement). The rs-fMRI metrics (described below) were set as the dependent variable, drug (drug condition), task, framewise displacement (motion) and drug × task were defined as fixed effects, and participant ID and MRI session were random effects.

Let y ij be the rs-fMRI metric (for example, FC change score at a given vertex) for the j th observation (15 min fMRI scan) within the i th participant. The LME model can be written as:

β 0 is the intercept term.

β drug , β FD , β task and β task-by-drug are the coefficients for the fixed effects predictors.

drug ij , frame displacement ij (FD ij ) and task ij are the values of the fixed effects predictors for the j th observation within the i th group.

u 0 i represents the random intercept for the i th participant, accounting for individual-specific variability.

v 0 j represents the random intercept for the j th observation within the i th participant, capturing scan-specific variability.

ε ij is the error term representing unobserved random variation.

In MATLAB (Wilkinsonian notation), this model is expressed for every vertex Y (vertex) = fitlme(groupd, FC_Change(vertex) ~ drug + framewise displacement + task + task-by-drug + (1 |SubID) + (1 |session)).

To compensate for the implementations of this LME model on many rs-fMRI-related dependent variables, differences were highlighted when P  < 0.001. All P values reported are not corrected for multiple comparisons.

Vertex-wise FC change

FC change (‘distance’) was calculated at the vertex level to generate FC change maps and a LME model (equation ( 1 )) was used in combination with wild bootstrapping 119 , 120 and threshold-free cluster enhancement (TFCE) 95 , 121 to estimate P values for t -statistic maps resulting from the model (Figs. 1a–d and  4 ). Wild bootstrapping is an approach to permutation testing that was designed for models that are not independent and identically distributed, and are heteroscedastic.

First, a FC change map was generated for every scan by computing, for each vertex, the average distance between its FC seedmap and the FC seedmap for each of that participant’s baseline scans. As each participant had several baseline visits, FC change was computed for baseline scans by computing distance from all other baseline scans (excluding scans within the same visit). This provided a measure of day-to-day variability. Second, the distance value was used as the dependent variable y ij in the LME model to generate a t -statistic. Third, a wild bootstrapping procedure was implemented as follows. Several bootstrap samples ( B  = 1,000) were generated using the Rademacher procedure 120 , in which the residuals were randomly inverted. Specifically, a Rademacher vector was generated by randomly assigning −1 or 1 values with equal probability to the residual of each observation. By element-wise multiplication of the original residuals with the Rademacher vector, bootstrap samples were created to capture the variability in the data.

For the observed t -statistic-map and each bootstrap sample, the TFCE algorithm was applied to enhance the sensitivity to clusters of significant voxels or regions while controlling for multiple comparisons. The value of the enhanced cluster statistic derived from the bootstrap samples was used to create a null distribution under the null hypothesis. By comparing the original observed cluster statistic with the null distribution, P values were derived to quantify the statistical significance of the observed effect. The P values were obtained on the basis of the proportion of bootstrap samples that produced a maximum cluster statistic exceeding the observed cluster statistic.

The combined approach of wild bootstrapping with the Rademacher procedure and TFCE provided the method to estimate P values for our multilevel (drug condition, participant, session, task) design. This methodology accounted for the complex correlation structure, effectively controlled for multiple comparisons and accommodated potential autocorrelation in the residuals through the Rademacher procedure. By incorporating these techniques, association with psilocybin and other conditions was reliably identified amid noise and spatial dependencies.

Whole-brain FC change

For analyses in Figs. 1e,g , 2 and 4a (bottom), Extended Data Fig. 3 and Supplementary Figs. 3 , 4 and 6 , distance calculations were computed on the FC matrix using z -transformed bivariate correlation of time courses from parcellated brain areas 62 . The effects of day-to-day, drug condition, task and framewise displacement and drug × task were directly examined by calculating the distance between functional network matrices generated from each scan. Root-mean-squared Euclidean distance was computed between the linearized upper triangles of the parcellated FC matrix between each pair of 15 min fMRI scans, creating a second-order distance matrix (Extended Data Fig. 3 ). Subsequently, the average distance (reported as ‘whole-brain FC change’) was examined for FC matrices that were from the same individual within a single session, from the same individual across days (‘day-to-day’), from the same participant between drug and baseline (for example, psilocybin), from the same individual but different tasks (‘task:rest’), from the same individual between highest motion scans and baseline (‘hi:lo motion’), from different individuals (‘between person’). In the ‘high head motion’ comparison (‘hi:lo motion’ in Supplementary Fig. 3 ), the two non-drug scans with the highest average framewise displacement were labelled and compared against all other baseline scans.

A LME model (equation ( 1 )) and post hoc t -tests were used to assess statistical differences between drug conditions. A related approach using z -transformed bivariate correlation (‘similarity’ rather than distance) was also taken and results were unchanged (Supplementary Fig. 3c ).

Likelihood ratio test of participant-specific response

To test whether variability in participant-specific response to psilocybin was larger than would be expected by chance, we used a likelihood ratio test for variance of random slopes for a participant-specific response to psilocybin 48 . The difference in log likelihood ratios was compared to a null distribution of 1 million draws from a mixture of chi-squared distributions with degrees of freedom 1 and 2. We note that the likelihood ratio test of variance components is a non-standard problem 47 as the covariance matrix of the random effects is positive definite and the variances of random effects are non-negative. Finally, the test statistic for the likelihood ratio in this LME model was compared against a 50/50 mixture of two independent chi-squared distributions, each with one and two degrees of freedom, respectively.

Assessing subjective experience

Subjective experience was assessed for drug sessions using the MEQ30 46  ( Supplementary Methods ). The MEQ30 is designed to capture the core domains of the subjective effects of psychedelics (as compared to the altered states of consciousness rating scales that more broadly assess effects of psychoactive drugs 122 ) and is related to the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics. We applied a LME model across all drug sessions, similar to the one described above, but with MEQ30 total score as the dependent variable. Whole-brain FC change and framewise displacement were modelled as fixed effects, and participant was modelled as a random effect. The same model was solved using FC change from every vertex to generate a vertex-wise map of the FC change versus MEQ30.

Normalized FC change

The conditions above were compared by calculating normalized FC change scores using the following procedure: we (1) determined FC change for each condition compared to baseline as described above, (2) subtracted within-session distance for all conditions (such that within-session FC change was 0), (3) divided all conditions by day-to-day distance (such that day-to-day FC change was equal to 1). Thus, normalized whole-brain FC change values (for example, psilocybin versus base was 3.52) could be thought of as proportional to day-to-day variability.

Data-driven MDS

We used a classical MDS approach to cluster parcellated connectomes across fMRI scans, as previously described 38 . This data-driven approach was used to identify how different parameters (for example, task, drug, individual) affect similarity and/or distance between networks. MDS places data in multidimensional space on the basis of the dissimilarity (Euclidean distance) among data points, which in this case means a data point represents the linearized upper triangle of a FC matrix. Every matrix was entered into the classical MDS algorithm (implemented using MATLAB 2019, cmdscale.m). Many dimensions of the data were explored. The eigenvectors were multiplied by the original FC matrices to generate a matrix of eigenweights that corresponded to each dimension. These eigenweights were also applied to other rs-fMRI psychedelics datasets to generate dimensions scores (section ‘Other datasets’).

Rotation-based null model (spin test) for network specificity

To assess network specificity of FC change values, we calculated average FC change of matched null networks consisting of randomly rotated networks with preserved size, shape and relative position to each other 62 , 97 . To create matched random networks, we rotated each hemisphere of the original networks a random amount around the x , y and z axes on the spherical expansion of the cortical surface 62 . This procedure randomly relocated each network while maintaining networks’ sizes, shapes and relative positions to each other. Random rotation followed by computation of network-average FC change score was repeated 1,000 times to generate null distributions of FC change scores. Vertices rotated into the medial wall were not included in the calculation. Actual psilocybin FC change was then compared to null rotation permutations to generate a P value for the 12 networks that were consistently present across every participant’s Infomap parcellation. For bar graph visualization (Fig. 1 and Supplementary Fig. 1b ), networks with greater change ( P  < 0.05 based on null rotation permutations) are shown in their respective colour and other networks are shown in grey.

We used an approach previously validated to assess spatial complexity (termed entropy) or neural signals 61 . Temporal principal component analysis was conducted on the full BOLD dense timeseries, which yielded m principal components ( m roughly 80 K surface vertices and subcortical voxels) and associated eigenvalues. The normalized eigenvalue of the i th principal component was calculated as

where m is the number of principal components, and λ i and λ ′ i represent the eigenvalue and the normalized eigenvalue of the i th principal component, respectively. Last, the NGSC, defined as the normalized entropy of normalized eigenvalues, was computed using the equation:

The NGSC computed above attains values from the interval 0 to 1. The lowest value NGSC = 0 would mean the brain-wide BOLD signal consisted of exactly one principal component or spatial mode, and there is maximum global FC between all vertices. The highest value NGSC = 1 would mean the total data variance is uniformly distributed across all m principal components, and a maximum spatial complexity or a lowest FC is found.

NGSC was additionally calculated at the ‘parcel level’. To respect areal boundaries, this was done by first generating a set of individual-specific parcels in every participant (on all available resting fMRI sessions concatenated) using procedures described oreviously 39 , 62 .

NGSC maps were compared to PET-based 5-HT 2A receptor binding maps published in ref. 33 . Similarity was assessed by computing the bivariate correlation between NGSC values and 5-HT 2A binding across 324 cortical parcels from the Gordon–Laumann parcellation.

Persistent effects analysis

To assess the persistent effects of psilocybin, we compared FC changes 1–21 days postpsilocybin to predrug baseline. The FC change analysis (described above) indicated that connectivity at the whole-brain level did not change following psilocybin (Supplementary Fig. 1 ). A screen was conducted with P  < 0.05 threshold to identify brain networks or areas showing persistent effects. This analysis identified the anterior hippocampus as a candidate region of interest for persistent FC change (section ‘Baseline/after psilocybin FC change analysis’ in  Supplementary Methods ).

We assessed change in anterior hippocampus ‘FC change’ pre- versus postpsilocybin using the LME model described previously. In this model, all sessions before psilocybin (irrespective or cross-over order) were labelled as prepsilocybin and all sessions within 21 days after psilocybin were labelled as postpsilocybin.

As a control, we tested anterior hippocampus FC change pre- versus post-MTP using both the LME model, and an equivalence test. To control for potential persistent psilocybin effects, only the block of scans immediately before and after MTP were used (for example, if a participant took MTP as drug 1, then all baseline scans were labelled as ‘pre-MTP’ and all scans between drugs 1 and 2 were labelled ‘post-MTP’).

Equivalence testing (to conclude no change in anterior hippocampus after MTP) was accomplished by setting δ  = 0.5 standard deviation of FC change across pre-MTP sessions. We computed the 90% CI of change in FC change between pre- and post-MTP sessions. If the bounds of the 90% CI were within ± δ , then equivalence was determined 123 .

Other datasets

Raw fMRI and structural data published previously 55 , 56 were run through our in-house registration and processing pipeline described above. These datasets were used for replication, external validation and generalization to another classic psychedelic (that is, LSD) for the measures described above (for example, NGSC and the MDS-derived psilocybin FC dimension, dimension 1).

Using the data from ref. 55 : n  = 15 healthy adults (five women, mean age 34.1 years, s.d. 8.2) completed two scanning sessions (psilocybin and saline) that included an eyes-closed resting-state BOLD scan for 6 min before and following i.v. infusion of drug. fMRI data were acquired using a gradient-echo-planar imaging sequence, TR and TE of 3,000 and 35 ms, field-of-view 192 mm, 64 × 64 acquisition matrix, parallel acceleration factor of 2 and 90° flip angle.

Using the data from ref. 56 : healthy adults completed two scanning sessions (LSD and saline), which included an eyes-closed resting-state BOLD scan acquired for 22 min following i.v. drug infusion lasting 12 min. n  = 20 participants completed the protocol, but data were used for n  = 15 (four women; mean age 30.5, standard deviation 8.0) deemed suitable for BOLD analyses. fMRI data were acquired using a gradient-echo-planar imaging sequence, TR and TE of 2,000 and 35 ms, field-of-view 220 mm, 64 × 64 acquisition matrix, parallel acceleration factor of 2, 90° flip angle and 3.4 mm isotropic voxels.

The ABCD database resting-state functional MRI 59 (annual release v.2.0, https://doi.org/10.15154/1503209 ) was used to replicate the effects of stimulant use on FC. Preprocessing included framewise censoring with a criterion of frame displacement less than or equal to 0.2 mm in addition the standard predefined preprocessing procedures 124 . Participants with fewer than 600 frames (equivalent to 8 min of data after censoring) were excluded from the analysis. Parcel-wise group-averaged FC matrices were constructed for each participant as described above for 385 regions on inter-test in the brain.

Use of a stimulant (for example, MTP, amphetamine salts, lisdexamfetamine) in the last 24 h was assessed by parental report. Participants with missing data were excluded. Regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between FC (edges) and stimulant use in the last 24 h. Framewise displacement (averaged over frames remaining after censoring) was used as a covariate to account for motion-related effects. The t -values that reflect the relationship between stimulant use and FC were visualized on a colour scale from −5 to +5 to provide a qualitative information about effect of stimulant use on FC.

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the  Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.

Data availability

All data from individual participants P1–P7 are available at https://wustl.box.com/v/PsilocybinPFM , with a password available on completion of a data use agreement. The ABCD data used in this report came from ABCD the Annual Release 2.0, https://doi.org/10.15154/1503209 . The ABCD data repository grows and changes over time ( https://nda.nih.gov/abcd ). The Imperial College London psilocybin and LSD datasets are available upon request.

Code availability

Data processing code for the psilocybin precision functional mapping data can be found at https://wustl.box.com/s/dmj5s3h9pxt9bcw9mm3ai9c15y756o79 . Code specific to analyses can be found at https://gitlab.com/siegelandthebrain1/Psilocybin_PFM/ . Data processing code for the ABCD data can be found at https://github.com/DCAN-Labs/abcd-hcp-pipeline . Matching task stimuli are available at https://gitlab.com/siegelandthebrain1/Psilocybin_PFM/-/blob/main/image_task_clean.zip . Software packages incorporated into the above pipelines for data analysis included: MATLAB R2019b, https://www.mathworks.com/ (including Psychtoolbox v.2.0 and Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox v.11.6); Connectome Workbench v.1.5; http://www.humanconnectome.org/software/connectome-workbench.html ; Freesurfer v.6.2, https://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/ ; FSL v.6.0, https://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/fslwiki ; 4dfp tools, https://4dfp.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ ; Infomap, https://www.mapequation.org ; Cifti MATLAB utilities (including spin test): https://github.com/MidnightScanClub/SCAN and 4dfp tools, https://4dfp.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ . MRI pulse sequences used to acquire the data are provided at https://gitlab.com/siegelandthebrain1/Psilocybin_PFM/-/blob/main/NP1161_MRI_sequence.pdf .

Goodwin, G. M. et al. Single-dose psilocybin for a treatment-resistant episode of major depression. N. Engl. J. Med. 387 , 1637–1648 (2022).

Article   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Raison, C. L. et al. Single-dose psilocybin treatment for major depressive disorder: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA 330 , 843–853 (2023).

Carhart-Harris, R. et al. Trial of psilocybin versus escitalopram for depression. N. Engl. J. Med. 384 , 1402–1411 (2021).

Bogenschutz, M. P. et al. Percentage of heavy drinking days following psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy vs placebo in the treatment of adult patients with alcohol use disorder: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry 79 , 953–962 (2022).

Cameron, L. P. et al. A non-hallucinogenic psychedelic analogue with therapeutic potential. Nature 589 , 474–479 (2020).

Raval, N. R. et al. A single dose of psilocybin increases synaptic density and decreases 5-HT 2A receptor density in the pig brain. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 22 , 835 (2021).

Article   CAS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Shao, L.-X. et al. Psilocybin induces rapid and persistent growth of dendritic spines in frontal cortex in vivo. Neuron 109 , 2535–2544.e4 (2021).

Vaidya, V. A., Marek, G. J., Aghajanian, G. K. & Duman, R. S. 5-HT 2A receptor-mediated regulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor mRNA in the hippocampus and the neocortex. J. Neurosci. 17 , 2785–2795 (1997).

Nichols, D. E. Hallucinogens. Pharmacol. Ther. 101 , 131–181 (2004).

Vollenweider, F. X., Vollenweider-Scherpenhuyzen, M. F. I., Bäbler, A., Vogel, H. & Hell, D. Psilocybin induces schizophrenia-like psychosis in humans via a serotonin-2 agonist action. NeuroReport 9 , 3897–3902 (1998).

Carhart-Harris, R. L. et al. Psilocybin with psychological support for treatment-resistant depression: an open-label feasibility study. Lancet Psychiatry 3 , 619–627 (2016).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Davis, A. K. et al. Effects of psilocybin-assisted therapy on major depressive disorder: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry 78 , 481–489 (2020).

Griffiths, R. R. et al. Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: a randomized double-blind trial. J. Psychopharmacol. 30 , 1181–1197 (2016).

Ross, S. et al. Rapid and sustained symptom reduction following psilocybin treatment for anxiety and depression in patients with life-threatening cancer: a randomized controlled trial. J. Psychopharmacol. 30 , 1165–1180 (2016).

Carhart-Harris, R. L. & Goodwin, G. M. The therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs: past, present, and future. Neuropsychopharmacology 42 , 2105–2113 (2017).

Ly, C. et al. Psychedelics promote structural and functional neural plasticity. Cell Rep. 23 , 3170–3182 (2018).

Savalia, N. K., Shao, L.-X. & Kwan, A. C. A dendrite-focused framework for understanding the actions of ketamine and psychedelics. Trends Neurosci. 44 , 260–275 (2021).

Canal, C. E. et al. Molecular pharmacology and ligand docking studies reveal a single amino acid difference between mouse and human serotonin 5-HT2A receptors that impacts behavioral translation of novel 4-phenyl-2-dimethylaminotetralin ligands. J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther. 347 , 705–716 (2013).

Gouzoulis-Mayfrank, E. et al. Neurometabolic effects of psilocybin, 3,4-methylenedioxyethylamphetamine (MDE) and d -methamphetamine in healthy volunteers: a double-blind, placebo-controlled PET study with [ 18 F]FDG. Neuropsychopharmacol. 20 , 565–581 (1999).

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Vollenweider, F. X. et al. Positron emission tomography and fluorodeoxyglucose studies of metabolic hyperfrontality and psychopathology in the psilocybin model of psychosis. Neuropsychopharmacology 16 , 357–372 (1997).

Mason, N. L. et al. Me, myself, bye: regional alterations in glutamate and the experience of ego dissolution with psilocybin. Neuropsychopharmacol. 45 , 2003–2011 (2020).

Muthukumaraswamy, S. D. et al. Broadband cortical desynchronization underlies the human psychedelic state. J. Neurosci. 33 , 15171–15183 (2013).

Tagliazucchi, E. et al. Increased global functional connectivity correlates with LSD-induced ego dissolution. Curr. Biol. 26 , 1043–1050 (2016).

Girn, M. et al. A complex systems perspective on psychedelic brain action. Trends Cogn. Sci . 27 , 433–445 (2023).

McCulloch, D. E.-W. et al. Lasting effects of a single psilocybin dose on resting-state functional connectivity in healthy individuals. J. Psychopharmacol. 36 , 74–84 (2022).

Daws, R. E. et al. Increased global integration in the brain after psilocybin therapy for depression. Nat. Med. 28 , 844–851 (2022).

Barrett, F. S., Doss, M. K., Sepeda, N. D., Pekar, J. J. & Griffiths, R. R. Emotions and brain function are altered up to one month after a single high dose of psilocybin. Sci. Rep. 10 , 2214 (2020).

Article   ADS   CAS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Yeo, B. T. et al. The organization of the human cerebral cortex estimated by intrinsic functional connectivity. J. Neurophysiol. 106 , 1125–65 (2011).

Zheng, A. et al. Parallel hippocampal-parietal circuits for self- and goal-oriented processing. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 118 , e2101743118 (2021).

Colasanti, A. et al. Hippocampal neuroinflammation, functional connectivity, and depressive symptoms in multiple sclerosis. Biol. Psychiatry 80 , 62–72 (2016).

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Siegel, J. S. et al. Prolonged ketamine infusion modulates limbic connectivity and induces sustained remission of treatment-resistant depression. Psychopharmacology 238 , 1157–1169 (2021).

CAS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Yan, C.-G. et al. Reduced default mode network functional connectivity in patients with recurrent major depressive disorder. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 116 , 9078–9083 (2019).

Beliveau, V. et al. A high-resolution in vivo atlas of the human brain’s serotonin system. J. Neurosci. 37 , 120–128 (2017).

Alagapan, S. et al. Cingulate dynamics track depression recovery with deep brain stimulation. Nature 622 , 130–138 (2023).

Lynch, C. J. et al. Expansion of a frontostriatal salience network in individuals with depression. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.08.09.551651 (2023).

Mayberg, H. S. et al. Deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression. Neuron 45 , 651–660 (2005).

Gordon, E. M. et al. Precision functional mapping of individual human brains. Neuron 95 , 791–807.e7 (2017).

Gratton, C. et al. Functional brain networks are dominated by stable group and individual factors, not cognitive or daily variation. Neuron 98 , 439–452.e5 (2018).

Laumann, T. O. et al. Functional system and areal organization of a highly sampled individual human brain. Neuron 87 , 657–670 (2015).

Poldrack, R. A. et al. Long-term neural and physiological phenotyping of a single human. Nat. Commun. 6 , 8885 (2015).

Article   ADS   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Siddiqi, S. H. et al. Precision functional MRI mapping reveals distinct connectivity patterns for depression associated with traumatic brain injury. Sci. Transl. Med. 15 , eabn0441 (2023).

Newbold, D. J. et al. Plasticity and spontaneous activity pulses in disused human brain circuits. Neuron 107 , 580–589.e6 (2020).

Greene, D. J. et al. Integrative and network-specific connectivity of the basal ganglia and thalamus defined in individuals. Neuron 105 , 742–758.e6 (2020).

Marek, S. et al. Spatial and temporal organization of the individual human cerebellum. Neuron 100 , 977–993.e7 (2018).

Kiilerich, K. F. et al. Repeated low doses of psilocybin increase resilience to stress, lower compulsive actions, and strengthen cortical connections to the paraventricular thalamic nucleus in rats. Mol. Psychiatry 28 , 3829–3841 (2023).

Barrett, F. S., Johnson, M. W. & Griffiths, R. R. Validation of the revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire in experimental sessions with psilocybin. J. Psychopharmacol. 29 , 1182–1190 (2015).

Chen, Y. & Liang, K.-Y. On the asymptotic behaviour of the pseudolikelihood ratio test statistic with boundary problems. Biometrika 97 , 603–620 (2010).

Article   MathSciNet   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Stram, D. O. & Lee, J. W. Variance components testing in the longitudinal mixed effects model. Biometrics 50 , 1171–1177 (1994).

Bertolero, M. A., Yeo, B. T. T. & D’Esposito, M. The modular and integrative functional architecture of the human brain. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112 , E6798–6807 (2015).

Fox, M. D., Corbetta, M., Snyder, A. Z., Vincent, J. L. & Raichle, M. E. Spontaneous neuronal activity distinguishes human dorsal and ventral attention systems. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 103 , 10046–51 (2006).

Seeley, W. W. et al. Dissociable intrinsic connectivity networks for salience processing and executive control. J. Neurosci. 27 , 2349–56 (2007).

Dosenbach, N. U. et al. Distinct brain networks for adaptive and stable task control in humans. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 104 , 11073–8 (2007).

Dosenbach, N. U. F., Raichle, M. & Gordon, E. M. The brain’s cingulo-opercular action-mode network. Preprint at PsyArXiv https://osf.io/2vt79 (2024).

Fox, M. D. et al. The human brain is intrinsically organized into dynamic, anticorrelated functional networks. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 102 , 9673–9678 (2005).

Carhart-Harris, R. L. et al. Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109 , 2138–2143 (2012).

Carhart-Harris, R. L. et al. Neural correlates of the LSD experience revealed by multimodal neuroimaging. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 113 , 4853–4858 (2016).

Dai, R. et al. Classical and non-classical psychedelic drugs induce common network changes in human cortex. NeuroImage 273 , 120097 (2023).

Mueller, S. et al. The effects of methylphenidate on whole brain intrinsic functional connectivity. Hum. Brain Mapp. 35 , 5379–5388 (2014).

Casey, B. J. et al. The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study: imaging acquisition across 21 sites. Dev. Cogn. Neurosci. 32 , 43–54 (2018).

Celada, P., Puig, M. V., Díaz-Mataix, L. & Artigas, F. The hallucinogen DOI reduces low-frequency oscillations in rat prefrontal cortex: reversal by antipsychotic drugs. Biol. Psychiatry 64 , 392–400 (2008).

Jia, H., Li, Y. & Yu, D. Normalized spatial complexity analysis of neural signals. Sci. Rep. 8 , 7912 (2018).

Article   ADS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Gordon, E. M. et al. Generation and evaluation of a cortical area parcellation from resting-state correlations. Cereb. Cortex 26 , 288–303 (2016).

Preller, K. H. et al. Psilocybin induces time-dependent changes in global functional connectivity. Biol. Psychiatry 88 , 197–207 (2020).

Johnson, M., Richards, W. & Griffiths, R. Human hallucinogen research: guidelines for safety. J. Psychopharmacol. 22 , 603–620 (2008).

Mediano, P. A. M. et al. Effects of external stimulation on psychedelic state neurodynamics. ACS Chem. Neurosci. 15 , 462–471 (2024).

Nardou, R. et al. Psychedelics reopen the social reward learning critical period. Nature 618 , 790–798 (2023).

Rijsketic, D. R. et al. UNRAVELing the synergistic effects of psilocybin and environment on brain-wide immediate early gene expression in mice. Neuropsychopharmacol. 48 , 1798–1807 (2023)

Golden, T. L. et al. in Disruptive Psychopharmacology (eds. Barrett, F. S. & Preller, K. H.) 35–70 (Springer International Publishing, 2022).

Michaiel, A. M., Parker, P. R. L. & Niell, C. M. A hallucinogenic serotonin-2A receptor agonist reduces visual response gain and alters temporal dynamics in mouse V1. Cell Rep. 26 , 3475–3483.e4 (2019).

Evarts, E. V., Landau, W., Freygang, W. & Marshall, W. H. Some effects of lysergic acid diethylamide and bufotenine on electrical activity in the cat’s visual system. Am. J. Physiol.-Leg. Content 182 , 594–598 (1955).

Raichle, M. E. Two views of brain function. Trends Cogn. Sci. 14 , 180–190 (2010).

Müller, F. et al. MDMA-induced changes in within-network connectivity contradict the specificity of these alterations for the effects of serotonergic hallucinogens. Neuropsychopharmacology 46 , 545–553 (2021).

Palhano-Fontes, F. et al. The psychedelic state induced by ayahuasca modulates the activity and connectivity of the default mode network. PLoS ONE 10 , e0118143 (2015).

Preller, K. H. et al. Changes in global and thalamic brain connectivity in LSD-induced altered states of consciousness are attributable to the 5-HT2A receptor. eLife 7 , e35082 (2018).

Wall, M. B. et al. Neuroimaging in psychedelic drug development: past, present, and future. Mol. Psychiatry 28 , 3573–358 (2023).

Timmermann, C. et al. Neural correlates of the DMT experience assessed with multivariate EEG. Sci. Rep. 9 , 16324 (2019).

Carhart-Harris, R. L. et al. The entropic brain: a theory of conscious states informed by neuroimaging research with psychedelic drugs. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 8 , 20 (2014).

Savino, A. & Nichols, C. D Lysergic acid diethylamide induces increased signalling entropy in rats’ prefrontal cortex. J. Neurochem. 162 , 9–23 (2022).

Aghajanian, G. K. & Marek, G. J. Serotonin, via 5-HT2A receptors, increases EPSCs in layer V pyramidal cells of prefrontal cortex by an asynchronous mode of glutamate release. Brain Res. 825 , 161–171 (1999).

Halberstadt, A., Vollenweider, F. X. & Nichols, D. E. Behavioral Neurobiology of Psychedelic Drugs (Springer, 2018).

Kavalali, E. T. & Monteggia, L. M. How does ketamine elicit a rapid antidepressant response? Curr. Opin. Pharmacol. 20 , 35–39 (2015).

Sahib, A. K. et al. Modulation of the functional connectome in major depressive disorder by ketamine therapy. Psychol. Med. 52 , 2596–2605 (2022).

Styr, B. et al. Mitochondrial regulation of the hippocampal firing rate set point and seizure susceptibility. Neuron 102 , 1009–1024.e8 (2019).

Turrigiano, G. G., Leslie, K. R., Desai, N. S., Rutherford, L. C. & Nelson, S. B. Activity-dependent scaling of quantal amplitude in neocortical neurons. Nature 391 , 892–896 (1998).

Turrigiano, G. G. & Nelson, S. B. Homeostatic plasticity in the developing nervous system. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 5 , 97–107 (2004).

Duman, R. S. & Monteggia, L. M. A neurotrophic model for stress-related mood disorders. Biol. Psychiatry 59 , 1116–1127 (2006).

Cole, E. J. et al. Stanford Neuromodulation Therapy (SNT): a double-blind randomized controlled trial. Am. J. Psychiatry 179 , 132–141 (2022).

LeDoux, J. E. & Lau, H. A new vista in psychiatric treatment: using individualized functional connectivity to track symptoms. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117 , 4450–4452 (2020).

Menon, V. Large-scale brain networks and psychopathology: a unifying triple network model. Trends Cogn. Sci. 15 , 483–506 (2011).

Sylvester, C. M. et al. Individual-specific functional connectivity of the amygdala: a substrate for precision psychiatry. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117 , 3808–3818 (2020).

Williams, L. M. Precision psychiatry: a neural circuit taxonomy for depression and anxiety. Lancet Psychiatry 3 , 472–480 (2016).

Davey, C. G. et al. Neurodevelopmental correlates of the emerging adult self. Dev. Cogn. Neurosci. 36 , 100626 (2019).

Montagrin, A. et al. Hippocampal timestamp for goals. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.07.27.550892 (2023).

Gordon, E. M. et al. A somato-cognitive action network alternates with effector regions in motor cortex. Nature 617 , 351–359 (2023).

Lynch, C. J. et al. Rapid precision functional mapping of individuals using Multi-Echo fMRI. Cell Rep. 33 , 108540 (2020).

Siegel, J. S. & Nicol, G. E. Plasticity markers in the human brain associated with rapid antidepressants. Neuropsychopharmacology 48 , 223–224 (2023).

Alexander-Bloch, A. F. et al. On testing for spatial correspondence between maps of human brain structure and function. NeuroImage 178 , 540–551 (2018).

Brown, R. T. et al. Pharmacokinetics of escalating doses of oral psilocybin in healthy adults. Clin. Pharmacokinet. 56 , 1543–1554 (2017).

Griffiths, R. R., Richards, W. A., McCann, U. & Jesse, R. Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. Psychopharmacology 187 , 268–283 (2006).

Donnellan, M. B., Oswald, F. L., Baird, B. M. & Lucas, R. E. The mini-IPIP scales: tiny-yet-effective measures of the Big Five factors of personality. Psychol. Assess. 18 , 192–203 (2006).

Shannon, B. J. et al. Morning-evening variation in human brain metabolism and memory circuits. J. Neurophysiol. 109 , 1444–1456 (2013).

Moeller, S. et al. Multiband multislice GE-EPI at 7 tesla, with 16-fold acceleration using partial parallel imaging with application to high spatial and temporal whole-brain fMRI. Magn. Reson. Med. 63 , 1144–1153 (2010).

Kundu, P. et al. Integrated strategy for improving functional connectivity mapping using multiecho fMRI. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 110 , 16187–92 (2013).

Blaimer, M. et al. SMASH, SENSE, PILS, GRAPPA: how to choose the optimal method. Top. Magn. Reson. Imaging TMRI 15 , 223–236 (2004).

Dosenbach, N. U. F. et al. Real-time motion analytics during brain MRI improve data quality and reduce costs. NeuroImage 161 , 80–93 (2017).

Siegel, J. S. et al. Statistical improvements in functional magnetic resonance imaging analyses produced by censoring high-motion data points. Hum. Brain Mapp. 35 , 1981–1996 (2014).

Moeller, S. et al. NOise reduction with DIstribution Corrected (NORDIC) PCA in dMRI with complex-valued parameter-free locally low-rank processing. NeuroImage 226 , 117539 (2021).

Vizioli, L. et al. Lowering the thermal noise barrier in functional brain mapping with magnetic resonance imaging. Nat. Commun. 12 , 5181 (2021).

Moser, J. et al. Multi-echo acquisition and thermal denoising advances infant precision functional imaging. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.27.564416 (2023).

Posse, S. et al. Enhancement of BOLD-contrast sensitivity by single-shot multi-echo functional MR imaging. Magn. Reson. Med. 42 , 87–97 (1999).

Siegel, J. S. et al. Data quality influences observed links between functional connectivity and behavior. Cereb. Cortex 27 , 4492–4502 (2017).

Behzadi, Y., Restom, K., Liau, J. & Liu, T. T. A component based noise correction method (CompCor) for BOLD and perfusion based fMRI. NeuroImage 37 , 90–101 (2007).

Power, J. D. A simple but useful way to assess fMRI scan qualities. NeuroImage 154 , 150–158 (2017).

Glasser, M. F. et al. The minimal preprocessing pipelines for the Human Connectome Project. NeuroImage 80 , 105–124 (2013).

Seitzman, B. A. et al. A set of functionally-defined brain regions with improved representation of the subcortex and cerebellum. NeuroImage 206 , 116290 (2020).

LeDoux, J. E. Emotion circuits in the brain. Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 23 , 155–184 (2000).

Price, J. L. & Drevets, W. C. Neurocircuitry of mood disorders. Neuropsychopharmacology 35 , 192–216 (2010).

Rosvall, M. & Bergstrom, C. T. Maps of random walks on complex networks reveal community structure. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105 , 1118–1123 (2008).

Mammen, E. Bootstrap and wild bootstrap for high dimensional linear models. Ann. Stat. 21 , 255–285 (1993).

Article   MathSciNet   Google Scholar  

Davidson, J., Monticini, A. & Peel, D. Implementing the wild bootstrap using a two-point distribution. Econ. Lett. 96 , 309–315 (2007).

Smith, S. M. & Nichols, T. E. Threshold-free cluster enhancement: addressing problems of smoothing, threshold dependence and localisation in cluster inference. NeuroImage 44 , 83–98 (2009).

Dittrich, A. The Standardized Psychometric Assessment of Altered States of Consciousness (ASCs) in humans. Pharmacopsychiatry 31 , 80–84 (1998).

Lakens, D. Equivalence tests. Soc. Psychol. Personal. Sci. 8 , 355–362 (2017).

Feczko, E. et al. Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) community MRI collection and utilities. Preprint at bioRiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.09.451638 (2021).

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Taylor Family Institute Fund for Innovative Psychiatric Research (J. S. Siegel, T.O.L., G.E.N.); the McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience (J. S. Siegel, G.E.N.); the Institute of Clinical and Translational Science (G.E.N.); National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants MH112473 (J. S. Siegel, S.S., D.A.B., C.H., G.E.N.), T32 DA007261 (J. S. Siegel), NS123345 (B.P.K.), MH129616 (T.O.L.), MH121276 (N.U.F.D., E.M.G., D.A.F.), MH118370 (C.G.), NS124738 (C.G.), MH096773 (D.A.F., N.U.F.D.), MH122066 (D.A.F., E.M.G., N.U.F.D.), MH124567 (D.A.F., E.M.G., N.U.F.D.), NS129521 (E.M.G., D.A.F., N.U.F.D.) and NS088590 (N.U.F.D.); the National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association (E.M.G.); the Ralph Metzner Professorship and the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute (R.C.-H.); the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (N.U.F.D.); by the Kiwanis Foundation (N.U.F.D.); the Washington University Hope Center for Neurological Disorders (E.M.G., N.U.F.D.) and by Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology pilot funding (E.M.G., N.U.F.D.). Furthermore, this study used data from the ABCD study, supported by National Institutes of Health grant no. U01DA041120. We give a special thanks to our study participants, who completed a demanding protocol with grace for the benefit of scientific inquiry. Data used in the preparation of this article were obtained from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study ( https://abcdstudy.org ), held in the NIMH Data Archive (NDA). This is a multisite, longitudinal study designed to recruit more than 10,000 children age 9-10 and follow them over 10 years into early adulthood. The ABCD Study is supported by the National Institutes of Health and additional federal partners under award numbers U01DA041048, U01DA050989, U01DA051016, U01DA041022, U01DA051018, U01DA051037, U01DA050987, U01DA041174, U01DA041106, U01DA041117, U01DA041028, U01DA041134, U01DA050988, U01DA051039, U01DA041156, U01DA041025, U01DA041120, U01DA051038, U01DA041148, U01DA041093, U01DA041089, U24DA041123, U24DA041147. A full list of supporters is available at https://abcdstudy.org/federal-partners.html . A listing of participating sites and a complete listing of the study investigators can be found at https://abcdstudy.org/consortium_members/ . ABCD consortium investigators designed and implemented the study and/or provided data but did not necessarily participate in the analysis or writing of this report. This manuscript reflects the views of the authors and may not reflect the opinions or views of the NIH or ABCD consortium investigators.

Author information

These authors contributed equally: Ginger E. Nicol, Nico U. F. Dosenbach

Authors and Affiliations

Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA

Joshua S. Siegel, Demetrius Perry, Timothy O. Laumann, Julie A. Schweiger, David A. Bender, Eric J. Lenze & Ginger E. Nicol

Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA

Subha Subramanian

Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA

Benjamin P. Kay, Nicholas V. Metcalf, Samuel R. Krimmel, Kristen M. Scheidter, Forrest I. Whiting, Marcus E. Raichle, Abraham Z. Snyder & Nico U. F. Dosenbach

Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA

Evan M. Gordon, T. Rick Reneau, Joshua S. Shimony, Dean F. Wong, Marcus E. Raichle, Abraham Z. Snyder & Nico U. F. Dosenbach

Department of Emergency Medicine, Advocate Christ Health Care, Oak Lawn, IL, USA

Ravi V. Chacko

Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

Caterina Gratton

Miami VA Medical Center, Miami, FL, USA

Christine Horan

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO, USA

Jonah A. Padawer-Curry, Marcus E. Raichle & Nico U. F. Dosenbach

Center for Biomedical Image Computing and Analytics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Russell T. Shinohara

Penn Statistics in Imaging and Visualization Endeavor, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Russell T. Shinohara & Yong Chen

Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Julia Moser, Steven M. Nelson & Damien A. Fair

Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Julia Moser & Damien A. Fair

Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Essa Yacoub, Luca Vizioli & Damien A. Fair

Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Steven M. Nelson & Damien A. Fair

Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

Robin Carhart-Harris

Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College London, London, UK

Usona Institute, Fitchburg, WI, USA

Charles L. Raison

Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health, Madison, WI, USA

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO, USA

Marcus E. Raichle & Nico U. F. Dosenbach

Department of Neuroscience, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA

Marcus E. Raichle

Department of Pediatrics, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA

Nico U. F. Dosenbach

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

The concept came from J. S. Siegel and G.E.N. The study was designed by J. S. Siegel, S.S., T.O.L., C.L.R., E.J.L., A.Z.S. and G.E.N. Data acquisition and processing were done by J. S. Siegel, S.S., T.R.R., D.P., C.H., J. S. Shimony, J.A.S., D.A.B., K.M.S., F.I.W., J.M., E.Y., S.M.N., L.V., D.A.F. and A.Z.S.. Data analysis and interpretation were carried out by J. S. Siegel, B.P.K., E.M.G., T.O.L., N.V.M., C.G., R.V.C., S.R.K., D.F.W., J.A.P.-C., R.T.S., Y.C., R.C.-H., M.E.R., G.E.N. and N.U.F.D. The paper was written and revised by J. S. Siegel, S.S., M.E.R., A.Z.S., G.E.N. and N.U.F.D. Participant 7 was author N.U.F.D.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joshua S. Siegel .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

Within the past year, J. S. Siegel has been an employee of Sumitomo Pharma America and received consulting fees from Longitude Capital. J. S. Siegel, N.U.F.D., T.O.L. and E.M.G. have submitted a provisional patent (patent no. 020949/US 15060-1787) for the use of precision functional mapping for measuring target engagement by experimental therapeutics. R.T.S. has received consulting compensation from Octave Bioscience and compensation for reviewership duties from the American Medical Association. C.L.R. serves as a consultant to Usona Institute and Novartis and receives research support from the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation. G.E.N. has received research support from Usona Institute (drug only). She has served as a paid consultant for Carelon, Alkermes, Inc., Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. T.O.L. holds a patent for taskless mapping of brain activity licenced to Sora Neurosciences and a patent for optimizing targets for neuromodulation, implant localization and ablation is pending. J. S. Siegel is a consultant and received stock options in Sora Neuroscience, and company that focuses on resting-state analysis. D.A.F. and N.U.F.D. are cofounders of Turing Medical Inc, have financial interest, may benefit financially if the company is successful in marketing FIRMM motion monitoring software products, may receive royalty income based on FIRMM technology developed at WUSOM and licenced to Turing Medical Inc. S.M.N., E.M.G. and T.O.L. have received consulting fees from Turing Medical Inc. D.F.W. is a consultant for Engrail Therapeutics and receives contract funds for WUSOM research studies from Eisai, Anavex and Roche. These potential conflicts of interest have been reviewed and are managed by WUSOM. The other authors declare no competing interests. All authors report no financial interest in psychedelics companies.

Peer review

Peer review information.

Nature thanks Charles Lynch, Petros Petridis and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended data fig. 1 quantifying psilocybin effects with precision functional mapping: design..

a) Schematic illustrating the study protocol of the individual-specific precision functional mapping study of acute and persistent effects of psilocybin (single dose: 25 mg). Repeated longitudinal study visits enabled high-fidelity individual brain mapping, measurement of day-to-day variance, and acclimation to the scanner. The open label replication protocol 6-12 months later included one or two scans each of baseline, psilocybin, and after drug. b) Timeline of imaging visits for 7 participants. c) Head motion comparisons across psychedelics studies 55 , 56 . Average head motion (FD, framewise displacement, in mm) off and on drug compared between our dataset and prior psychedelic fMRI studies. Unpaired two-sided t -test: n PSIL 2012  = 15, n LSD,2016  = 20, n PSIL(PFM)  = 7; off drug PSIL2012-PSIL(PFM) t (274)  = −4.57, P uncorr  = 7.33 × 10 −5 ; off drug LSD2016-PSIL(PFM) t (286)  = −4.03, P uncorr  = 7.34 × 10 −6 ; on drug PSIL2012-PSIL(PFM) t (46)  = −1.80, P uncorr  = 0.079; on drug LSD2016-PSIL(PFM) t (88)  = −0.73, P uncorr  = 0.46. Dotted line at FD of 0.2 mm. Dark gray bars indicate quartiles, light gray violins indicate distribution. * P uncorr  < 0.05, + P  < 0.1. d) Timeline for an example participant (P1). e) Participants reported significantly higher scores on all dimensions of the mystical experience questionnaire during psilocybin (red) than placebo (40 mg methylphenidate; blue). Paired two-tailed t -test, n  = 7; Mystical t (6)  = −3.64, P uncorr  = 0.011; Positive Mood t (6)  = −5.44, P uncorr  = 0.0016; Transcendence t (6)  = −4.98, P uncorr  = 0.0025; Ineffability t (6)  = −2.54, P uncorr  = 0.044. Error bars indicate SEM.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Unthresholded vertex-wise FC change maps.

T-statistic maps, resulting from the linear mixed effects (LME) model based on vertex-wise FC change (Euclidean distance from baseline scans) across the cortex and subcortical structures for every scan. Higher t values indicate a larger change from baseline (pre-drug) scans. Effects of drug condition (baseline, psilocybin, methylphenidate, post-psilocybin, post-methylphenidate), were modeled as fixed effects. For example, if drug 1 was psilocybin and drug 2 was methylphenidate, then scans between drug visits were labeled post-psilocybin and scans after drug 2 were labeled post-methylphenidate.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Functional connectivity (FC) distance and condition matrices for all fMRI scans.

Following Gratton et al. 38 , we compared FC matrices between rs-fMRI sessions to quantify contributors to variability in whole-brain FC. Under this approach, the effects of group, individual, session, and drug (as well as their interactions) are examined by first calculating the Euclidean distance among every pair of FC matrices (i.e., distance among the linearized upper triangles). a) In the resulting second-order distance matrix, each row and column show whole-brain FC from a single study visit. The colours in the matrix indicate distance between functional networks for a pair of visits (i.e., Euclidean distance between the linearized upper triangles of two FC matrices). Panels b and c demonstrate how the distance matrix was subdivided to compare different conditions. b) Black triangles represent distinct individuals. Replication protocol visits are listed at the end. c ) Task and rest scans are shown in white and orange, respectively. Note that psilocybin scans (black arrows pointing to P1 psilocybin scans in panel a are very dissimilar to no-drug scans from the same individual (left arrow; in a ) but have heightened similarity to psilocybin scans from other individuals (right arrow in a ).

Extended Data Fig. 4 Participant-specific FC change maps for drug sessions.

Individual participant methylphenidate (MTP) and psilocybin (PSIL) FC change maps. Left most column shows individuals’ functional networks. Right 3 columns show FC change maps, generated by calculating Euclidean distance from baseline seedmaps for each vertex. For each session the total score on the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30: out of a maximum of 150) is given in the upper right corner. *P5 had an episode of emesis 30 minutes after drug ingestion during PSIL2.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Multi-dimensional scaling, dimension edge weights.

a) Group parcellation (324 cortical and 61 subcortical parcels) 31 b) Weights from the first 4 dimensions generated by multi-dimensional scaling of the full dataset. The color of each pixel in the plot represents the weight of a given edge. Dimension 1 captures the loss of network integration (on diagonal boxes) and segregation (off diagonal boxes) of psilocybin. Dimensions 2 and 3 primarily explain individual differences and do not show network patterns as clearly. Dimension 4 captures shared effects of psilocybin (PSIL) and methylphenidate (MTP) on sensorimotor systems (suspected arousal effects).

Extended Data Fig. 6 Average functional connectivity (FC) matrices by condition.

a) Group parcellation (324 cortical and 61 subcortical parcels) 31 . b) Average FC matrices and condition differences. Top left shows the group average FC adjacency matrix. Bottom left shows the effect of psilocybin, e.g. increased correlation between dorsal attention, fronto-parietal, and default mode network to each other and to other cortical, limbic, and cerebellar systems. Top right shows effect of methylphenidate. For comparison and validation, we compared methylphenidate to the main effect of stimulant use within the last 24 hours (bottom right, n  = 487 yes, n  = 7992 no) in ABCD rs-fMRI data (bottom right).

Extended Data Fig. 7 Correlations with mystical experience scores.

Comparison of MEQ30 score (y-axes) to global desynchronization (top left; NGSC change, drug minus baseline), head motion (bottom left; framewise displacement (FD) in mm), heart rate change (top right; drug minus baseline), and respiratory rate change (bottom right; drug minus baseline), for all drug sessions. Statistics ( rho , P ) are based on bivariate correlation, two-sided, uncorrected. In the case of Δ NGSC, statistics are reported before and after the removal of an outlier point (> 2 SD lower than mean, indicated by the gray arrow).

Extended Data Fig. 8 Auditory-visual matching fMRI task.

a) Schematic of auditory/visual matching task design. b) Comparison of performance (‘No Drug’ and psilocybin conditions are at ceiling). Lines indicate means and standard deviation across sessions. Number of task sessions are indicated in Supplementary Table 1 . c) Comparison of reaction time (RT). Lines indicate mean and standard deviation across all trials (48 trials per session). d) Task fMRI activation maps (beta weights) and e) contrasts (simple subtraction) using the canonical hemodynamic response function (HRF). f) Eight a priori regions of interest for timecourse analyses. g) Average timecourses from the regions of interest shown in panel f , calculated using finite impulse response model over 13 TR x 1.761 s/TR = 22.89 seconds, for all trials. Shaded area around each line indicates SEM. ANOVAN of Condition x HRF Beta (Main effect of all trials) magnitude testing effect of drug, two-sided: Left V1, F (2,40)  = 3.91, P  = 0.030; Right V1, F (2,40)  = 4.40, P  = 0.020; Left M1 hand, F (2,40)  = 0.40, P  = 0.68; Left Auditory A1, F (2,40)  = 0.22, P  = 0.81; Right Auditory A1, F (2,40)  = 0.77, P  = 0.47; Left Language, F (2,40)  = 0.025, P  = 0.98; Left DMN, F (2,40)  = 1.15, P  = 0.33; Right DMN, F (2,40)  = 0.14, P  = 0.87. * P  < 0.05. P-values are uncorrected for multiple comparisons.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information.

This file contains Supplementary Table 1, Figs. 1–7 and Methods.

Reporting Summary

Peer review file, supplementary video 1.

Quality control plots for every fMRI scan. For each participant (P1, P3–P7, concatenated) the quality control plots are concatenated in the order that the scans were acquired (Extended Data Fig. 1). The top plot shows head position (frame-by-frame, relative to frame 1) separated into x , y , z translation and x , y , z rotation (six parameters). The second plot from the top shows DVARS, which index the rate of change of fMRI signal across the entire brain at each frame of data. The D refers to the temporal derivative of time courses, and VARS refers to the root-mean-square variance over voxels. The third plot shows head motion measured as FD (framewise displacement) in mm. Underneath in the fourth row, the time course for the whole-brain grayordinates (cortex on top, subcortex on the bottom) are shown before preprocessing (known as ‘grayplot’ or ‘carpet plot’). The fifth row shows the same grayordinates, but after preprocessing (bandpass filtering, removal of nuisance signals by regression, and smoothing at 4 mm full-width at half-maximum). The vertical black lines or bars in the grayplots indicate these data frames that were censored due to excessive head motion. At the end, quality control plots are compared to physiology (heart rate, respiratory rate) plots for every session in which physiological monitoring data were acquired.

Supplementary Video 2

Time series of fully preprocessed resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) data (roughly 9 min), taken from the first resting scan of the MRI session. Frame-by-frame rs-fMRI data, excluding high head motion frames (FD > 0.3), are shown for the drug scans (psilocybin, MTP) for each participant (P1, P3–P7).

Supplementary Video 3

Supplementary video 4, supplementary video 5, supplementary video 6, supplementary video 7, rights and permissions.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Siegel, J.S., Subramanian, S., Perry, D. et al. Psilocybin desynchronizes the human brain. Nature (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07624-5

Download citation

Received : 24 October 2023

Accepted : 29 May 2024

Published : 17 July 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07624-5

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

This article is cited by

Your brain on shrooms — how psilocybin resets neural networks.

Nature (2024)

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines . If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma.

Advertisement

Chaos and Confusion: Tech Outage Causes Disruptions Worldwide

Airlines, hospitals and people’s computers were affected after CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company, sent out a flawed software update.

• Share full article

By Adam Satariano Paul Mozur Kate Conger and Sheera Frenkel

• July 19, 2024

Airlines grounded flights. Operators of 911 lines could not respond to emergencies. Hospitals canceled surgeries. Retailers closed for the day. And the actions all traced back to a batch of bad computer code.

A flawed software update sent out by a little-known cybersecurity company caused chaos and disruption around the world on Friday. The company, CrowdStrike , based in Austin, Texas, makes software used by multinational corporations, government agencies and scores of other organizations to protect against hackers and online intruders.

But when CrowdStrike sent its update on Thursday to its customers that run Microsoft Windows software, computers began to crash.

The fallout, which was immediate and inescapable, highlighted the brittleness of global technology infrastructure. The world has become reliant on Microsoft and a handful of cybersecurity firms like CrowdStrike. So when a single flawed piece of software is released over the internet, it can almost instantly damage countless companies and organizations that depend on the technology as part of everyday business.

“This is a very, very uncomfortable illustration of the fragility of the world’s core internet infrastructure,” said Ciaran Martin, the former chief executive of Britain’s National Cyber Security Center and a professor at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University.

A cyberattack did not cause the widespread outage, but the effects on Friday showed how devastating the damage can be when a main artery of the global technology system is disrupted. It raised broader questions about CrowdStrike’s testing processes and what repercussions such software firms should face when flaws in their code cause major disruptions.

How a Software Update Crashed Computers Around the World

Here’s a visual explanation for how a faulty software update crippled machines.

How the airline cancellations rippled around the world (and across time zones)

Share of canceled flights at 25 airports on Friday

50% of flights

Ai r po r t

Bengalu r u K empeg o wda

Dhaka Shahjalal

Minneapolis-Saint P aul

Stuttga r t

Melbou r ne

Be r lin B r anden b urg

London City

Amsterdam Schiphol

Chicago O'Hare

Raleigh−Durham

B r adl e y

Cha r lotte

Reagan National

Philadelphia

1:20 a.m. ET

CrowdStrike’s stock price so far this year

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .