IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDONTwo papers—one published in PNAS on Monday (April 11) and another in Current Biology today (April 13)—report how brain activity is altered in people given doses of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Using two different brain imaging approaches, the authors of both studies detailed the particular changes in activity that associate with arguably the best-known effects of LSD: visual hallucinations and an increased sense of unity with one’s surroundings—referred to in the Current Biology paper as “ego dissolution.”
“This work is very important with regards to the insights it gives us on how hallucinogens, specifically LSD, affect the brain,” said psychiatrist and behavioral scientist Charles Grob of the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in either study. “Now we have a better understanding of the neurobiological substrate for the psychedelic experience.”
Research into psychedelic drugs, such as LSD and psilocybin—the hallucinogenic component in magic mushrooms—took a nosedive in the 1960s and 70s, following the banning of these substances. “Research with humans was not occurring in the United States and Europe from [then on],” said Grob. By the 90s and 2000s, research on these drugs started to slowly pick up, Grob said, reflecting a “greater receptivity on the part of the ...
