Despite the significant limitations to a retrospective design, this database warrants caution in mental health patients. The use of LSD and psilocybin in mental health patients may be associated with serious short- and long-term side effects. Until further trials with rigorous designs have cleared these drugs of their potential harms, their clinical utility in these groups of patients has not...
Rationale Accumulating evidence indicates that the mixed serotonin and dopamine receptor agonist lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) induces an altered state of consciousness that resembles dreaming. Objectives This study aimed to test the hypotheses that LSD produces dreamlike waking imagery and that this imagery depends on 5-HT2A receptor activation and is related to subjective drug effects....
Zusammenfassung Hintergrund Der Einsatz von serotonergen Halluzinogenen (Psychedelika) wie Lysergsäure-Diethylamid (LSD) und Psilocybin und Entaktogenen wie 3,4-Methylendioxymethamphetamin (MDMA) im Rahmen von Psychotherapie ist in den letzten Jahren wieder zunehmend ins Licht des wissenschaftlichen Interesses gerückt. Die vorliegende Arbeit fasst die aktuelle Evidenz zur substanzunterstützten...
Rationale Renewed interest has been seen in the use of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in psychiatric research and practice. The repeated use of LSD leads to tolerance that is believed to result from serotonin (5-HT) 5-HT2A receptor downregulation. In rats, daily LSD administration for 4 days decreased frontal cortex 5-HT2A receptor binding. Additionally, a single dose of LSD acutely increased...
Abstract Music is a highly dynamic stimulus, and consists of distinct acoustic features, such as pitch, rhythm and timbre. Neuroimaging studies highlight a hierarchy of brain networks involved in music perception. Psychedelic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) temporary disintegrate the normal hierarchy of brain functioning, and produce profound subjective effects, including...
The broad overlap between dreaming and psychedelic states supports the notion that psychedelics acutely induce dreamlike subjective experiences which may have long-term beneficial effects on psychosocial functioning and well-being. Future clinical studies should examine how therapeutic outcome is related to the acute dreamlike effects of psychedelics.
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is perhaps one of the best‐known psychoactive substances and many structural modifications of this prototypical lysergamide have been investigated. Several lysergamides were recently encountered as ‘research chemicals’ or new psychoactive substances (NPS). Although lysergic acid morpholide (LSM‐775) appeared on the NPS market in 2013, there is disagreement in...
The psychoactive properties of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) have fascinated scientists across disciplines and the exploration of other analogues and derivatives has been motivated by deepening the understanding of ligand-receptor interactions at the molecular level as well as by the search for new therapeutics. Several LSD congeners have appeared on the new psychoactive substances (NPS)...
Abstract Objective This study aimed to describe self‐reported patterns of use and effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) analogues (AL‐LAD, 1P‐LSD, and ETH‐LAD) and the characteristics of those who use them. Methods An anonymous self‐selected online survey of people who use drugs (Global Drug Survey 2016; N = 96,894), which measured perceived drug effects of LSD and its analogues. Results...
All modern clinical studies using the classic hallucinogen lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in healthy subjects or patients in the last 25 years are reviewed herein. There were five recent studies in healthy participants and one in patients. In a controlled setting, LSD acutely induced bliss, audiovisual synesthesia, altered meaning of perceptions, derealization, depersonalization, and mystical...
This chapter studies the dramatic appearance of LSD on the news agenda in reports on scientific studies using drugs to simulate madness, and the concurrent discussion of mystical, mind-expanding drug use sparked by the publication of Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception. In addressing these topics, journalists introduced American audiences to new drugs and to the use of drugs to create mental...
This chapter details the celebrity coverage of Timothy Leary in the early 1960s and interest in LSD at Time and Life, where the publisher Henry Luce was becoming increasingly outspoken about his interest in the drug. Reporters often treated Leary—a Harvard psychologist removed from his job as a result of drug experimentation—with skepticism while still permitting him to explain the LSD...
Abstract What is the level of consciousness of the psychedelic state? Empirically, measures of neural signal diversity such as entropy and Lempel-Ziv (LZ) complexity score higher for wakeful rest than for states with lower conscious level like propofol-induced anesthesia. Here we compute these measures for spontaneous magnetoencephalographic (MEG) signals from humans during altered states of...
Abstract Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) induces profound changes in various mental domains, including perception, self-awareness and emotions. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the acute effects of LSD on the neural substrate of emotional processing in humans. Using a double-blind, randomised, cross-over study design, placebo or 100 μg LSD were orally...
LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is a model psychedelic drug used to study mechanism underlying the effects induced by hallucinogens. However, despite advanced knowledge about molecular mechanism responsible for the effects induced by LSD and other related substances acting at serotonergic 5-HT2a receptors, we still do not understand how these drugs trigger specific sensory experiences....
LSD induces profound psychedelic effects, including changes in the meaning of percepts. The subjective effects of LSD are fully blocked by a 5-HT2A receptor antagonist. LSD may alter meaningfulness by increasing activity in cortical regions responsible for processing personal attribution.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is used recreationally and in clinical research. The aim of the present study was to characterize the pharmacokinetics and exposure-response relationship of oral LSD. METHODS: We analyzed pharmacokinetic data from two published placebo-controlled, double-blind, cross-over studies using oral administration of LSD 100 and 200 µg in 24 and...
A core aspect of the human self is the attribution of personal relevance to everyday stimuli enabling us to experience our environment as meaningful [1]. However, abnormalities in the attribution of personal relevance to sensory experiences are also critical features of many psychiatric disorders [2, 3]. Despite their clinical relevance, the neurochemical and anatomical substrates enabling...
Over the past decade, monitoring systems have identified the rapid emergence of new psychoactive substances (NPS). While the use of many NPS is minimal and transitory, little is known about which products have potential for capturing the attention of significant proportions of the drug consuming market. The aim of this study was to explore self-reported experiences of three commonly used NPS...
SUMMARY The prototypical hallucinogen LSD acts via serotonin receptors, and here we describe the crystal structure of LSD in complex with the human serotonin receptor 5-HT2B. The complex reveals conformational rearrangements to accommodate LSD, providing a structural explanation for the conformational selectivity of LSD’s key diethylamide moiety. LSD dissociates exceptionally slowly from both...