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LSD's impact on the brain revealed in groundbreaking images
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: April 18th, 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/apr/11/lsd-impact-b...
The profound impact of LSD on the brain has been laid bare by the first modern scans of people high on the drug. The images, taken from volunteers ... revealed that trippers experienced images through information drawn from many parts of their brains. Under the drug, regions once segregated spoke to one another. Further images showed that other brain regions that usually form a network became more separated in a change that accompanied users feelings of oneness with the world, a loss of personal identity called ego dissolution. David Nutt, the governments former drugs advisor ... and senior researcher on the study, said, This is to neuroscience what the Higgs boson was to particle physics. [Study co-author Robin] Carhart-Harris said, We saw many more areas of the brain than normal were contributing to visual processing under LSD, even though volunteers eyes were closed. The more prominent the effect, the more intense people rated their dreamlike visions. Under the influence, brain networks that deal with vision, attention, movement and hearing became far more connected. But at the same time, other networks broke down. The drug can be seen as reversing the more restricted thinking we develop from infancy to adulthood. The study could pave the way for LSD or related chemicals to be used to treat psychiatric disorders. Nutt said the drug could pull the brain out of thought patterns seen in depression and addiction through its effects on brain networks.
Note: For more, see an NPR article titled "How LSD Makes Your Brain One With The Universe". This ground-breaking study appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. While the war on drugs has been called a "trillion dollar failure", studies like this suggest the healing potentials of mind altering drugs are starting to be investigated more scientifically.
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