Block 8 at Colorado College is an undeniably boisterous time. The weather is beautiful (or at least it’s supposed to be), people’s moods are at their best, and fun events, school-sponsored or otherwise, are added to schedules at breakneck speeds.
As the school year’s last musical event, Llamapalooza, which is scheduled to return this Saturday after a one-year hiatus imposed by last year’s apocalyptic weather, has a special place in student’s hearts. With the live music and positive vibes, there is also a chance that a small army of students will be consuming Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, acid, or LSD.
Due to its classification as a schedule I drug, research-funding programs are unable to fund LSD-based studies, resulting in a drug poorly understood on a scientific level. As a result, most of what is known about the drug is purely anecdotal.
A recently published study by David Nutt at the Imperial College London has changed preconceived ideas. Nutt monitored brain activity by placing subjects who had either taken a hit of acid or a placebo in an MRI scanner.
Nutt, who is the first to look at LSD brain-imagery, was able to skirt the funding restrictions imposed against schedule I drug research by crowdfunding his study online.
“Psychedelics have been part of human culture,” Nutt said as a part of his crowdfunding pitch. “[LSD research] has had the worst censorship of science there has ever been, and I want to rectify that.”
When the LSD high peaked, regions in the brain associated with high serotonin receptor (5-HT2 receptors) densities exhibited an increase in activity. These receptors are scarce yet found throughout the cerebral cortex, the region of the brain that receives and processes sensory information. Once activated, these receptors communicate freely with each other, with neurons receiving information that otherwise would not be transmitted, resulting in surreal perceptual experiences.
With these observations, researchers reached the same conclusion that many users, including acid’s accidental founder and strong advocate, Albert Hoffman, have made for a while now; the boundaries between yourself and the world are erased while high on the drug. Nutt and his fellow authors recognized this feeling as “ego dissolution.”
“Ego dissolution is the phenomenon by which psychedelics like LSD change the patterns of connections between cortical areas such that we no longer have a coherent sense of self,” explained CC Associate Psychology Professor Lori Driscoll. “Instead, ‘self’ is perceived to be equivalent to everything—and, when you are experiencing altered perception, ‘everything’ can be pretty, or holistic, or even terrifying, depending on which cortical areas are in communication.”
The excitation of these often dormant neuronal connections results in a sensory experience unlike anything the brain could produce on its own.
Thanks to the groundbreaking research by Dr. Nutt, we now know exactly which areas of the brain are involved in this state of hallucination. Further advancements in the field will likely soon follow.
The progress in research offers many interesting and exciting possibilities for the study of this traditionally taboo substance, studies that could allow for LSD’s integration into therapy programs and subsequently reduce the stigmas surrounding this infamous drug.