Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 113, Issue 17, Pages 4853-4858Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1518377113
Keywords
LSD; serotonin; consciousness; brain; psychedelic
Categories
Funding
- Safra Foundation
- Beckley Foundation
- Medical Research Council clinical development scheme grant
- Royal Society of New Zealand Rutherford Discovery Fellowship
- Wellcome Trust Fellowship [WT090199]
- Walacea.com
- Medical Research Council [1246121] Funding Source: researchfish
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Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is the prototypical psychedelic drug, but its effects on the human brain have never been studied before with modern neuroimaging. Here, three complementary neuroimaging techniques: arterial spin labeling (ASL), blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) measures, and magnetoencephalography (MEG), implemented during resting state conditions, revealed marked changes in brain activity after LSD that correlated strongly with its characteristic psychological effects. Increased visual cortex cerebral blood flow (CBF), decreased visual cortex alpha power, and a greatly expanded primary visual cortex (V1) functional connectivity profile correlated strongly with ratings of visual hallucinations, implying that intrinsic brain activity exerts greater influence on visual processing in the psychedelic state, thereby defining its hallucinatory quality. LSD's marked effects on the visual cortex did not significantly correlate with the drug's other characteristic effects on consciousness, however. Rather, decreased connectivity between the parahippocampus and retrosplenial cortex (RSC) correlated strongly with ratings of ego-dissolution and altered meaning, implying the importance of this particular circuit for the maintenance of self or ego and its processing of meaning. Strong relationships were also found between the different imaging metrics, enabling firmer inferences to be made about their functional significance. This uniquely comprehensive examination of the LSD state represents an important advance in scientific research with psychedelic drugs at a time of growing interest in their scientific and therapeutic value. The present results contribute important new insights into the characteristic hallucinatory and consciousness-altering properties of psychedelics that inform on how they can model certain pathological states and potentially treat others.
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