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Study Shows How LSD Interferes With Brain's Signaling (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A group of volunteers who took a trip in the name of science have helped researchers uncover how LSD messes with activity in the brain to induce an altered state of consciousness. Brain scans of individuals high on the drug revealed that the chemical allows parts of the cortex to become flooded with signals that are normally filtered out to prevent information overload. The drug allowed more information to flow from the thalamus, a kind of neural gatekeeper, to a region called the posterior cingulate cortex, and it stemmed the flow of information to another part known as the temporal cortex. This disruption in communication may underpin some of the wacky effects reported by LSD users, from feelings of bliss and being at one with the universe to hallucinations and what scientists in the field refer to as "ego dissolution," where one's sense of self disintegrates.
For the study, the researchers invited 25 healthy participants into the lab to be scanned under the influence of LSD and, on another occasion, after taking a placebo. They were shown around the scanner beforehand to ensure they felt comfortable going inside when the drug took hold. Had the machine suddenly taken on a threatening demeanor, the scans might not have come out so well. The scientists wanted to test a hypothesis first put forward more than a decade ago. It states LSD causes the thalamus to stop filtering information it relays to other parts of the brain. It is the breakdown of this filter that gives rise to the weird effects the drug induces, or so the thinking goes. Scans of the volunteers' brains suggested there may be some truth to the hypothesis. On LSD, the thalamus let more information through to some parts of the brain and suppressed information bound for others. "What we found is that the model is mostly true, but how information is distributed to the cortex under LSD is much more specific than it predicts," a researcher said. The latest research is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
For the study, the researchers invited 25 healthy participants into the lab to be scanned under the influence of LSD and, on another occasion, after taking a placebo. They were shown around the scanner beforehand to ensure they felt comfortable going inside when the drug took hold. Had the machine suddenly taken on a threatening demeanor, the scans might not have come out so well. The scientists wanted to test a hypothesis first put forward more than a decade ago. It states LSD causes the thalamus to stop filtering information it relays to other parts of the brain. It is the breakdown of this filter that gives rise to the weird effects the drug induces, or so the thinking goes. Scans of the volunteers' brains suggested there may be some truth to the hypothesis. On LSD, the thalamus let more information through to some parts of the brain and suppressed information bound for others. "What we found is that the model is mostly true, but how information is distributed to the cortex under LSD is much more specific than it predicts," a researcher said. The latest research is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
I see monsters.
I think you should lay off the LSD.
Pretty sure I read this a while ago, not sure exactly how long though...
Reading that makes microdosing LSD sound little less crazy than you many might have thought.
Oh no, he’s outside... looking in.
#DeleteChrome
Ask anyone who has used LSD about the effects and one thing that will come startlingly clear no matter the reaction (good or bad): LSD breaks down mental barriers, at least temporarily. Whatever topic your brain moves towards you aren't going to easily dismiss it. Sucks that prohibition means it took 75 years to actually scientifically figure this out.
I'm having flashbacks to the last time you posted this story!! ðYðY
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I go past 2GB of data and verizon throttles me down to 2G edge speed. t..i..m..e.....d..i...a....l....a......t........e........s
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Or the brain modulates its emotion to produce other emotions and LSD stops that.
My brained is screwed after reading this.
After you screw-up your brain, you cannot possibly use your brain to accurately assess anything.
It's not a permanent effect, so you could accurately assess the results after the trip. If it prevents things you've been suppressing (which the experiment results point to be being true and done by the thalamus) you could easily fix that eating disorder/social anxiety/depression/self sabotage/or whatever other problem you have that you have been hiding from yourself.
I've never tried LSD myself, but I can see why some people who have problems might find benefit in it. (I'm too much of a geek and don't know how to get it, and I like my life enough not to mess with it.)
Micro-dosing was proven to have a testable effect in a double-blind experiment with controls. There was a post about this two days ago.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Ken Kesey described his experiences on LSD when he volunteered from the CIA's MKULTRA experiments. He pranked the researchers through the whole thing. Of course, one of the evaluations was to check the subjects' perception of time. Of course his sense of time was wasted (they used pretty high doses), but Kesey noted that the idiot checking wore his wrist watch into the room. So Kesey just checked the second hand on the guy's watch, and was able to tell him how much time had passed to the second.
Funny how researchers never consider things like that.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
>The dumbest thing any human being can possibly do is to mess with the proper operation of their own brain for recreational purposes.
Which I assume is why you avoid alcohol, tobacco, aspirin, coffee, and the many other mind-altering drugs our spociety approves of as well, right?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I mean, who would have thought that it lowered the filter... other than EVERY ONE WHO TOOK IT OR WROTE ABOUT IT in the sixties and seventies.
Interesting that I wrote a paper describing these results in 1990, based entirely on existing research found in the library at a community college in Dallas, TX, but somehow this news? I guess the difference is that people are finally becoming interested in the possibilities, instead of being hung up on the propaganda.
Anything you say will be held against you.
How could someone take an LSD placebo and be fooled into thinking it did something?
Good, except when it isn't. Then it's terrible.
Well that's the point, man. I've opened up those doors of perception, tore then right off the fucking hinges in fact, so I can see what is not obvious to the average Slashdotter. I can see for miles and miles.
And by the way, did you ever look at your nostrils? I mean really look at your nostrils? Feed your head.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Ahh yes. The Window Pane. Back in the day, I took a whole without planning my day.
Was forced to drive my car. I found myself driving in bouncy Max Fleischer cartoon world.
I think that I went someplace to sit it out. I don't remember that part.
Micro-dosing was proven to have a testable effect in a double-blind experiment with controls. There was a post about this two days ago.
I saw that, but that study wasn't really exploring the microdosing claims we've been seeing recently: things like increased creativity and so on.
soylentnews.org
I think everyone should for no other reason then to learn how to disassociate from social conditioning. Is amazing how easy is to be happy once all the things people demanded be the center of the universe arer now honestly regarded as the accumulated dogmatic residue you're born into. It enables choice in perception. Which is an important skill 4 personal emotional management, and perceiving the motives of oneself and others more clearly.
The artificial distinction born of arrogance where you pretend you're not another animal, is the seed deception that makes the rest of life so confused conflicted.