How psychedelic drug psilocybin works on brain:
What is known is that this region contains a large number of receptors targeted by psychedelic drugs such as LSD or psilocybin ¾ the hallucinogenic chemical found in certain mushrooms. To see what happens in the claustrum when people are on psychedelics, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers compared the brain scans of people after they took psilocybin with their scans after taking a placebo.
Their findings were published online on May 23, 2020, in the journal NeuroImage.
The scans after psilocybin use showed that the claustrum was less active, meaning the area of the brain believed responsible for setting attention and switching tasks is turned down when on the drug. The researchers say that this ties in with what people report as typical effects of psychedelic drugs, including feelings of being connected to everything and reduced senses of self or ego.
"Our findings move us one step closer to understanding mechanisms underlying how psilocybin works in the brain," says Frederick Barrett, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a member of the school's Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. "This will hopefully enable us to better understand why it's an effective therapy for certain psychiatric disorders, which might help us tailor therapies to help people more."
Frederick S. Barrett, Samuel R. Krimmel, Roland Griffiths, David A. Seminowicz, Brian N. Mathur. Psilocybin acutely alters the functional connectivity of the claustrum with brain networks that support perception, memory, and attention. NeuroImage, 2020; 116980 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116980
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday June 08 2020, @08:46PM (1 child)
They were regularly hanging out at festivals, and yes, Leary was quite smart and lucid the entire time, definitely not brain-fried. That's not to say that it's impossible to mess up your brain with drug use - I've known quite a few that have - just that acid doesn't seem to be one of the ones that does it provided you have people around you can trust to keep your body safe when you're tripping.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2020, @10:12PM
Well, acid is less likely but it can happen.
I've known deadheads who - well I guess pot was mixed in, but I don't know stoners with the degree of change that the deadheads exhibit. They're great, I love 'em, but they're super fried from years of heavy heavy acid use.
LSD can precipitate existing vulnerabilities conditions.
Maybe extreme doses of LSD can possibly throw a mind askew on their own. I'd like to see case studies of accidental extreme dosages.