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posted by mrpg on Wednesday January 30 2019, @04:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-chicken-crossed-the-road-to-do-LSD dept.

Study shows how LSD interferes with brain's signalling

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. [...] 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.

Effective connectivity changes in LSD-induced altered states of consciousness in humans (open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1815129116) (DX)

Related: Research into Psychedelics, Shut Down for Decades, is Now Yielding Exciting Results
Research Into Psychedelics Continues
Lucy in the Sky With Protein: Key to LSD's Psychoactive Potency Possibly Found
From 'problem Child' to 'prodigy'? LSD Turns 75


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday January 30 2019, @06:09PM (8 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday January 30 2019, @06:09PM (#794162)

    The reason LSD is illegal is because conservatives wanted to stick it to those anti-war hippie types in 1968, and they couldn't make it illegal to be an anti-war hippie but they could go after the mostly harmless stuff the hippies were doing. This was in the face of research that both psychologists and the CIA had done that suggested it had a lot of beneficial effects. It's still illegal for basically the same reason.

    I've never tried it, but I know people who very occasionally take hits and find the experience really wonderful. Then again, some of those people hung around with Dr. Timothy Leary back in the day, so their viewpoint is likely biased a bit.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday January 30 2019, @06:26PM (7 children)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday January 30 2019, @06:26PM (#794166) Journal

      Conservatives don't believe the Constitution applies to anyone that looks different from them or thinks different from them.

      You can see a lot of evidence for this claim right here on this very website.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Farkus888 on Wednesday January 30 2019, @07:11PM (5 children)

        by Farkus888 (5159) on Wednesday January 30 2019, @07:11PM (#794185)

        True, but the liberals don't think much of the conservatives favorite part of the constitution either. Both sides are at least as interested in hurting the other as getting the thing they claim to want.

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @07:30PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @07:30PM (#794198)

          Republicrats is one party... I can't believe people still think otherwise. They are both on the side of distracting you about pointless crap like a 5 billion dollar wall or abortion while taking away your rights and scamming you. DO NOT VOTE FOR THEM.

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday January 30 2019, @07:53PM (2 children)

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday January 30 2019, @07:53PM (#794216) Journal

          Any gun restrictions that the Supreme Court agrees don't violate the 2nd amendment would be applied equally to all citizens.

          So, no, your equivalency is false.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Farkus888 on Thursday January 31 2019, @01:40AM

            by Farkus888 (5159) on Thursday January 31 2019, @01:40AM (#794329)

            First of all, I meant to use the plural parts. You singled out the second amendment not me. I'll bite anyway. Statistically speaking I agree that Republicans are more likely to like guns. A ban on tampons affects men and women equally by your logic though.

          • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday January 31 2019, @07:00AM

            by deimtee (3272) on Thursday January 31 2019, @07:00AM (#794437) Journal

            Any gun restrictions that the Supreme Court agrees don't violate the 2nd amendment would be applied equally to all citizens.

            You can fix that statement by removing some words : "Any gun restrictions violate the 2nd amendment."
            I am not in the USA but any reading of the second amendment makes it quite plain that any law that restricts weapons at all is unconstitutional, regardless of what excuses the SC may make to allow them. They should strike down every arms control law until 'the people' amend the constitution, and update the 2nd to fit a modern society.

            --
            If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
        • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday January 30 2019, @11:47PM

          by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday January 30 2019, @11:47PM (#794289)

          the conservatives favorite part of the constitution either.

          Which part is that? A sibling poster assumed it was the 2nd Amendment, but as far as I can tell their actual favorite part of the Constitution is Article 2, Section 2, which enumerates the powers of the presidency, including their favorite part naming him Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Because it's one thing to be manly with your own AR-15, it's another thing to be manly with a whole army with tanks and planes and such.

          Libertarians seem to like the 2nd Amendment, but if you look at what the last few Republican presidents have actually done you'll see nothing that suggests they care about it all that much. After all, why use your own guns when you can order 2 million other people to use theirs?

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 30 2019, @07:31PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday January 30 2019, @07:31PM (#794201) Journal
  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Rupert Pupnick on Wednesday January 30 2019, @07:57PM

    by Rupert Pupnick (7277) on Wednesday January 30 2019, @07:57PM (#794219) Journal

    How do I sign up for the next study?

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Rich on Wednesday January 30 2019, @08:13PM (2 children)

    by Rich (945) on Wednesday January 30 2019, @08:13PM (#794225) Journal

    Just yesterday I happened to stumble across the simulated annealing algorithm for NP-hard optimizations. The idea is that at the beginning of the search (and then with decreasing likelihood) random steps into a seemingly wrong direction of the problem space are taken. This avoids getting stuck at local maxima. I guess there are similar schemes for training neural networks. It looks like the described mechanism causes a such an effect in the brain. Through the "overload", the brain reaches associative patterns it could otherwise not get to, because it is stuck in a "local maximum". As the effect decreases, the function gets back to normal, but by this time, the newly seen patterns can be applied to the normal function - but with an increased repertoire of "ideas" to apply to problems.

    Or so. Interesting.

    • (Score: 1) by Marvin on Thursday January 31 2019, @06:41AM (1 child)

      by Marvin (3019) on Thursday January 31 2019, @06:41AM (#794430)

      Wow! I don‘t have any knowledge in neuroscience or psychology, but this sounds damn cool!

      • (Score: 2) by Rich on Thursday January 31 2019, @03:03PM

        by Rich (945) on Thursday January 31 2019, @03:03PM (#794544) Journal

        I don‘t have any knowledge in neuroscience or psychology, but this sounds damn cool!

        Cool, until you get stuck on the wrong local maximum on "return". That would result in what they call "psychosis".

        But then, I don‘t have any knowledge in neuroscience or psychology either. I was just making some naive guesses. Haha.

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