Children of the 80s will no doubt remember the “this is your brain on drugs” television PSAs in which a man cracked and fried an egg to represent the impact that using illicit substances would have on a person’s cognitive function:
Though dubbed one of the best commercials of all time by TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly, the ad was clearly not meant to provide an actual look at the damage that a drug could cause to a person’s gray matter – but scientists from Imperial College London and the Beckley Foundation have now, for the first time, visualized the effects on one such substance on the human brain.
The researchers, who reported their finding this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), conducted a series of experiments which demonstrated the impact that the psychedelic compound Lysergic acid diethylamide (also known as LSD) would have on the brain activity of 20 health volunteers being studied at a specialized research facility.
In most individuals, information from the eyes is processed by a region of the brain located near the back of the head known as the visual cortex, the study authors explained. However, in people who experience the dreamlike hallucinations commonly associated with LSD, additional parts of the brain also become involved in visual processing process, playing a role in the altered state of consciousness so often associated with use of the recreational substance.
Changes to visual processing lead to ‘altered consciousness’
As part of their research, Dr Robin Carhart-Harris from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London and his colleagues administered used a trio of neuroimaging techniques (arterial spin labeling, blood oxygen level-dependent measures, and magnetoencephalography) to analyze the brain activity of the volunteers during resting-state conditions.
“We observed brain changes under LSD that suggested our volunteers were ‘seeing with their eyes shut’ – albeit they were seeing things from their imagination rather than from the outside world,” Dr. Carhart-Harris said in a statement. “Many more areas of the brain than normal were contributing to visual processing under LSD – even though the volunteers’ eyes were closed.”
Furthermore, he added that the size of this effect “correlated with volunteers’ ratings of complex, dreamlike visions,” and that while the brain is normally comprised of “independent networks that perform separate specialized functions, such as vision, movement, and hearing,” when a person is under the influence of LSD, the individuality of those networks “breaks down,” resulting in what he described as “a more integrated or unified brain.”
Dr. Carhart-Harris said these findings suggest the observed changes underlie “the profound altered state of consciousness that people often describe during an LSD experience.” Normally, he said, the brain becomes more compartmentalized as a person ages, but the brain in the LSD state behaves more like it did during infancy.
Findings could help treat depression, psychiatric disorders
In a related study, published in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology, the researchers reported that they found altered visual cortex activity in people under the influence of LSD, and that the combination of the drug and music caused the region to receive more information from a part of the brain associated with mental imagery and personal memory.
As this part of the brain, the parahippocampus, communicated more with the visual cortex, the subjects reported experiencing more complex visions, such as re-living scenes from various parts of their lives, the authors said. The study marked the first time that scientists had observed the interaction between a psychedelic compound and music with the brain’s biology. They hope that the study will one day help with the development of a way to treat psychiatric disorders.
“A major focus for future research is how we can use the knowledge gained from our current research to develop more effective therapeutic approaches for treatments such as depression,” said Mendel Kaelen, a Ph. D. student and lead author of the music paper. “For example, music-listening and LSD may be a powerful therapeutic combination if provided in the right way.”
“Scientists have waited 50 years for this moment – the revealing of how LSD alters our brain biology,” added Professor David Nutt, the senior researcher on the study as well as the chair in neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial. “For the first time we can really see what’s happening in the brain during the psychedelic state, and can better understand why LSD had such a profound impact on self-awareness in users and on music and art. This could have great implications for psychiatry, and helping patients overcome conditions such as depression.”
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Image credit: Imperial College London
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