The orange colouring shows areas of the brain experiencing increased resting-state connectivity
PLACEBO
LSD
For a time, his peers agreed.
Psychiatrists around the world
deployed the drug in their quest to
understand the human condition,
exploring it as a treatment for
conditions such as schizophrenia
and alcoholism. Of course, many
scientists yearned to understand
what was going on in the brain
itself, but these were early days for
neuroscience: the MRI scanners
we now use to study the brain did
not appear until the 1970s.
A few studies measuring the
electrical activity inside the brain
using electroencephalogram (EEG)
readings found reductions in the
activity of the brain under LSD. But
before anyone could delve deeper,
research ground to a halt, as the
US and other countries banned the
drug from 1966.
In 2012, Carhart-Harris published
a study of the brains of people who
had been dosed with the
hallucinogen psilocybin.
Counterintuitively, he found that
the drug decreased, not increased,
the flow of blood to a constellation
of regions known as the ‘default
mode network’, considered by
some to be the ‘seat of the self’. In
a normal state, these regions are
crucial to keeping our experience
of the world stable.
Similarly, Dr Draulio de Araujo of
the Brain Institute at the Federal
University of Rio Grande do Nor te
in Brazil has studied the effects of
the hallucinogenic brew
ayahuasca, and found that the
drink – which contains the potent
psychedelic DMT – also reduces
blood flow to the default mode
network. “This is important
because in depression we see the
opposite pattern,” he said. “So this
gives us clues as to the potential
use of psychedelics as
antidepressants.”
With the initial study finished,
Nutt is sure LSD will be “invaluable”
in helping us understand the nature
of the sober mind, consciousness
and the brain. “To paraphrase
Isaac Newton: we can see further
because we are standing on
Hofmann’s shoulders,” he said.LSD
is a class-A
drug and is
illegal in the
UK