KOPIN 271The studies of LSD at NIH typify the results of Seymour Kety’s
philosophy of directing science. Seymour Kety had invented the means
for measuring cerebral blood flow and brain metabolism. He started out
as a physiologist but ended up as a psychiatrist, responsible for the devel
opment of the concept that schizophrenia has a genetic basis. Kety
was my respected and admired mentor, as well as the mentor of many
other scientists. His leadership, research and teaching led many, including
me, to regard him as the father of biological psychiatry. In confirmation
of this, in 1999, just six months before his death, Seymour Kety received
the Albert Lasker Award for a Lifetime Special Achievement in Medical
Science. Seymour Kety’s approach directing research is best described
in his own words, quoted from an oral interview by his colleague Philip
Holzman, a professor of psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Belmont,
Massachusetts: “I had confidence that the best way to direct people’s interest
toward mental illness was by having it directed by themselves. One could
hope that this could be accomplished in a consortium of scientists work
ing in their own field but getting together once in a while at lunch, at
conferences, learning a little bit about mental illness and perhaps finding
out how something they were interested in might fit into the picture.”
And how successful Kety was at accomplishing this! Some of the
many studies conducted at the NIH that examined different aspects of
the effects of LSD listed in Table 1 are examples of the outcome of his
direction. The first paper listed is one in which Louis Sokoloff, Seymour
Perlin, and Conan Kornetsky collaborated with Kety in describing
the effects of LSD on the cerebral circulation and brain metabolism. In
the next paper, Julius Axelrod, Roscoe O. Brady, Bernhard Witkop and
Edward V. Evarts described the metabolism of LSD. All four of these
scientists were later elected as members of the National Academy of
Sciences. Edward Evarts and Wade Marshall examined the electrophy
siological effects of LSD. After World War II, because of the electronic
advances, it was possible to record, without noise, signals from the brain
and even from single cells. A whole room on the fourth floor of the
NIH Clinical Center was devoted to the equipment required for these
studies. There were no microchips at the time, and recordings required
relatively large electronic tubes. As some may remember, the first computers