scholarly journals Improved colour blindness symptoms associated with recreational psychedelic use: Results from the Global Drug Survey 2017

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 205032452094234
Author(s):  
JEC Anthony ◽  
A Winstock ◽  
JA Ferris ◽  
DJ Nutt
Keyword(s):  
Preliminary Data ◽  
Lysergic Acid ◽  
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide ◽  
Colour Perception ◽  
Neural Connections ◽  
Drug Ingestion ◽  
Cortical Areas ◽  
Psychedelic Drugs ◽  
Psychedelic Drug ◽  
Colour Blindness

It is well documented that psychedelic drugs can have a profound effect on colour perception. After previous research involving psychedelic drug ingestion, several participants had written to the authors describing how symptoms of their colour blindness had improved. The Global Drugs Survey runs the world’s largest annual online drug survey. In the Global Drugs Survey 2017, participants reporting the use of lysergic acid diethylamide or psilocybin in the last 12 months were asked,    We have received reports from some people with colour-blindness that this improves after they use psychedelics. If you have experienced such an effect can you please describe it in the box below, say what drug you took and how long the effect lasted. We received 47 responses that could be usefully categorised of which 23 described improved colour blindness. Commonly cited drugs were LSD and psilocybin; however, several other psychedelic compounds were also listed. Some respondents cited that the changes in colour blindness persisted, from a period of several days to years. Improved colour blindness may be a result of new photisms experienced in the psychedelic state aligning with pre-existing concepts of colour to be ascribed a label. Connections between visual and linguistic cortical areas may be enhanced due to disorder in the brain’s neural connections induced by psychedelics allowing these new photisms and concepts to become linked. This paper provides preliminary data regarding improved colour blindness accompanying recreational psychedelic use which may be further investigated in future iterations of the Global Drugs Survey or in a stand-alone Global Drugs Survey-managed psychedelics survey.

scholarly journals Acid trip: The history of LSD -- the original psychedelic drug

2007 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-23
Author(s):  
Erika Dyck
Keyword(s):  
Pharmaceutical Company ◽  
Research Laboratory ◽  
Lysergic Acid ◽  
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide ◽  
Roller Coaster ◽  
Salvador Dali ◽  
History Of ◽  
Psychedelic Drug ◽  
Visual Disturbances

In April 1943, Dr Albert Hofmann, a Swiss biochemist, dissolved a few micrograms of a newlysynthesized drug, d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), in a glass of water and drank it. Three-quarters of an hour later, he recorded a growing dizziness, some visual disturbances and a marked desire to laugh. After about an hour he asked his assistant to call a doctor and accompany him home from his research laboratory at the Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company in Zurich, Switzerland. He then climbed onto his bicycle and went on a surreal journey. In Hofmann's mind he was not on the familiar road that led home, but rather a street painted by Salvador Dali, a funhouse roller coaster. When he arrived home a doctor was ordered and found Hofmann physically fine, but mentally distraught.

scholarly journals Effect of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on reinforcement learning in humans

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan W. Kanen ◽  
Qiang Luo ◽  
Mojtaba R. Kandroodi ◽  
Rudolf N. Cardinal ◽  
Trevor W. Robbins ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reinforcement Learning ◽  
Computational Modelling ◽  
Lysergic Acid ◽  
Learning Rate ◽  
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide ◽  
Immediate Feedback ◽  
Healthy Humans ◽  
Learning Rates ◽  
Psychedelic Drugs ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe non-selective serotonin 2A (5-HT2A) receptor agonist lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) holds promise as a treatment for some psychiatric disorders. Psychedelic drugs such as LSD have been suggested to have therapeutic actions through their effects on learning. The behavioural effects of LSD in humans, however, remain largely unexplored. Here we examined how LSD affects probabilistic reversal learning in healthy humans. Conventional measures assessing sensitivity to immediate feedback (“win-stay” and “lose-shift” probabilities) were unaffected, whereas LSD increased the impact of the strength of initial learning on perseveration. Computational modelling revealed that the most pronounced effect of LSD was enhancement of the reward learning rate. The punishment learning rate was also elevated. Increased reinforcement learning rates suggest LSD induced a state of heightened plasticity. These results indicate a potential mechanism through which revision of maladaptive associations could occur.

scholarly journals LSD-stimulated behaviors in mice require β-arrestin 2 but not β-arrestin 1

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramona M. Rodriguiz ◽  
Vineet Nadkarni ◽  
Christopher R. Means ◽  
Vladimir M. Pogorelov ◽  
Yi-Ting Chiu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Serotonin Receptor ◽  
Lysergic Acid ◽  
Clinical Use ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Nicotine Abuse ◽  
Psychedelic Drugs ◽  
Motor Activities ◽  
Drug Actions ◽  
Psychedelic Drug ◽  
Anxiety Depression

AbstractRecent evidence suggests that psychedelic drugs can exert beneficial effects on anxiety, depression, and ethanol and nicotine abuse in humans. However, their hallucinogenic side-effects often preclude their clinical use. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a prototypical hallucinogen and its psychedelic actions are exerted through the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor (5-HT2AR). 5-HT2AR activation stimulates Gq- and β-arrestin- (βArr) mediated signaling. To separate these signaling modalities, we have used βArr1 and βArr2 mice. We find that LSD stimulates motor activities to similar extents in WT and βArr1-KO mice, without effects in βArr2-KOs. LSD robustly stimulates many surrogates of psychedelic drug actions including head twitches, grooming, retrograde walking, and nose-poking in WT and βArr1-KO animals. By contrast, in βArr2-KO mice head twitch responses are low with LSD and this psychedelic is without effects on other surrogates. The 5-HT2AR antagonist MDL100907 (MDL) blocks the LSD effects. LSD also disrupts prepulse inhibition (PPI) in WT and βArr1-KOs, but not in βArr2-KOs. MDL restores LSD-mediated disruption of PPI in WT mice; haloperidol is required for normalization of PPI in βArr1-KOs. Collectively, these results reveal that LSD’s psychedelic drug-like actions appear to require βArr2.

scholarly journals Changes in Online Psychoactive Substance Trade via Telegram during the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Matthijs Blankers ◽  
Daan van der Gouwe ◽  
Lavinia Stegemann ◽  
Laura Smit-Rigter
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Relative Increase ◽  
Lysergic Acid ◽  
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide ◽  
Psychoactive Substance ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Other Substances

<b><i>Background:</i></b> In this article, we present an evaluation of online psychoactive substance trade via Telegram, a free encrypted social media messenger service. The evaluation took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed us to monitor the effects of the spring 2020 lockdown in the Netherlands on substance trade via Telegram. <b><i>Objective:</i></b> The objective of this study was to evaluate whether changes in psychoactive substance trade on Telegram markets in the Netherlands can be observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Between December 2, 2019, and June 29, 2020, a total of 70,226 posts appeared in two analyzed Telegram groups. A total of 5,643 posts were psychoactive substance related. Based on the analyzed posts, Telegram is mostly a ‘“sellers” market as only a minority of the posts (6.3%) could be identified as a request for a substance. The proportion of posts related to specific substances varied between the periods before, during, and after the lockdown. The proportion of posts on the stimulants ecstasy, cocaine, and amphetamine was lower during the lockdown than before and after. For psychedelics – ketamine, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and 2,5-dimethoxy-4-bromophenethylamine (2C-B) – and other substances, there was a relative increase in the number of posts during the lockdown, which was maintained after the lockdown. <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> Telegram analysis shows that in the Netherlands, online psychoactive substance trade may have been affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. The direction of this effect was different for different classes of substances.

Production of Tolerance to Psychosis-Producing Doses of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

Science ◽  
1957 ◽  
Vol 126 (3281) ◽  
pp. 1020-1020 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. A. ABRAMSON ◽  
B. SKLAROFSKY ◽  
M. O. BARON ◽  
N. FREMONT-SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Lysergic Acid ◽  
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY OF LYSERGIC ACID DIETHYLAMIDE

1997 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kari Blaho ◽  
Kevin Merigian ◽  
Stephen Winbery ◽  
Stephen A. Geraci ◽  
Chantay Smartt
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Pharmacology ◽  
Lysergic Acid ◽  
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

Oral Sernyl in Obsessive States

1961 ◽  
Vol 107 (446) ◽  
pp. 109-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian M. Davies
Keyword(s):  
Preliminary Report ◽  
Therapeutic Agent ◽  
Lysergic Acid ◽  
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide ◽  
Psychological Disturbances ◽  
Synthetic Drug ◽  
Severe Disturbance

Sernyl, 1 aryl-cyclo-hexylamine, is a synthetic drug first used by the anaesthetists because, when given intravenously, it produces analgesia. However, the occurrence of psychological disturbances post-operatively led to the investigation of this drug by psychiatrists. It was found that Sernyl produces many interesting psychological disturbances, some of which resemble the primary symptoms of schizophrenia (Davies and Beech, 1960). In a previous paper (Davies, 1960) Sernyl was given intravenously to five patients with long-standing psychoneurotic illnesses. It proved to be an effective abreactive agent and produced some interesting results in three of the patients who had obsessional symptoms. Sernyl, in the doses used, is not an hallucinogen, though it produces other effects similar to lysergic acid diethylamide, which has been used extensively as a therapeutic agent, particularly in obsessional states (Sandison et al., 1954). The preliminary report suggested that Sernyl might have some practical advantages over LSD—in particular, it produced a less severe disturbance and its effects were over more quickly. Further investigations were clearly indicated and this present paper reports on the use of oral Sernyl in five patients with obsessional illnesses.

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