a post by Derek Beres for the Big Think blog
Nuances in psychological disorders are difficult to understand. While researchers are becoming more apt at discovering the neurochemistry of emotional turmoil, too many variables – many relating to trauma, genetics, and environment – make a silver bullet unlikely. Add in the placebo effect and it’s unlikely we’ll progress far with any singular remedy.
Or maybe we’ve just been looking in the wrong places. Though it was swept into the pile of supposedly useless (but highly addictive) substances during Nixon’s war on drugs (and on the radicals and minorities who consume them), lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), along with other Schedule 1 substances – cannabis, psilocybin, and ecstasy – are proving quite therapeutic indeed.
Researchers at the University of Zurich recently dosed twenty-four volunteers with 100 micrograms of LSD (or a placebo; or LSD alongside ketanserin, which blocks LSD’s effects) and scanned their brains. The volunteers were instructed to make eye contact with an avatar while inside the scanner. Only the LSD group exhibited proof a reduced sense of self, which the researchers believe could help patients suffering from a variety of emotional disorders, including depression.
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As with all the recent articles about psychedelic drugs being used to relieve mental distress there are lots of maybes, possiblies, suggesteds etc and all the research is being done under strict medical conditions.
Please do not experiment for yourself.
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