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Acute Effects of LSD on Amygdala Activity During Processing of Fearful Stimuli
- hprotagonist 10y agoI'd love to know how the trial could remain double blinded after administration of the LSD or placebo...
- itchyjunk 10y agoThe team looking at the fMRI might not be aware of which scans came from LSD Vs placebo.
- traek 10y agoThat's only single-blind (experimenters are blinded to test vs control, but subjects are not). It's impossible to keep subjects unaware of whether or not they were given acid, for obvious reasons.
- thisisforyou 10y agoThe paper includes a caveat at the end: "Our study has several limitations. First, although the trial was formally double-blinded, assignment to placebo or LSD was unavoidably unblinded by the obvious psychedelic effects caused by the dose used."
- ryandrake 10y agoYea, I'd love to see the placebo group. "Nope... still in this universe..."
- jrowley 10y agoIn some studies they use other drugs that illicit similar but different feelings, e.g ecstasy
- DaiPlusPlus 10y ago"similar but different feelings" - it can only be one or the other...
- jrowley 10y agoThey are similar but different. They both are a departure from being sober. I think in one study about ecstasy they used an amphetamine as the placebo, because both get you wired but in different ways.
- NikolaeVarius 10y agoThey are nowhere near similar in any capacity. It's like claiming that smoking and drinking produce similar effects
- dTal 10y agoFYI, the correct spelling is "elicit". "Illicit" means forbidden or illegal, ironically in this context.
- jrowley 10y agoHaha whoops. Thank you for that!
- thisisforyou 10y agoYou do raise an interesting point: would there be any value in emulating (some of) the subjective effects of a psychedelic to 'increase' blinding. Perhaps have all study participants wear VR headsets piping in video from their surroundings, then randomly assign a 'trippy' filter across groups so that some of the placebo group might (mistakenly) think that they were tripping?
- hprotagonist 10y agoIt's been done before. The marsh chapel experiment had an active control -- participants who didn't get psylocibin got niacin instead, which causes some short-term physiological changes. It isn't perfect, but it's probably as close as you could get. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment
- dTal 10y agoNot quite the same, but my dad did an alcohol study once where the blinding was achieved by giving the test group a strong vodka-and-orange, and the control group a glass of orange juice into which had been poured a small amount of vodka over the back of a spoon, so that it floated on top. Both drinks therefore smelled strongly of alcohol. It's trickier with substances where the dose is undetectably tiny, but it seems there's certainly value in making people feel "trippy" so that they think they've had the active substance.
- anigbrowl 10y agoYeah it's pointless to even use that methodology when the psychoactivity of LSD is already well documented, and the effects are self-evident to the user. It might be appropriate in a microdosing trial or something but not in one where an active dose is being administered.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- itchyjunk 10y agoSo if I am reading this right, LSD reduced fearful reactions. I initially mis-read it as a correlation between LSD and fear. Part of the reason psychedelics is kept away from treatment is because of those occasional bad reactions. You never know who might get a bad trip and for what reason. I wish psychedelics were researched without the baggage of "possible treatment". This would allow for the study for it's own sake, imho. If anyone is interested in reading some first time experiences of random first time users here is a link. [0] ------------------- [0] https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_LSD_First_Times.shtml https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_LSD_First_Times.shtm...
- rubatuga 10y agoDefinitely agree with you about the possibility of an unexpected reaction: I had to experience my friend losing touch with reality, taking off his clothes, running around my dormitory almost naked, and finally pulling the fire alarm. He was last seen that day being handcuffed and put into an ambulance. In case you're wondering, he took about 200 ug of real LSD.
- corndoge 10y agoHad an almost identical experience with a somewhat seasoned tripper. More blood though.
- rjeli 10y agoI've never really understood these stories of people completely dissociating and doing crazy things. At high doses I can barely walk.
- always_good 10y agoI've started avoiding any thread on Reddit where LSD comes up. People talk about taking a milligram of it and walking around the city enjoying fractals while their friend repeats the phrase "I see Candyland" for 12 hours straight, and their other friend thought he was a chicken and started flapping his arms, "bok bok bok!" And everyone in the comments laughs and says "yeah, isn't acid crazy?" With defenses like "drugs affect everyone differently!" or "acid is known to cause insanity, albeit rarely!" invoked whenever you roll your eyes. Too cringeworthy for me. Starting to see it on HN now as well.
- researching0 10y agoThis may be interesting to those in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/63p20e/why_billionaires_should_be_intrigued_by/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/63p20e/why_billionai... (Why billionaires should be intrigued by psychedelic research)
- samrendall 10y agoThis is a little disappointing considering that their conclusions can be summarized with the sentence "These data suggest that acute administration of LSD modulates the engagement of brain regions that mediate emotional processing". Not particularly surprising to anyone who has ever tried or read anything about LSD
- jarmitage 10y agoA lot of the psychedelics literature is similarly unexciting unfortunately, but the reason is this "obvious" groundwork hasn't been done yet in a scientific context. So give it time and support and hopefully researchers' will have the opportunity to get to the more interesting bits!
- digi_owl 10y agoResearch 101 is about measuring and documenting results, even if they agree with popular knowledge. It is what separate anecdote from data.
- rbanffy 10y agoIn other words, the cure for fear is acid.
- digi_owl 10y agoPossibly. but don't just go down a tab hoping to get rid of a phobia. LSD is a key, not a door.
- rbanffy 10y agoThat would never occur to me - I'm more interested on what would change in political views if more people used LSD. Fear-driven politics have been central to many changes in the past years. Maybe LSD could have spared us.
- mythrwy 10y agoI'm guessing people might perceive that politics is simply a manifestation of ego games not dissimilar to hierarchical rituals of chimpanzees and this is unlikely to change ever until human nature itself changes. Along with the astonishingly unlikely glimmer of hope that human nature can in fact change.
- rbanffy 10y agoOr maybe the conscious decisions not to behave like chimps with alopecia ;-)
- parshimers 10y ago"Oh Amygdala, Oh Amygdala... Have mercy on the poor bastard!"
- FullMtlAlcoholc 10y agoInteresting. I would have come to the oppisite conclusion, namely that lsd would increase the response to fearful stimuli. It makes sense. My friends who have had bad trips weren't triggered by fearful, external stimuli. They were caused mostly by repressed emotions or thoughts that lsd or mushrooms brought to the fore. From my experience and observations, bad trips can be powerful experiences that have a positive effect, forcing you to face that which you have hidden away. Of course, it can be damaging as well.
- WhitneyLand 10y agoA commenter here said, [this only measured a small chemical effect and did not make any claims about real fear] Let me add some color for you, it's absolutely real. I predict the drug will eventually be validated as one of the most powerful and useful therapeutic substances discovered to date. >>impaired recognition of fearful faces, while it did not significantly affect recognition of neutral, happy and angry faces This characterization is a bit misleading. Recognition of faces is not impaired at all, recognition is also not impaired of some of your most terrifying inner thoughts. Instead, you recognize them fine and are simply not bothered because you perceive them in an unbiased, rational context. >>exhibits some ‘empathogenic’ effects (such as increased openness and trust) Some? I know, good medical science has to be conservative. However empathy, emotional connection and understanding, can become almost savant like. I won't give an example - too hard to offer an anecdote and not sound hyperbolic or like an exaggerated account. How's this: I believe it to be significantly understated. >>positive long-term effects outlast acute pharmacological effects Let that sink in. Who would believe taking an anti-depressant once could change your life years later? They would not believe it, because like every other mental health drug, anti-depressants can easily stop working (to the degree they work at all) as soon as you stop taking them. This is not like that. It's some kind of unusual mechanism that for reasons not yet entirely clear, is just very different from other drugs. I would ask that no one act on my opinion by using illegal drugs. I'm not worried about liability, or even legality. The problem is simply that self-administering street drugs comes with quite a bit of risk that for some reason, a lot of people don't mind ignoring. Worst case you could be intentionally poisoned as part of a scam and die. You could get the wrong substance, for example fentanyl is unknowingly taken all the time, and again easily die. You might somehow get the real thing, but precise dosing is difficult enough that overdosing LSD is very common. Having the wrong dose will not kill you, but the results can be bad enough many people feel like death would have been an easier option. Some people believe that impurities and imprecise dosing are responsible for a lot of what people describe as "bad trips".
- M_Grey 10y agoI don't have a dog in this hunt, I will simply point out that people who have used LSD have been claiming that it's pretty much magic, that everyone should try it, etc... for decades. The very guarded initial ventures into real research seem to be entirely secondary to the evangelical zeal of some people who have taken the drug in question, and feel it's "essential". Edit: I should point out that obviously, they could have reached this conclusion because it is that amazing, but a lot of people have ironclad convictions about everything from drugs to religion after all. The research should hopefully offer an answer that can be, frankly, believed.