LSD can rearrange brain connections and help cure depression

Research shows that drugs like LSD and psilocybin (found in hallucinogenic mushrooms) contain substances that can help cure some diseases. Scientists reported in a recent article in the journal Scientific Reports that LSD is able to redefine connections that cause mental health problems.

Some examples of diseases that can be alleviated or cured are depression, substance use disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder. According to the authors, the opportunity to "restart" the brain can change the lives of people living with chronic mental illness.

"I feel that, as Western societies, we tend to label and marginalize mental illness rather than seeing it as a fairly normal reaction to extreme and abnormal circumstances, " said Dr. Selen Atasoy, author of the paper and postdoctoral researcher. at the Center for Brain and Cognition at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, ​​in an interview with PsyPost.

The good side of drugs

Recent research in Conectoma - a theoretical map of all brain connections - indicates that mental illness results from unusual connectivity patterns. Thus, the healing potential of psychedelic drugs comes from their ability to alter these bonds.

The authors conducted a study of 12 participants using LSD and placebo. Under the influence of LSD, the brains of individuals demonstrated a harmony of functional waves in various areas and in a non-random manner.

Readapting the brain

They call this "repertoire expansion, " suggesting that the brain areas under the influence of LSD have become connected to other areas that they generally do not work with.

In addition, the way these connections formed was not random but structured, suggesting that the brain was going through a process of reorganization rather than indiscriminately building connections.

Doctor's prescription

Although the reorganization process slowed as the effects of LSD disappeared, the researchers found that some degree of reorganization persisted in participants' brains, often translating to relief from distressing symptoms of mental illness.

Of course, before doctors start thinking about prescribing LSD to treat mental illness, researchers must first determine what exactly the neurological reorganization that occurs during the psychedelic experience implies, how long it lasts, and perhaps most importantly. how it alters a person's subjective experience long after the drug's effects subside.