Going on a “trip” to alleviate depression. Can small doses of LSD actually alleviate
anxiety and depression? Everybody
experiences anxiety and depression at some point in their lives. Whether the condition is serious or not
depends on the person. But one thing is
for sure, anxiety and depression are can be very serious mental health
problems. There are several different
treatment options for both of these mental health problems, and all of the
treatments work differently depending on the patient. One surprising treatment option proposed by
some researchers is treating these conditions with small amounts of
hallucinogenic drugs. It may seem a
little odd prescribing a powerful drug such as LSD, and many would argue that
prescribing this drug would even worsen the patient’s condition. But, apparently prescribing 1/10th
of a normal LSD dose every four days to a patient can in fact be an effective
treatment. This dosage would not create
hallucinations in the patient and would not lower the patients cognitive skills
based on the limited research available.
“Microdosing” as it is called as improved several symptoms in the
patients and has improved the sleeping ability, eating habits, as well social
skills. Even though there has been
several positive results from treating patients though microdosing, the
researchers are not totally sure how it all works. They have suggested that it may have
something to do with LSD’s effects on the nervous system or the brain
stem. But one thing is for sure, most of
the patients that have undergone this treatment have had extremely positive effects,
while only very few of them said that their conditions did not improve. It is stressed however that LSD and hallucinogenics
are very dangerous drugs and should not be self-administered. The science behind this treatment is very
limited due to the nature of the drug and the fact that it is an illegal
drug. But, there are some promising
effects that have been shown in patients with anxiety or depression. More research needs to be done to understand
how and why the effects take place, and maybe then LSD could then be used as a
form of treatment.
I am assuming that the drug affects the nervous system, and
primarily would affect the SNS because that branch deals more so with
stress. LSD has been thought to work similarly
to serotonin which is a neurotransmitter responsible for regulating moods,
appetite, sleep, and sensory control. It
may interfere with the way that the brain’s serotonin receptors work as
well. If anyone has some information on
this topic let me know!
Article Link: http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/can-lsd-help-alleviate-anxiety-and-depression-0
I have actually read quite a bit about LSD as a form of treatment for stress since I have PTSD and it is interesting that this "illegal" drug might be the key to alleviating it in military men and women who otherwise can't seem to break away for the symptoms of it. This topic was huge in the 50's but then the government shut down research because of all the drug abuse in the 60's, but recently clinical trials have won approval at major research institutions, such as John Hopkins. The researcher who received the first government grant to study psychedelics in 30 years says that they are not addictive, others might argue this but he is the leading expert in the field. He stated in an article written about him that, “What I wasn’t prepared for,” he says, “is people would come in two months later and I would say, ‘Well, so what do you think of the experience?’ And they’d say … ‘It was one of the most important experiences in my life.’" One of the patients also stated a year after his initial treatment that, "There has been a shift from trying to micro-manage life to trusting intuition and spontaneity. … I’m more focused on values and process and less likely to feel long-range goals are set in stone. I am again involved professionally and socially. Most significantly, life has continued to open up, a move away from the depression and what felt like a downward spiral. Somehow, the psilocybin re-engaged a fullness of function that had been lost." I think this is very important when it come to looking at how stress and anxiety affect ones life. If this can be the reaction after just one dose of a psychedelic imagine what the persons life would be like after manageable macrodosing for a long period of time.
ReplyDeleteI also found that most psychedelics cause some of their most prominent effects in the prefrontal cortex—an area involved in mood, cognition, and perception—as well as other regions important in regulating arousal and physiological responses to stress and panic