Forget the old egg-in-a-frying pan bit — scientists finally know what your brain really looks like on drugs. A team of British-based researchers have conducted the first brain scans of people under the effects of LSD. They published their results this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The drug, administered via IV, led to major changes in how different components of the brain interacted. “Normally our brain consists of independent networks that perform separate specialized functions, such as vision, movement and hearings, as well as more complex things like attention,” study co-author Robin Carhart-Harris of the Imperial College London explained in a statement. “However, under LSD the separateness of these networks breaks down and instead you see a more integrated or unified brain.”
They also found that under LSD, many different areas of the brain contributed to the processing of visual information.
That finding goes a long way to explain why so many people under the effects of LSD report seeing vivid, dream-like hallucinations — even with their eyes closed
— Washington Post