LSD, Anxiety, Depression and Brain Entropy

LSD has recently become of interest again after a prolonged break since the early 1970ies (Liechti, 2017). A study has found that six to eight psychotherapy sessions, accompanied by two sessions where LSD has been administrated in a controlled environment, effectively lowered anxiety in patients with a terminal or life-threatening disease (Gasser, Kirchner & Passie, 2015). Patients with ongoing severe diseases often suffer from depression, isolation and substantial anxiety. Two thirds of those patients involved in the study experienced less fear of death and a rise in the quality of life. They felt more patience, experienced less inner withdrawal and more openness and acceptance for their situation. The entropic brain theory states that psychedelic experiences put the brain in an entropic state. Brain areas that are usually not connected with each other communicate in a chaotic manner (Carhart-Harris et al., 2014). In patients with depression, OCD and addiction this might help to snap the brain out of its default mode where the same old pathways are used and a patient gets entrenched in habit. Entropy is creating chaos within those entrenched habits and through its innate uncertainty connects parts of the brain and creates new patterns. Is has been found that psilocybin and LSD can have positive effects on depression (Stroud et al., 2017).

References

                 Carhart-Harris, R., Leech, R., Hellyer, P., Shanahan, M., Feilding, A., Tagliazucchi, E., Chialvo, D. R. & Nutt, D. (2014). The entropic brain: a theory of conscious states informed by neuroimaging research with psychedelic drugs. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8:20.  doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00020

                Gasser, P., Kirchner, K., & Passie, T. (2015). LSD-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety associated with a life-threatening disease: A qualitative study of acute and sustained subjective effects. Journal of Psychopharmacology Vol. 29(1) 57–6. DOI: 10.1177/0269881114555249

                 Liechti, M. E. (2017). Review: Modern Clinical Research on LSD. Neuropsychopharmacology, 42, 2114–2127. doi:10.1038/npp.2017.86

                Stroud, J.B., Freeman, T. P., Leech R., Hindocha, C., Lawn, W., Nutt, D., Curran, H.V., Carhart-Harris, R. L. (2018). Psilocybin with psychological support improves emotional face recognition in treatment-resistant depression. Psychopharmacology, 235:459–466 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-017-4754-y

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