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Neurotoxicity of serotonergic psychedelics??

Although LSD may not be physically addicting, would it not be the most damaging psychological drug out there? (AMT/DMT/misc other drugs aside).

LSD forces you to have a "spirtual revelation" for 8 hours. Monks and other holy worshipers work and meditate years to achieve this nirvana. No doubt that the trip of LSD could alter your way of thinking for life. Teenagers step into the trip thinking it's no big deal and the trip just blows them away. People who have experienced psychologic traumas such as a murder of a loved one, being taken hostage, etc are scarred for life.
 
There are psychological risks and potential benefits with any psychoactive drug. Thats primarily a matter of how they are used. I've never heard of anyone's LSD trauma leaving a lifetime scar comparable to witnessing the murder of a loved one. But hey...lets sensationalize things.
 
Yea I know, I just wanted to make a connection between the 2.

The fact is your probaly not going to go crazy from taking LSD, but taking any psychadelic often can inspire various personality changes, most of them not positive.

Most if not all of the ridiculous things teachers say regarding neurotoxicity and psychadelics are not true.

But if one were you take too much LSD, or experience a trip so powerful, couldn't he die from overheating or dehydration?
 
I love Tim Leary's "8 circuits of consciousness" - truly inspired nonsense. It's right up there with Terence McKenna's "Fractal theory of time" mapping onto the Mayan calendar. So maybe too much acid is a - badbad trip after all??? Then again - read the mythology behind Scientology, or the Mormons - absolute batshit & no evidence of psychedelic use there. The relationship between cellular brain function and mind/personality/behaviour is extremely complex - establishing causality is damn near impossible, or even worth the trouble half the time.

But I think the evidence is pretty strong that LSD doesn't cause brain damage at a cellular level - at least compared to alcohol!!
 
but taking any psychadelic often can inspire various personality changes, most of them not positive.
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Instead asking you to quantify and prove the "most of them not positive" part I'll just emphasize in the spirit of harm reduction that whether or not the results or positive or not depends heavily on the individual and on the context of one's use. People who are not emotionally developed or mature enough (i.e. most teenagers and a fair number of adults too) are not ready for altered states, especially forceful ones like those imposed on you by psychedelics.

As for the dehydration/overheating thing, I don't think acid can do that directly. However it can concievably make you unaware of your body enough for you to do that to your self.
 
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^hear hear! Acid has always been kind to me, but I didn't take it until I was 22. I always put effort into set & setting too (almost always 8o )
 
If LSD were discovered today there is no way it would do the rounds as liberally as it did before. Totally synthetic strong drugs like dob and fentanyl are relatively well defined in their mode of action. Then you get on to the strongest semi-synthetic drugs such as LSD, dihydroetorphine & PPOM and we are getting drugs so potent that they will blitz out almost ALL the receptor sub-types! These drugs are so potent, it is little wonder why when people talk about acid they say things like "it'll burn a hole in ye brain". But even people who take regular tryptamines can get their thoughts mixed-up so I guess saying that 'neurons get scrambled' suits LSD.
 
There is no data to back this up, just person reports. If you want a "published study" have a re-read of Electric Cool-aid Acid test, see how many of that group went completely shit crazy after massive acid abuse. A bit more that one would expect from the population average.
 
^^^

Gee thats really 'scientific' of you. Controlled set and setting, subjective diagnosis of "shit crazy", correlation, causation, etc. etc. There actually is more controlled research on LSD available. Read Grof's LSD psychotherapy.
 
^ Yeah, but a lot of the people who officially 'lost the plot' in the above Tom Wolfe book were a bit flakey/loose in the head before they ever got anywhere near LSD. If it was that bad, you'd think someone like Kesey or Ken Babbs would have been gibbering idiots - last interview I saw with Kesey (a couple of years before he died), he just seemed a colourful character, but other than that, he was fully in control of his faculties - and he took a lot of acid in those few years (as well as a lot of DMT, AMT and many other psychedelics).

The very lifestyle that the Merry Pranksters were persuing would be enough to attract more than the average number of flakey people. Most came out of that period of their life with an appreciation of the bizzare, but not raving loons


Also, some like Neal Cassidy were also very fond of amphetamine - and we all know that it is a good way to loose the plot
 
Most 'dead heads' and other hippie types that I know seem to be happy and well adjusted people, despite all of the cultural biases people might judge them with.
 
Ok, I am the biology student ebola was referencing in the first post.

It looks like this thread has spiraled off in a different direction, but let me re-state the issue. My professor said (and I quote), "LSD is neurotoxic in the raphe nuclei."

This is a very specific claim, and considering the fact that no papers come up in a search for "neurotoxicity raphe nuclei lsd," it makes me wonder why my professor would make such a claim.

Either there is some brand new research "in progress" that I am unaware of, or his definition of "neurotoxic" is different than mine.

I mean, what do you think he meant by "neurotoxic"?
 
^^^Err... the ability of LSD to produce in the subject permanant neurological damage?

Consider how sensitive the serotinergic system is. Thousands, if not millions, of people have their serotinergic systems modified daily by prescribed doses of SSRI's and the like. Looking at this simple fact proves that the mere stability (which I would look into as a possible factor for proving/disproving neurotoxicity) of the human serotinergic system is *highly* variable and any claims of neurotoxicity associated with the system are most likely speculation.

I doubt anyone in this thread can make the claim that their hypothesis is correct with any relative confidence....
 
I said there was no data, the best you could do was a book. It seemed to me, you were saying, "No there is data, it is in a book"... I was implying that data worth exaiming doesn't live in a book.
 
und, and can not produce rationally constructed conversations.
However, I know people who have taken just as much hallucinogens as that, and are perfectly fine.
I suspect that 5-HT receptor mediated neurotrophic factor release can leave the brain in a highly plastic state. Perhaps, after a long or particularly engraining trip, if one doesn't try to ground oneself, or only hangs out with other people tripping, you could somehow alter the nature of your brain, leaving your somehow permanently "fucked".
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I'm really interested in this aspect of drug effects.

Please forgive me if me questions use layman's terms:

1) Does the 5-HT (serotonin right) receptor you speak of here the same one that MDMA affects?
2) Do you know which neurotrophic factors are released with drug use? (amphetamines or tryptamines/mdma)
3) Would the increased learning ability that amphetamines can produce related to neurotrophic factor?
4) Do neurotrophic factors as released from tryptamine use stimulate neuronal tissue or glial tissue growth?

I have often experienced an ability to "move on" or "move forward" from emotional or intellectual ideas that I form and think of when on psychadelics. I was curious as to how much psychadelics allow for brain changes to occur... as you were saying, more plastic. Maybe like we are temporarily allowing great change to occur in a short time?

I found a good primer on neurotrophic factors:
Neurotrphic Factors

So....... wouldn't finding/using drugs that promote NGF's be VERY interesting?
 
1) Does the 5-HT (serotonin right) receptor you speak of here the same one that MDMA affects? MDMA releases 5-HT which effects all serotonin receptors.

2) Do you know which neurotrophic factors are released with drug use? (amphetamines or tryptamines/mdma) 5-HT2a receptor agonism is accociated with upregulation of BDNF in the cortex (in the rat atleast), and some very limited evidence for GDNF release as well. Whether amphetamines increase serotonin release at recreational human doses is another matter.
3) Would the increased learning ability that amphetamines can produce related to neurotrophic factor? Who says that amphetamines increase learning? Procedural learning, sure, but explicit memory? I've never seen any evidence to support this.
4) Do neurotrophic factors as released from tryptamine use stimulate neuronal tissue or glial tissue growth? Probably both.

So....... wouldn't finding/using drugs that promote NGF's be VERY interesting?
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They allready know that hallucinogens increase BDNF release.


And to glogga, I don't know when or why you started having a problem with me; if you want to start insulting me, and picking at comments that I made which were jokes, just don't bother.
 
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^^^^

Jokes? It didn't come across to me like you were joking. It seemed more to me like you were psychopathologizing drug users, drug experiences and drug culture. I just wish we would get over the 1950's approach to psychiatry/psychology if we are going to that. Oh well ;)
 
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