UK - Dr Robin Carhart-Harris is the first scientist in over 40 years to test LSD on..

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edgarshade

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Dr Robin Carhart-Harris is the first scientist in over 40 years to test LSD on humans - and you're next
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Independent
Laurence Phelan
Sunday 17 August 2014

With reader comments

On a hot evening in June, in a crowded room above a London pub, Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, a research associate in the Centre for Neuropsychopharma-cology at Imperial College, is giving a public talk about his work. He is having to make himself heard over the boozy commotion downstairs, where people are watching Chile put Spain out of the World Cup. But there is a slightly giddy atmosphere in the function room, too, because the doctor's area of research is as exciting as it is taboo: he is investigating the brain effects and potential therapeutic uses of psychedelic drugs.

Carhart-Harris is the first person in the UK to have legally administered doses of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) to human volunteers since the Misuse of Drugs Act of 1971, and his presentation climaxes with a slide showing something no one else has seen before: an as-yet unpublished cross-sectional image of the brain of a volunteer who was in an fMRI scanner while tripping on acid. Blobs of colour indicate changes in blood flow, from which can be inferred changes in levels of activity in specific brain regions – notably, in this case, the hippo-campus, which is involved, among other things, in making memories and giving them context.

"We've only looked in six brains so far," says Carhart-Harris when we meet a couple of weeks later in a coffee shop near his flat in Notting Hill. Born in Durham 33 years ago and raised in Bournemouth, he has an indie haircut and looks a bit like he could be the celebrity physicist Brian Cox's cooler younger brother. He is a careful and articulate speaker, but his enthusiasm for his work is evident. "We're at an early, but certainly promising, stage. It's really exciting," he says.
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More...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/p...st-lsd-on-humans--and-youre-next-9667532.html
 
an as-yet unpublished cross-sectional image of the brain of a volunteer who was in an fMRI scanner while tripping on acid.
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That is so exciting, to me as an LSD nerd anyway. I have been wanting someone to climb in MRI machine on LSD and find out what was really going on for years. The technology didn't even exist when LSD trials were halted. I would like to know if some of the physical side effects are "real" or all in your head and this is the only way to be sure.
And going in that machine tripping must be scary as shit.
 
And going in that machine tripping must be scary as shit.
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If you are not in the mood for classical music, then the MRI scanner must come as a relief!

"People typically play classical music in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy," says Carhart-Harris, "But we're going with some relaxing ambient stuff, particularly in the setting of a noisy MRI scanner."
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