DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
9jacheatbase.tk
HTML https://9jacheatbase.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: World News
*****************************************************
#Post#: 26--------------------------------------------------
Scientists Find How Magic Mushrooms Alter The Mind
DIR By: kingrollex
Date: July 4, 2014, 5:59 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists studying the
effects of the psychedelic chemical in magic
mushrooms have found the human brain
displays a similar pattern of activity during
dreams as it does during a mind-expanding
drug trip.
Psychedelic drugs such as LSD and magic
mushrooms can profoundly alter the way we
experience the world, but little is known about
what physically happens in the brain.
In a study published in the journal Human
Brain Mapping, researchers examined the
brain effects of psilocybin, the psychedelic
ingredient in magic mushrooms, using data
from brain scans of volunteers who had been
injected with the drug.
"A good way to understand how the brain
works is to perturb the system in a marked
and novel way. Psychedelic drugs do precisely
this and so are powerful tools for exploring
what happens in the brain when
consciousness is profoundly altered," said Dr
Enzo Tagliazucchi, who led the study at
Germany's Goethe University.
Magic mushrooms grow naturally around the
world and have been widely used since
ancient times for religious rites and also for
recreation.
British researchers have been exploring the
potential of psilocybin to alleviate severe
forms of depression in people who don't
respond to other treatments, and obtained
some positive results from early-stage
experiments.
In the United States, scientists have seen
positive results in trials using MDMA, a pure
form of the party drug ecstasy, in treating
post-traumatic stress disorder.
DREAM-LIKE STATE
People who use psychedelic drugs often
describe "expanded consciousness", including
vivid imagination and dream-like states.
To explore the biological basis of these
experiences, Tagliazucchi's team analyzed
brain imaging data from 15 volunteers who
were given psilocybin intravenously while they
lay in a functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) scanner.
The volunteers were scanned under the
influence of psilocybin and when they had
been injected with a placebo, or dummy drug.
The researchers looked at fluctuations in what
is called the blood-oxygen level dependent
(BOLD) signal, which tracks activity levels in
the brain.
They found that with psilocybin, activity in the
more primitive brain network linked to
emotional thinking became more pronounced,
with several parts of the network - such as the
hippocampus and anterior cingulate cortex -
active at the same time. This pattern is
similar to when people are dreaming.
They also found that volunteers on psilocybin
had more disjointed and uncoordinated
activity in the brain network that is linked to
high-level thinking, including self-
consciousness.
"People often describe taking psilocybin as
producing a dreamlike state and our findings
have, for the first time, provided a physical
representation for the experience in the brain,"
said Robin Carhart-Harris of Imperial College
London's department of medicine, who also
worked on the study.
"I was fascinated to see similarities between
the pattern of brain activity in a psychedelic
state and the pattern of brain activity during
dream sleep, especially as both involve the
primitive areas of the brain linked to emotions
and memory."
*****************************************************
Page 1 of 1