[HN Gopher] Psychedelic scientist sends brains back to childhood
___________________________________________________________________
Psychedelic scientist sends brains back to childhood
Author : headalgorithm
Score : 81 points
Date : 2023-06-15 12:13 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| unstatusthequo wrote:
| https://archive.is/jd5oW
| nanidin wrote:
| The headline sounds exactly like the premise of Crouch's
| Recursion.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Interesting factoid in the preamble: the biochemical basis of the
| addictive nature of social media?
|
| > "Oxytocin and serotonin, she found, work together in a brain
| region called the nucleus accumbens to produce the good feelings
| that come from social interaction."
|
| LSD and similar drugs can definitely improve one's
| 3D-visualization capabilities, but I think this requires putting
| in a fair amount of work on the concepts beforehand. It's
| reminiscent of the saying, 'chance favors the prepared mind', so
| if you spend say a month working extensively with 3D models of
| molecules, proteins, platonic solids and what not and then (under
| controlled conditions) ingest a psychedelic, a cognitive
| breakthrough is possible, such as gaining the ability to
| visualize what a 3D object looks like after successive x-, y-, z-
| axis rotations and so on, which is useful skill in many fields,
| from auto mechanic to protein chemist to structural architect.
|
| Nice to see this subject finally being studied in a rigorous
| manner, at least.
| more_corn wrote:
| Lone and meandering article refusing to get to the point promised
| in the headline.
| JPLeRouzic wrote:
| This publication by the same scientists is probably more
| interesting:
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06204-3
|
| " _Here we demonstrate in mice that the ability to reopen the
| social reward learning critical period is a shared property
| across psychedelic drugs._ "
| avodonosov wrote:
| Thank you for that! I was going to ask if a scientific
| abstract is available.
| MrDresden wrote:
| Yeah, just skimmed it and it comes down to:
|
| Psychadelics seem to have the ability to leave the user (after
| the actual 'trip' has worn off) in a state of heightened
| receptiveness for a long duration (length is different
| dependent on the drug, but counts weeks in some cases). This
| state is called a 'critical period' and is usually experienced
| in childhood.
|
| This state might allow for easier digestion of new material,
| forming new habits or skills or allow the user to be taken
| advantage of (Charles Manson, and his LSD fueled cult, is
| mentioned in this regard).
| criddell wrote:
| I wonder if that would be a way for adults to acquire perfect
| pitch?
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| It's worth noting this is not new knowledge, it's completely
| obvious to anyone who's tried psychedelics. I haven't
| properly dug through the paper for all the details yet, maybe
| there's some interesting nuggets of new insight in there.
|
| But so far it's looking like this is further confirming what
| us psychonauts have always sort of understood. It's very
| encouraging to get rigorous science to back the intuition up
| though. It will obviously help guide future research in
| clinical applications.
|
| Here's the actual most recent research paper:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06204-3
| avodonosov wrote:
| Thank you for finding so mild words to describe the style of
| this article.
| rendx wrote:
| "There is, of course, a catch. For mice, having a critical period
| open for too long causes neural disruptions. Some experts fear
| that, for people, carelessly flinging wide the doors of personal
| development could put the very core of their identity in jeopardy
| by erasing the habits and memories that make them them. A
| critical period is also a time of vulnerability. While childhood
| can be filled with wonder and magic, children are also more
| impressionable. "We can really screw kids up much more than we
| can adults," she says. This is why responsible adults intuitively
| know to protect children from exposure to potentially scary or
| disturbing material. Or, as Dolen puts it, "You want to teach
| children new things, but you don't want them to learn Japanese
| from Japanese porn."
|
| An adult who undergoes this kind of treatment to heal PTSD could,
| in the wrong hands, end up traumatized further. In the worst
| scenarios, patients could be vulnerable to abuse. Unscrupulous
| therapists or other predators could try to use psychedelics to
| manipulate others, Dolen says. This is more than paranoid
| speculation. Quite a few experts, Dolen included, think that
| Charles Manson's ability to completely brainwash his followers
| relied on the high doses of LSD he regularly gave them prior to
| bombarding their minds with hate-filled lectures and murderous
| orders."
| kodah wrote:
| > An adult who undergoes this kind of treatment to heal PTSD
| could, in the wrong hands, end up traumatized further.
|
| There's a lot of variables there. I can only speak to my
| experience. I started seeing psychedelics getting talked about
| in veterans circles and was curious about them. My trauma stems
| from many sources, but what's common is a lost of innate trust,
| and the end result is that trust is easier to tear down quickly
| than build up. Not great for healthy relationships,
| communication, and a number of life's necessities. I decided to
| wait on trying them and went about doing things like CBT to
| change my behavior and focus on getting out of this anxiety
| riddled loop I was in.
|
| Fast forward a decade and I was really at a point where I just
| needed help letting go of my trauma. I'd dealt with it, there
| was nothing more to be done, yet still the door would not shut.
| If you're at a place where the metaphorical door won't shut,
| psychedelics can be a helpful tool. You're really going to
| already need to be in a place where you can be mindful
| (present) and focus on what you want to change. After you've
| tripped you really need to unpack where your mind went and why;
| that's to say separate the garbage from the work to be done.
|
| Not everyone should do psychedelics just because they're
| seeking healing. They can provide that, but you need to be in
| the right place and willing to do the work. Being triggered in
| the middle of a trip is a good way to really re-traumatize
| yourself in the way that reading about trauma identical to
| yours can be traumatizing.
| randomopining wrote:
| Sounds like the reason why there's a backlash against exposing
| kids to all of these controversial topics in the "culture wars"
| in the West.
| toss1 wrote:
| Nah. That would be because one political party sustains
| itself by keeping it's voter base on a treadmill of fear and
| outrage, is moving strongly towards authoritarianism, and has
| a large contingent specifically intent on implementing a
| flavor of religious fascism called Dominionism (cf. "Seven
| Mountians Mandate").
|
| These latest "topics in the culture wars" are simply that,
| the latest usable tools that can be used, along with
| exaggerating and flat-out lying about the topics, to maximize
| the outrage of their voter base to drive turnout.
|
| Meanwhile, it also helps the authoritarian causes to maximize
| the demonization of these same "other" minority groups, and
| trans groups are both easy and fresh targets. (Nevermind the
| facts: there are essentially zero cases of people in drag
| being any kind of threat to children, while there are
| literally thousands of cases of religious 'leaders' from the
| very same sects, sexually abusing children, with new cases
| every day.)
|
| Stop trying to normalize marginalizing people.
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| "That would be because one political party sustains itself
| by keeping it's voter base on a treadmill of fear and
| outrage," Pot calling the kettle black right here
| sbelskie wrote:
| Can you expand on this? I find it hard to understand what
| similarities you see to what children today are being
| "exposed" to and Charles Manson drugging people with LSD and
| convincing them to kill other people.
| riskable wrote:
| I think they're suggesting that young children--in their
| critical (mental) periods--can somehow turn gay or
| transgendered due to exposure/normalisation of gay and
| trans people.
|
| Except there's no science to back this up. All the
| scientific articles I've ever seen on the topic of gender
| and sexuality seem to indicate that the critical period for
| those attributes develop in the _womb_ and not during
| childhood.
|
| The most likely reason for such deviations from what
| conservatives would consider, "normal sexuality" is
| endocrine-distrupting pollution. The kind that causes
| amphibians to change their sex, for example.
| theprincess wrote:
| I think you're right.
|
| On one side, you see adults who believe that sexuality and
| cross-gender identification are immutable, or at least
| practically immutable. Their goal is to expose e.g.
| heterosexual kids to the idea that some of their peers will
| be different from them so that they aren't shocked and
| scandalized by it later, then lash out unfairly as a result
| of prejudice against the unknown.
|
| On the other side, you see adults who equate deviations from
| acceptable expressions of sexuality and gender - you don't
| see many conservatives boycotting national brands over young
| boys at hooters or child beauty pageants featuring little
| girls - as being inherently obscene. They naturally want to
| protect children from what they see as obscene and abnormal.
|
| They both believe that they have children's best interests at
| heart.
|
| That said, based on all available data, it seems like
| sexuality and gender identification are mostly immutable and
| that truth will slowly win out in the end. For example,
| nearly every conservative has met a little boy who acted
| remarkably girlish since toddlerhood and grew up to be gay
| unsurprisingly. Seeing that process play out, then claiming
| that gayness is a social contagion requires cognitive
| dissonance.
|
| It's a part of the process of social change.... The last huge
| wave of homophobia that had legal consequences was in the
| 1970's and was led by a group called "Save the Children" --
| it's all just the same dynamics repeating, except today it's
| more-so around broader gender norms, as opposed to a narrow
| focus on "men sleep with women". This video does a great job
| of laying it out through that sort of lens:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6qUxa30SFA
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| DISCLAIMER: all advice given here is given under the assumption
| that you did your research, and that you have good reasons why
| you're interested in psychedelics as a tool. They're a powerful
| tool, and powerful tools cut both ways. Turning into a new age
| woo head is a real risk, I've seen it happen to the staunchest of
| sceptics, no one is immune. Do your research, people, test your
| drugs, and be careful.
|
| I think this research sort of puts the kibosh on microdosing as a
| paradigm, which has been my intuition all along. If you really
| want the potential from psychedelics, microdosing is sort of the
| wrong approach I always thought.
|
| What you want to do instead is take them maybe once a year at
| most, though just one trip in a lifetime can be sufficient
| depending on your situation, then spend the following period of
| plasticity putting a lot of effort into changing your life the
| way you want to, establish habits, pick up new techniques,
| whatever it is you want to accomplish. You will learn faster, be
| more able to establish habits. And that learning is forever. You
| can reap the benefits for the rest of your life, completely
| sober.
|
| I have done extensive self experimentation with microdosing of
| various psychedelics and the results were fairly clear to me. I
| _felt_ smarter, and overall pretty great. I felt like I was
| making all these brilliant connections. But whenever there was an
| objective source of truth available, it became clear this was all
| an illusion, I was struggling to make connections that would
| otherwise be obvious to me, and that made it feel more
| significant than it was.
|
| Chess, for instance, was one such source of truth. Played a
| couple long games against evenly matched opponent(rated and
| everything). Made a complete ass of myself. Played easily 3-400
| elo points below my usual level. And all the while thinking I was
| playing brilliantly and calculating deep lines, I was really just
| imagining lines that never worked. My working memory was
| terrible. Time management completely off.
| randomopining wrote:
| So you are convinced the real benefits lie in macro and not
| micro?
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Yes. I should have specified that. Rare, larger doses.
| pengaru wrote:
| > I felt smarter, and overall pretty great. I felt like I was
| making all these brilliant connections.
|
| And here I thought the whole point of micro-dosing is the dose
| is too small to _feel_ _anything_ at all.
|
| AIUI what you're calling microdosing is still in the realm of
| macrodosing, and no shit your working memory and time
| management was affected. What you were _feeling_ were low-key
| hallucinations.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Sure, I tried doses that literally didn't do anything, but
| they literally didn't do anything. There was no magical
| functional in between land there. It was either nothing at
| all, or very slight lift in mood and significant side
| effects, especially as it went on for days.
| justmacro wrote:
| Well, I guess what do you mean by feel? I've taken micro-dose
| amounts, 10-20ug, and have definitely realized I had taken
| something, but only if I really focused on it. It's certainly
| not the same as taking 50ug, but you can feel your body
| working a little differently. Maybe you have to get into
| amounts even smaller than that? Or maybe it's just placebo? I
| don't know, hard to say.
|
| I do agree with the GP though, sometimes the thing you need
| is to just jump into a full on 100-150ug trip and hang out in
| it for the day. Let yourself regain some of that open state
| and change up the habitual patterns you may not know you're
| locked into over the course of the next days and weeks. I
| personally end up doing it about once a year, give or take,
| and it always ends up being a positive experience (if
| sometimes difficult).
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >Chess, for instance, was one such source of truth. Played a
| couple long games against evenly matched opponent(rated and
| everything). Made a complete ass of myself. Played easily 3-400
| elo points below my usually level. And all the while thinking I
| was playing brilliantly and calculating deep lines, I was
| really just imagining lines that never worked. My working
| memory was terrible. Time management completely off.
|
| As a supplemental anecdote, I won my first chess tournament at
| Manhattan Chess club in the early 1990s while dosed on a
| significant amount of mushrooms. Certainly the perception of
| time is an issue and I'm certain the results would have been
| different if the game had been shorter (as most games are these
| days), but in a 120 + 60 it wasn't an issue.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Interesting. What kind of state of mind are we talking about
| here? Threshold, above threshold, etc? I've never played a
| tournament game on a threshold or above dose before. I did
| play a casual game on a very large dose(probably 50 or 75mg)
| of 2c-b once, but I could barely discern the board at that
| point, and the results were... as expected.
| funnym0nk3y wrote:
| There is so much psychedelic research happening right now. But
| when will it reach patients outside of trials?
| themagician wrote:
| When it can be sufficiently monetized.
| Solvency wrote:
| Move to California. Order mushrooms from literally thousands of
| local websites and surprisingly reputable proprietors.
| NeuroCoder wrote:
| Beginning of my MD PhD program a guy who was big in that field
| and tried small scale trials gave a whole schpill about how big
| pharma was unfairly blocking this. Then I spent over an hour
| talking to him about it. This field has a huge challenge
| finding a consistent and reproducible outcome to aim for. When
| I pressed the guy he was pretty clear that there were
| participants in these studies that has pretty bad outcomes and
| would have been in bad shape if there wasnt a medical team on
| hand.
|
| Im sure we will find a use for this someday but research has to
| do more than prove it is sometimes good for people. We need to
| know how to consistently identify those people who need it and
| the outcome desired.
| haswell wrote:
| > _When I pressed the guy he was pretty clear that there were
| participants in these studies that has pretty bad outcomes
| and would have been in bad shape if there wasnt a medical
| team on hand_
|
| Are you aware of source-able examples of this?
|
| I've been paying attention to the field for awhile, and I was
| under the impression that between pre-screening (people at
| risk for psychosis and a few other specific psychiatric
| issues should not participate), and proper set/setting,
| negative outcomes have been rare, and there is a high
| percentage of extremely positive outcomes.
| kcrwfrd_ wrote:
| I just acquire mushrooms on my own and discuss the trips with
| my psychiatrist. He's always quite enthusiastic about it and
| I've found them to be very helpful.
| mtizim wrote:
| Most of the psychedelic research I've seen boils down to "take
| psychedelics and do stuff to get a result, here's why you get
| the result". You can absolutely take psychedelics and do stuff
| yourself.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| The American Medical Association says 'no no this is so
| unsafe, you need a Physician who completed US residency,
| doesnt matter if they are a lifelong expert in the craft from
| Europe, you pay our cartel or else. Ignore our blood letting,
| opioid, and ivermectin dark pasts.'
|
| I dream of a science based medical system in the future.
| funnym0nk3y wrote:
| But what stuff to do?
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| Seems to be CBT therapy. I'm not sure if I would recommend
| DYI if only because it's very hard to stick to a lesson (or
| any other) plan when you're on shrooms. Just practically -
| it's very hard to read for example
| parksoha wrote:
| [dead]
| mtizim wrote:
| I'd say just do them and come up with stuff to do. There
| are many of non-science forums on psychedelics, and you can
| quickly get the general idea how they can help you. But if
| you want to be sciency about it, read the aforementioned
| journals and do the "stuff" they describe yourself.
| Compared to experimental compounds, many are very easy (and
| often legal) to obtain. (but probably not legal to possess)
| RobotToaster wrote:
| When they create a synthetic derivative that can be patented.
|
| Exactly like happened with ketamine as esketamine.
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| Anybody have a tl;dr? I don't want to read about the seashell
| collection on the researcher's desk.
| nevertoolate wrote:
| Research seems to prove that psychedelics can be a tool for
| opening up the so called critical periods. Critical periods
| are, in my understanding, the highly receptive periods of
| learning - brain wiring and rewiring. Childhood is abundant in
| these periods, but they open up in adulthood naturally after
| trauma, e.g. stroke as high plasticity periods, which go away
| quickly and possibly are too short. Totally subjective take:
| future result might be able to explain /why/ psychedelics have
| profound effect. Interestingly the life-changing traumatic
| experiences have similar effect, creating these critical
| periods - body responds to extreme conditions with risky high
| brain plasticity periods.
| mikrl wrote:
| The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley is pretty accessible and
| although not scientifically rigorous, provides an _ahem_
| ergonomic framework for thinking about psychonautics (which I
| have, of course, never engaged in)
| Xen9 wrote:
| I use LSD for similar reasons.
|
| I actually ordered a lifetime supply of acid and got into big
| trouble from that.
|
| Really good stuff, makes me joyous.
| bakedoatmeal wrote:
| How do you keep a lifetime supply of LSD? Isn't it an unstable
| molecule with a limited shelf life?
| h0l0cube wrote:
| Someone accidentally tripped on LSD while cleaning a vintage
| synth from the 60s
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/1960s-rock-
| music-s...
| pantalaimon wrote:
| It keeps pretty well when kept cold and dry.
| Xen9 wrote:
| The plan was to order 350 tabs to Finland.
|
| The 300 tabs letter was scanned with lights and got caught.
|
| The 50 tabs letter actually arrived but was obviously lost
| because customs began their investigation.
|
| In Finland, LSD happens to be "an extremely dangerous"
| substance and 350 tabs gets "offensive / serious drug crime"
| (349 would not necessarily). I didn't know this; kind of
| funny.
|
| However, this was all calculated in the sense that with all
| probability I will not go into prison nevertheless. Simply
| cannot try again any criminal activity in Finland / ever /
| for a long while.
|
| LSD will last long time stored properly. Putting those small
| bags that packages use to remove moisture into airtight
| plastic bag and that into dark place where tempest doesn't
| vary lots.
| thesaintlives wrote:
| Er no... LSD stored correctly can last an awfully long time.
| A lifetime supply for one person? Sure unless that person is
| Timothy Leary and his entourage!
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| I refuse to take any despite wanting to.
|
| I have thoughts on how it works, at a not physical realm.
|
| What makes you flip bit to joyous? What chemical or physical or
| physiological change happens? Does it wear off?
|
| I'm not depressed. I was at one point and found the solution. I
| have extensive joy. Yet I want to try because I think it does
| something that isn't the same bit flip you're experiencing.
| M4v3R wrote:
| At normal doses (<200ug for lsd) the experience is much
| milder than what reading stuff on the internet makes you
| think. It will not make you see dragons, nor permanently
| alter your brain in any significant way, if at all. It does
| wear off after 12 hours although sometimes there's an
| "afterglow" (a very very mild sensation of being high) that
| can persist for few days.
|
| What is does is exactly what the article explains - it
| unlocks the inner child in you. You will be curious about
| everything, everyday objects will suddenly become interesting
| as if you saw them for the first time. Your senses might
| become connected, some people "see" music with their eyes
| closed for example. It will make your mind go places that it
| normally rarely or never visits and you'll be able to think
| about stuff from angles you didn't pay attention to before.
|
| It is a very powerful and useful tool if used correctly.
| Xen9 wrote:
| This describes my experience accurately.
|
| Also going to toilet feels strange.
| dylkil wrote:
| Using your phone feels strange too
| Mouthfeel wrote:
| [dead]
| krrrh wrote:
| Her interview on the Psychoactice podcast was really good if you
| want more than this article delivers.
|
| Primarily she's getting closer to a more appropriate definition
| of what a psychedelic is, with the more common modern usage
| including ketamine and MDMA instead of just tryptamines. All of
| them seem to re-open a critical period of learning through
| different mechanisms.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-06-16 23:01 UTC)