Spiritual Intent Influences Mystical Experience

Information gleaned from an online survey indicates that religious affiliation and spiritual intent increases scores on the Mysticism Scale when using psychedelics.

Attention has 4 opportunities per second to change

The spotlight of attention is more like a strobe, say researchers

The researchers use different metaphors to describe this throb of attention, including a spotlight that waxes and wanes in its intensity. Four times per second — once every 250 milliseconds — the spotlight dims and the house lights come up. Instead of focusing on the action “onstage,” your brain takes in everything else around you, say the scientists.

“The question is: How can something that varies in time support our seemingly continuous perception of the world?” said Berkeley’s Randolph Helfrich, first author on the human-focused paper. “There are only two options: Is the data wrong, or is our understanding of our perception biased? Our research shows that it’s the latter. Our brains fuse our perceptions into a coherent movie — we don’t experience the gaps.”

Perhaps some experience some of those gaps :)

UK petition to reschedule psilocybin

The Psychedelic Society, along with other organisations and individuals listed below, are calling on the UK government to reschedule psilocybin, a compound that has been called a 'breakthrough' treatment for mental health.

Psychedelics Increase Neuritogenesis

From the article:

“People have long assumed that psychedelics are capable of altering neuronal structure, but this is the first study that clearly and unambiguously supports that hypothesis. What is really exciting is that psychedelics seem to mirror the effects produced by ketamine,” says David Olson, assistant professor in the departments of chemistry and of biochemistry and molecular medicine at the University of California, Davis, who leads the research team.

In the study, tryptamines such as DMT and psilocin, amphetamines such as MDMA, and ergolines such as LSD, showed activity similar to ketamine, promoting neuritogenesis, the growth of neurites, however ibogaine did not.  Fruit fly larvae and zebrafish were studied.

Therefore, the identification of non-hallucinogenic analogs capable of promoting plasticity in the PFC could facilitate a paradigm shift in our approach to treating neuropsychiatric diseases.

Brain stimulation decreases intent to assault

Brain stimulation decreases intent to commit physical, sexual assault

Stimulating the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for controlling complex ideas and behaviors, can reduce a person's intention to commit a violent act by more than 50 percent.

Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity

Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity

Classical serotonergic psychedelics are known to cause changes in mood and brain function  that persist long after the acute effects of the drugs have subsided. Moreover, several psychedelics elevate glutamate levels in the cortex and increase gene expression in vivo of the neurotrophin BDNF as well as immediate-early genes associated with plasticity. This indirect evidence has led to the reasonable hypothesis that psychedelics promote structural and functional neural plasticity, although this assumption had never been rigorously tested. The data presented here provide direct evidence for this hypothesis, demonstrating that psychedelics cause both structural and functional changes in cortical neurons.

Positive Effects of THC on Older Mice

Cognition and Memory improvement with low dose THC in old mice.

A generally undesired effect of cannabis smoking is a reversible disruption of short‐term memory induced by delta‐9‐tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive component of cannabis. However, this paradigm has been recently challenged by a group of scientists who have shown that THC is also able to improve neurological function in old animals when chronically administered at low concentrations. Moreover, recent studies demonstrated that THC paradoxically promotes hippocampal neurogenesis, prevents neurodegenerative processes occurring in animal models of Alzheimer's disease, protects from inflammation‐induced cognitive damage and restores memory and cognitive function in old mice.