Drugs and cognition : a special look at LSD

Sharon Shiwani, Ramachandran (2005) Drugs and cognition : a special look at LSD. [Final Year Project Report / IMRAD] (Unpublished)

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Abstract

This study looks at the interconnection between drugs, neurotransmitters and cognition. Researches have been carried out to study how drugs affect the brain. Yet limited research is done on how drugs affect human cognition. The complex interactions between neurotransmitters, drugs and brain function that result in human drug abuse have been reviewed and investigated in various researches. Knowledge about drug receptors has facilitated increasingly precise hypotheses about the way in which information about drug exposure enters the nervous system. Specifically, this study investigates what a hallucinogen like LSD can do to the brain. As more is studied and investigated about the roles and interactions of various neurotransmitters, receptors and larger portions of the brain, then hopefully the mystery will be further unraveled. The use of LSD is heavily stigmatized and misunderstood within the field of mental health, and has become grouped with a range of other street drugs as another abused drug. This is reinforced by the worldwide prohibition of the substance. This research has demonstrated that LSD either mimics serotonin or blocks serotonin receptors in the brain thus affecting cognitive activities such as emotion and visual perception. LSD has also shown to be therapeutically useful in mental health treatments such as psychotherapy.

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