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The use of psychoactive substances for ritual, spiritual and medicinal purposes stretches back into prehistory and has been a common feature of many diverse cultures and societies globally. Psychedelics, with their unique ability to amplify feelings of connectedness and openness, may have also served as tools for promoting tribal cohesion and trust in ancient cultures. Psychedelic is a broad term derived from the Greek words ‘psyche’, meaning soul or mind, and ‘deloun’, which means to manifest. Classic psychedelics, such as psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms), act directly on the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor, while atypical psychedelics, such as MDMA and ketamine, have different pharmacological modes of action and tend to have less of a hallucinogenic effect. They all produce (as the origin of their name suggests) a profound shift in consciousness, generally positive emotional states and feelings of connectedness and openness. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is in many ways the prototypical psychedelic and began the first wave of psychedelic research in western medicine after it was first synthesized in the early 1940s. By the 1960s, thousands of patients had received LSD therapy in the USA, the UK, Czech Republic and elsewhere for depression, anxiety, addiction and a number of other disorders. This period concurrently saw the development of other key psychiatric drugs such as monoamine oxidase inhibitors as antidepressants and dopamine antagonist drugs as antipsychotics. This revolution in psychiatric treatment ushered in a wave of research and entirely new perspectives on the biological mechanisms underpinning psychiatric disorders.
Ertl et al. (Thu,) studied this question.