Excitotoxicity + Lysergic Acid DiethylamideA theoretical approach to understanding the

physiological and psychological effects of LSD-25 on the central nervous system.

By Randy Osgood

Introduction

A synapse is the junction (space) between two neurons or between a muscle and a neuron. The synapse is what allows a neuron to pass electrical or chemical signals to another cell. Essentially, synapses are the most important part of the brain, for they determine all of our behavior via chemical neurotransmission and other means.

More synapses are present in the brain by age six than any other time in the human life cycle. In the next five to ten years after a human hits age six, the brain systematically removes half of all synaptic connections that were present when the child was at age six.

This leaves a massively restructured brain. However, after this process (which happens over an extended period of time as mentioned above), there still remains about 100 trillion synapses.

However, at a much lower level of activity than that of the six to sixteen year old, elimination and formation of synapses occurs over an entire lifetime. The way this happens will be discussed in detail below.

Excitotoxicity

Excitotoxicity might be the mechanism that kills synaptic connections. However, not for no reason at all. Just like a human cutting his hair when it gets too long, the brain needs a mechanism to “cut” it's dendritic tree (part of the neuron) of old, unnecessary, or malfunctioning synapses. A limited and controlled loss and gain of synapses provide a useful maintenance function.

However, it is possible excitotoxicity may be turned on or goes out of control when it is not supposed to in certain diseases associated with the excessive loss of synapses or neurons themselves.

Overexcitation

To speak in terms that are easy to understand, some states of “overexcitation” may result in excessive excitatory neurotransmission. In result, excessive neuronal activity may occur in certain neuronal circuits. The circuits of the brain. This very same process of “overexcitation” is theoretically associated with psychatric symptoms such as pain, seizure, or panic. Following this excessive excitatory neurotransmission, the brain may experience damage to the very synapses that originally called upon this process, to the point where parts of dendrites of the affected neurons are destroyed.

Hypothetically, even more excitation may destroy entire neurons in some neurodegenerative conditions, such as schizophrenia. Normal and limited excitotoxicity can be useful for killing off problematic or unnecessary neurons, but “overexcitation” may be a mechanism for brain damage or unwanted pathological symptoms and conditions.

Neurodevelopment

It is possible that a process like excitotoxicity is turned on during neurodevelopment in order to effect the dramatic restructuring of the brain that occurs in late childhood. If everything is fine and

dandy, the brain will properly select which synaptic connections to keep and which it should destroy. If everything continues to go correctly, the individual advances into adulthood without any problems. However, bad selections of which neurons to keep or destroy theoretically could lead to neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD or schizophrenia.

Summary(of above findings)

As stated, the growth and destruction of new synapses occurs throughout a lifetime. However, it occurs at a much slower pace in the late teenage years through adulthood compared to the extraordinarily fast rate from age six on through adolescence. The brain never really stops developing, it merely slows its development down. The remodeling and maintenance of neurons is always there and remains an unconscious and natural process throughout human life.

The restriction of adult neuronal growth/destruction rate to a minimal amount, only destroying and growing neurons and synapses as needed can be beneficial because it allows plasticity while restricting unwanted growth. This would stabilize brain function in the adult and could prevent chaotic rewiring.

LSD

The psychedelic experience under LSD is considered to be one of total chaos. This is where we make the first connection to excitotoxicity in the human brain. All of the senses are enhanced to the point where they seem to be merging with each other. This puts the one who is under the influence of the substance into a state where he/she “is everything”. It is quite chaotic indeed, and to try to make sense or rationalize the feeling of “everything” (or the psychedelic experience itself) is impossible.

The psychedelic experience is one that can not be described in great detail and is considered to be an experience that you can only “experience for yourself” in order to understand it, however, I will do my best to explain what we know about it.

The person under the influence of LSD-25 experiences hours of endless conflicting perceptions of reality. That is, he will go from laughing uncontrollably (the normal and usually first state of a “good” LSD experience) to crying, being in a state of fear or sadness, etc. The reason this is a phenomenon is that the person can not make sense of why they are experiencing these conflicting perceptions and usually will not try to, the magic happens after the “trip”. Reflection upon the experience and looking back at what is remembered creates a dramatic realization about life and the perception of reality.

Although in this day and age a good amount of people understand that perception is what creates reality, for instance, one man can have every material object that exists and still be upset while another can have nothing and walk the streets in happiness. However, to truly understand this concept one must experience it for himself.

The person under the influence perceives reality in all of these different ways, yet he is sitting in the same room in the same place the entire time, feeling completely real emotions and not understanding why.

Therefore, after the trip he can look back at everything, slowly remembering more and more (but never everything, it seems). From here, he can learn that all of these perceptions are merely choices.

The Relation

Before we get carried away lets relate this back to what we were originally talking about. The chaotic rewiring that happens from age six and throughout adolescence, as stated above, could be what is happening during the LSD experience. It is said that the person who comes out of the experience describes an “after glow” that feels as though he has been “reborn”. Therefore, the process of further accelerated neurodevelopment in and after an LSD experience can be understood because during development in the womb is when the most neuronal development happens, even moreso than a six year old.

After the experience, a feeling of dullness and an inability to think straight is reported, as if the user feels like his brain is tired and cannot fully function. This can be a result of an overworked brain (due to the enhanced senses) and possibly the fact that the excitotoxicity mechanism was being triggered, killing off synaptic connections and neurons that are no longer useful to the person. In a state of bliss like the one caused by the consumption of LSD-25, synapses causing depression and sadness would not be looked at as if they are useful any longer. A lot of scientists/psychologists have made claims that it is very possible that the central nervous system can become “aware of itself” during a psychedelic experience – so this would make even more sense if that is indeed true.

We can then look at the “after glow” described from a person that comes out of this experience. A lot of times, we are told that the majority of people come out with a positive attitude on life, but sometimes it can only last a few days to a few months, and often leaving a permanent affect on the person. The reason it will not always last forever is because new synapses are formed over time that will restore these unwanted feelings, after having destroyed them during the experience. The person then returns to “normal”.

However, if one is to look back at his experience and understand why the after glow of a forever-happy and care-free state is triggered after an LSD experience, he can learn that all of those perceptions were merely choices and furthermore, he can choose from then on to purposefully avoid common life drama and social game-playing. Thus, neurons are created with synaptic connections based off of this new knowledge, after having destroyed neurons that seemed (at the time) to have no reason to exist which means that there is a dominance of what could be deemed as “good” synapses (as in, create positive emotional states via chemical transmission) over those that are “bad” (as in, create negative emotional states via chemical transmission).

This is not surprising, it is known that learning produces new neurons and synaptic connections, as well as exercise and other things. Therefore experiencing these conflicting perceptions of reality and then continuing not only to experience it, but learn from it, it becomes much easier to remain in a positive state of mind at all times, as long as the effort to do so is conscious and continuous. Whereas merely learning about how the perception of reality is a choice, it is much harder to maintain a positive state of mind because one does not experience it as the LSD experience allows a person to do – making it not only harder to believe that it is true, but to believe it is possible that the ability to make such choices can actually exist. This is why many intellectuals say LSD is a drug for only intellectuals – because the average man will not learn from the experience but only think of it as an incredibly insane, fun, out of this world experience – which it is. However, not permanently learning can lead to dependency and abuse rather than use, or just a once-in-a-lifetime experience that they will never forget.

By learning to avoid game-playing and dramatic situations in life, there is less of a chance that “bad synapses” are ever created because there is no stress or depression coming from every day life drama that really has no lasting effect on the person's life. This realization is the most important from the LSD experience – aside from that of reality perception. One must work to build his reality – passively living his reality will not amount to anything but an uncontrollable life. LSD allows the user to learn and take control – if he so desires.

Health

Given the fact that LSD may trigger the excitotoxicity mechanism, it can not be said how safe it is to take part in the psychedelic experience more than once in a blue moon. Those that do not learn from the experience may find themselves using once a week to constantly have the “after glow” feeling which could be potentially harmful to the neuronal functions of the brain, also causing a dependency.

While it is known that LSD is not an escapist drug because it can not be used to constantly escape in a sane social environment such as all of those in today's world, it could possibly be used as one in this sense, leaving the person who uses once a week to be constantly depressed and unhappy if LSD can no longer be found. However, irresponsible people that would partake in such actions should not be having the psychedelic experience at all since they will not even try to learn anything about themselves or about life in general from the experience. They are merely using it for the long-term benefits that will turn into short-term (weekly) if it becomes a dependency.

The result of using once a week on someone who has and continues to learn from the experience will not necessarily be depression of the substance becomes scarce because he has already learned from the experience, however – neuronal damage may become an issue unbeknown to the user. It seems that if there is damage, it is not very noticeable in every day function, however it may cause (of course) damage to the cognitive functioning of the brain such as reading, writing, rationalizing, etc. and therefore a user should slow down his consumption if he is looking out for his health and is non-dependent.