Psychedelics and Liminal Crisis Quiz

Psyc 383 - Lecture 9: Hallucinogens

• Course: Psychopharmacology
• Topic: Hallucinogens
• Subtopics: Psychedelics & Dissociatives

The Liminality Crisis

• Question: How to differentiate real from illusory experiences?
• Answer: Liminal states of mind are subjective crisis points, the peak of uncertainty in perception and belief.
• Subjectivity is questioned: The internal nature of perception is challenged as a person considers if their mind is perceiving or creating, and where their self ends and the environment begins.

Psychedelics

• Definition: The distinguishing feature is the capacity to reliably induce altered perception, thought, and feeling not usually experienced except in dreams or religious exaltation.
• Expert: Jerome Jaffe (1990)

Drugs and Dream Similarity (Sanz et al., 2018)

• Study: Research comparing the similarity of drug effects to dream states.
• Data: Charts and graphs illustrate similarity measurements, with categories like serotonergic, entactogen, dissociative, oneirogen, deliriant, depressant, stimulant, antipsychotic / MAOI, and other drug classifications.
• Substances: The graph includes bar graphs and lines representing various substances, indicating strengths of similarity in low lucidity dreams and high lucidity dreams by names and chemical abbreviations.

Brief History of Psychedelics

• Timeline: A chronological overview of psychedelic drug discoveries, isolations, syntheses, and historical uses in research and therapy.
• Key milestones: Dates for various stages are highlighted on a time scale, correlating with the discoveries, synthesis, and the introduction of the term "dissociative anaesthetic" by various scientists.
• Substances: LSD, psilocin, psilocybin, PCP, and ketamine are mentioned and their timelines of isolation and synthesis are displayed through the graphic.

Psychedelics: Additional Notes

• Clinical history: Early researchers termed psychedelics "psychotomimetics" due to their ability to induce schizophrenic-like symptoms.
• Later clinical uses included treatment for conditions like alcoholism, various addiction types, autism, and improving alcoholism, OCD signs during psychotherapy using psilocybin or LSD.
• MDMA, an entactogen, is used by psychiatrists.

Classes of Psychedelic Drugs

• Structures: Two main classes distinguished by minor structural differences: phenethylamines and tryptamines.
• Chemical structures: Chemical structure diagrams are presented for each group, highlighting the key chemical features of each class. The diagrams include different chemical structures for LSD, psilocin, and other psychedelic compounds (salvinorin A, bufotenin, DMT, etc), demonstrating their molecular differences.

Specific Psychedelic-Class Drugs

• Phenethylamines (Mescaline, MDMA, etc.):
  • Mescaline: Prototypical phenethylamine found in cactus species (peyote, San Pedro). It has a half-life of about six hours.
  • MDMA: Often referred to as an entactogen, potent releaser of monoamines and also binds to various receptor sites. It can have neurotoxic effects and cause serotonin syndrome at high doses.
• Substituted Phenethylamines: Family of research compounds similar to phenethylamines, varying in the position of the NH2 group
  • These compounds are typically highly potent psychedelics, and some are lethal at high doses.
• Tryptamines (Psilocybin-psilocin, Bufotenin, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT):
  • Psilocybin/Psilocin: Derived from mushrooms; consistently ranked as one of the least harmful illegal drugs, less harmful than alcohol/tobacco
  • Bufotenin: Produced by a Sonoran desert toad; similar effects to other tryptamines, readily excreted through the skin
  • DMT & 5-MeO-DMT: Important component of ayahuasca brew; often smoked, producing intense psychedelic effects
• Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD): Derived from a rye fungus; often in blotter paper form.
  • Bicycle Day: Date when Albert Hoffman experienced LSD's effects for the first time

Psychological effects of Psychedelics

• Mystical Experiences: Hallucinogens often induce profound mystical experiences.
• Common effects: Varying from visions of colors, seeing objects moving and other perceptions, losing track of time and space, changes in feeling of sense of self, and altering relationships with the environment.
• Psychological effects: Includes changes in suggestibility, increased emotional responses to music and other stimulations, perception of closeness, gratitude, purpose, forgiveness, feelings about death, transcendence, satisfaction, mindfulness, psychological distress reduction, general psychopathological symptom reduction

Psychological Effects: Perception

• Visual Perception: Changes in visual perception, including Binocular rivalry reduction or increase.
• Other effects: Changes in sense of time, spatial orientation, and emotional responses to sensory stimuli.

Psychological Effects: Personality

• Openness to experience: Psilocybin use consistently leads to an increase.
• Other effects: Improvements also seen in extraversion and conscientiousness, with a decrease in neuroticism following acute psilocybin experience.

Psychedelics & Nature-Relatedness

• Research: Correlation between psychedelic use and positive environmental attitude.
• Pro-environmental behavior and climate change knowledge were improved.
• Nature-relatedness increased after psychedelic use.

Psychological Effects: "Mystical"

• Sequence of Experiences: A typical sequence of events during a mystical experience is described (e.g. sensory realm, symbolic, and integral levels).
• Broad Range of Experiences: Many variations and interpretations exist around what constitutes a "mystical" experience.

Mechanisms of Action

• Receptors: Major targets are 5-HT2A receptors, but others are also impacted.
• Chemical interactions: Interactions with other receptors like mGlu2, and catecholamines is also significant.
• Understanding this aids in understanding specific actions.

Neurophysiology

• Changes in brain activity: Psychedelics cause changes in the thalamus, ACC, PCC, and medial prefrontal cortex, and the DMN.
• Functional states: A shift in typical brain activity states and patterns occur from psychedelic use.

Novel Functional Dynamics

• Brain state changes: Psychedelics induce novel brain states, and transition dynamics are not typical of regular brain activity.

REBUS: Relaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics

• Model: Integrating previous brain models, the 'REBUS' model suggests that psychedelics induce more relaxed beliefs.
• Mechanism: Predicts minimization of prediction error and increased expected reward.

Hierarchical Predictive Coding

• Description: Psychedelics cause disruption in hierarchical predictive coding, possibly related to the changes in subjective experiences.

The Entropic Brain Hypothesis

• Definition: A model where consciousness is placed on a spectrum of entropy, ranging from fixed to flexible.
• Mechanism: Psychedelic drugs' effects are seen as an increase in the 'entropy' of the brain due to increased functional connectivity.

Clinical Applications

• Conditions: Psychedelics show promise in treating conditions as shown through studies.
• Anxiety, depression, PTSD are included as target conditions.
• Treatment effects: Reports of reduced anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms following psychedelic assisted therapy.

Dissociatives

• Effects: Include depersonalization, derealization, and detachment from the self, surroundings, and reality.
• Mechanism: Often involve NMDA antagonism, with variable affinities for the specific drug.
• Examples: Salvia divinorum, Ketamine, PCP.

Specific Drug Profiles

• Salvia divinorum: Native to Oaxaca, Mexico; psychoactive compound is salvinorin A, an opioid K-receptor agonist.
• Ibogaine: Derived from Central African shrub Tabernanthe iboga; rapidly converted to noribogaine; used to treat addictions, including opioid abuse and alcoholism.
• Dextromethorphan (DXM): Over-the-counter cough suppressant; shows opioid-like effects and NMDA antagonism at higher doses.
• Phencyclidine (PCP): Potent dissociative; acts as a non-competitive NMDA and σ1 receptor antagonist.
• Ketamine: A popular dissociative; less potent than PCP; used for sedation; shows antidepressant properties in some cases.

Test your knowledge on psychedelics and their impact on the mind. This quiz covers various aspects of liminal crises, psychedelic agents, and their historical use by indigenous peoples. Challenge yourself with questions regarding the pharmacological features and effects of different substances.