Psychedelic drugs like magic mushrooms and LSD have key … – Yahoo Finance

Scientists are increasingly hopeful that certain types of psychedelic drugs will one day be approved for medical purposes like treating depression and anxiety.

But what makes a psychedelic a psychedelic? How is it different from other drugs like cocaineor alcohol? And what makes a "trip" on one psychedelic like acid, for example distinct from a trip on another?

Here's a quick chart to put that into perspective:

Psychedelic drugs chart_2017 BI_Graphics BI Graphics

(Business Insider/Mike Nudelman)

Exactly howpsychedelics impact the brain is still somewhat of a mystery to scientists, but we're finding out more and more in recent years.

What we do know, however, is that psychedelics have a fundamentally different effect on the brain thanaddictive drugs like alcohol andcocainedo. Cocaine, for example, elicits a deep, euphoric sensationby temporarily flooding the brain's reward and motivationcenters. Insome people, this cantrigger a cycle of reinforcement that traps them in addiction, even when the same amount of the drug no longer results in a characteristic "high." The psychedelic drug psilocybin, on the other hand (the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms), appears to fundamentally alter the infrastructure of the brain's prefrontal cortex and change how information in this area of the brain is exchanged.

This is one of the reasons thatmanyscientists believe it's unreasonable to label psychedelics as"recreational" drugs in the patients I've interviewed who've participated in clinical trials onpsilocybin, the psychedelic trip itself soundsanything but recreational. In most cases, in fact, users describe feeling panicky, anxious, and afraid during the trip. It's whatthe drug appears to do to them afterthe trip itselfthat gives researchers hope. In many cases, patients describe lasting behavioral changes including improved relationships and increased optimism about life,for example.

Psilocybin isn't the only psychedelic drug that researchers are studyingfor its potentially therapeutic effects, however. They're also looking at LSD ("acid"), DMT (ayahuasca), and more.Each drug has a different trip length and varies in terms of its legality across the globe.

Methods for producing, brewing, and taking the drugs differ as well.

While magic mushrooms are typically either grown and eaten, brewed into tea, or ground up and taken in pill form, LSD is made synthetically and usually processed into strips that can be absorbed by placing them on the tongue.

Ayahuasca, on the other hand, is usually consumed as a beverage. It's brewed from the macerated and boiled vines of the Banisteriopsis caapi (yage) plant and the Psychotria viridis (chacruna) leaf, and it has been used for centuries as a traditional spiritual medicine in ceremonies among the indigenous peoples of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.Ayahuasca's effects come from mixing the drug dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, from the chacruna plant, and the MAO inhibitor from the yage plant, which allows the DMT to be absorbed into the bloodstream.

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