At Baylor College of Medicine, experts uncovered changes in the brain caused by lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) that may explain altered behavior commonly observed in patients exposed to LSD.
First published online in Cell Reports, the authors showed that rodents who were administered LSD had experienced altered running behavior in a track they were familiar with, heightening their resting time.
During the altered behaviors, it was also determined that two brain regions: the hippocampus and the visual cortex, may explain the altered behavior observed among the rodents.
“Here, we show that when rats run along a familiar track, hippocampal place cells under LSD reduce their firing rates, their directionality, and their interaction with visual cortical neurons,” the journal article states.
“Our results suggest that LSD suppresses hippocampal-cortical interactions during active behavior and during immobility, leading to internal hippocampal representations that are degraded and isolated from external sensory input. These effects may contribute to LSD-produced abnormal perceptions.”
The study was authored by Carli Domenico, Daniel Haggerty, Xiang Mou, and Daoyun Ji.
