During the early years of human development the brain has a greater neural plasticity, that is it has a greater ability to develop and form knowledge in the brain. Over the years as we age our neural "pathways" begin to, in a sense, become rooted in their position. that is they become more concrete and the "pathways" are set in a sense and forming new "pathways" begins to slow/stop at a certain age in development. One of the most intriguing aspects of LSD is that it increases neural plasticity. That is it allows the plasticity for new "pathways" to be created within the brain. Most users report having had revelations on LSD and this would make sense in the fact that, a cortical/"pathway" that may have never developed may have been affected and developed by the experience a user experienced on LSD. In short it is a hypothesis that LSD may increase learning capacity within the brain Biologically by providing for a greater plasticity for cortical/"pathway" development.
haha its funny how everything is connected. we were just talking about this topic in my psychology class this morning. it seems that when your younger you produce all these branches in the brain, and the amount at which they grow is based on your interpretation of an experience. when youre young you are interpreting everything for the first time, if you experience a lot of complex mind opening type stuff more branches will grow, and it will help them better process this in the future. lsd is the experience of all experiences, it takes you back to childhood like mind and allows you to reexperience everything, which allows branching of the mind. its mind manifesting, hence the word psychedelic.
There were tests done back in the day to see how lsd affected learning. It was found to help most people but made the classes a little crazy I'd assume. One person is reported to have learned to speak German during a trip, talking only in German to another person who knew the language well. He only had very basic knowledge of the language before hand. Very interesting stuff. People were also more likely to learn about things that they were unwilling to learn about before hand. Probably coz everything is cool on acid.
My trips are so intense that I can't fathom trying to learn something. My brain is a pussy and I cringe at the thought of ever tripping again though. I don't like drugs that I don't feel in control of.
does this hypothesis extend to other psychedelics (particularly psilocybin, DMT, and mescaline)? or does LSD have a unique property that influences plasticity unlike any other psychedelic drugs?
i would assume so, however i would think in the case of DMT it could "re-wire" your brain with revelations and what not but it would be way too intense to be used in learning. Mescalin i think would be similar in effect though.
I would assume so, as well. I'm sure many hallucinogens have similar effects in these respects. Even DMT, I've read about DMT experiences and the users learned lessons from the entities/souls they encountered.
lsd wont make your brain more plastic.. but it will give your brain so many new inputs that it would sort of be malfunctioning not to do its job and adapt.. so it is not affecting the plasticity but the physiological triggers for learning in the first place
This thread needs a bump in light of recent realizations considering it being the only mention of neural or neuro plasticity on all hipforums. Although I would agree more with Stonerbill, that LSD doesn't directly effect it. But maybe it catalyzes the process of learning, and maybe it strengthen it's abilities. Most interesting and suggestive research on plasticity has been done with Tibetan Buddhists and meditation, although many feats of plasticity have been studied since the early 20th century. In one case, one man's study, led to a brain damage paralyzation victim making full recovery in the senior ages of life 60 - 70. I recently heard someone say, that the human brain was one of the last frontiers.
http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v13n1/13124tho.html : "Results to date show that LSD induces expression changes in a relatively small but important collection of genes. Many of these genes influence the way neurons change physically to alter functional abilities in the brain. At least one of the genes is involved in the process of growth and differentiation of various cell types, and has been shown to be necessary for memory consolidation. A common theme of many of the genes regulated by LSD is the process of synaptic plasticity. The genes that LSD affects may thus play an important role in learning and the storage of memories."
