Best Psychology & Neuroscience Books of 2014 (according to me)

Here are some of the best books I have been exposed to this year. Obviously, I cannot read everything, so this is a partial list at best. They are listed in alphabetical order. Descriptive text is from the publisher's blurb on Amazon.

A few of these books warrant the RECOMMENDED READ classification.

Adult Attachment Patterns in a Treatment Context: Relationship and Narrative

Sarah Daniel

Attachment theory posits that the need for attachment is a life-long phenomenon that becomes especially relevant in times of crisis or trauma. When adults experience illness, accidents, assaults, psychological difficulties or losses, their attachment-behavioural systems are activated, motivating them to seek help and support from family and friends and/or from helping professionals. However, the resulting request for help is affected and shaped by earlier experiences regarding the support and trustworthiness of attachment figures. Can others be trusted? Is it safe to show vulnerability? How should one behave to increase the likelihood of receiving the help needed? 

Adult Attachment Patterns in a Treatment Context provides an integrated introduction to the subject of adult attachment. Research into adult attachment patterns offers professional helpers a theoretically sound insight into the dynamics underlying a range of client behaviours, including some of the more puzzling and frustrating behaviours such as denying obvious pain or continually pushing the professional for more personal involvement. Sarah Daniel shows how applying knowledge of attachment patterns to treatment settings will improve the way in which professionals engage with clients and the organization of treatments. This book will be relevant to a range of helping professionals such as psychotherapists, psychologists and social workers, both in practice and in training.

Affect Regulation Training: A Practitioners' Manual

Matthias Berking and Brian Whitley 

Emotion Regulation is currently one of the most popular topics in clinical psychology. Numerous studies demonstrate that deficits in emotion regulation skills are likely to help maintain various forms of psychological disorders. Thus, enhancing emotion regulation has become a major target in psychotherapeutic treatments. For this purpose, a number of therapeutic strategies have been developed and shown to be effective. However, for practitioners it is often difficult to decide which of these strategies they should use or how they can effectively combine empirically-validated strategies. Thus, the authors developed the Affect Regulation Training as a transdiagnostic intervention which systematically integrates strategies from cognitive behavior therapy, mindfulness-based interventions, emotion-focused therapy, and dialectical behavioral therapy. The effectiveness of ART has been demonstrated in several high-quality studies. 

Attachment and Interaction: From Bowlby to Current Clinical Theory and Practice

Mario Marrone

Attachment and Interaction is an accessible introduction to the history and evolution of attachment theory, which traces the early roots of attachment theory from the work of its creator John Bowlby through to the most recent theoretical developments and their clinical applications. Mario Marrone explores how attachment theory can inform how therapists work with their patients, and what the practical implications are of using such an approach. By mixing personal anecdotes from his own experiences as Bowlby's supervisee with clear explanations of Bowlby's ideas and how they have evolved, Marrone creates a memorable and engaging account of attachment theory. This new, updated edition includes new material on bereavement, sexuality and the application of attachment-based principles to individual, family and group psychotherapy. This clear exposition of attachment theory is relevant and valuable reading for trainee and practising individual and group psychotherapists, family therapists and mental health professionals - as well as anyone with an interest in John Bowlby and the evolution of psychotherapy.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Bessel A. van der Kolk 

RECOMMENDED READ.

A pioneering researcher and one of the world’s foremost experts on traumatic stress offers a bold new paradigm for healing

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children.

Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy—and a way to reclaim lives.

Brain, Mind, and Consciousness in the History of Neuroscience

C.U.M. Smith and Harry Whitaker, Editors

This volume of essays examines the problem of mind, looking at how the problem has appeared to neuroscientists (in the widest sense) from classical antiquity through to contemporary times. Beginning with a look at ventricular neuropsychology in antiquity, this book goes on to look at Spinozan ideas on the links between mind and body, Thomas Willis and the foundation of Neurology, Hooke’s mechanical model of the mind and Joseph Priestley’s approach to the mind-body problem.

The volume offers a chapter on the 19th century Ottoman perspective on western thinking. Further chapters trace the work of nineteenth century scholars including George Henry Lewes, Herbert Spencer and Emil du Bois-Reymond. The book covers significant work from the twentieth century, including an examination of Alfred North Whitehead and the history of consciousness, and particular attention is given to the development of quantum consciousness. Chapters on slavery and the self and the development of an understanding of Dualism bring this examination up to date on the latest 21st century work in the field.

At the heart of this book is the matter of how we define the problem of consciousness itself: has there been any progress in our understanding of the working of mind and brain? This work at the interface between science and the humanities will appeal to experts from across many fields who wish to develop their understanding of the problem of consciousness, including scholars of Neuroscience, Behavioural Science and the History of Science.

Cyclical Psychodynamics and the Contextual Self: The Inner World, the Intimate World, and the World of Culture and Society

Paul L. Wachtel

Cyclical Psychodynamics and the Contextual Self articulates in new ways the essential features and most recent extensions of Paul Wachtel's powerfully integrative theory of cyclical psychodynamics. Wachtel is widely regarded as the leading advocate for integrative thinking in personality theory and the theory and practice of psychotherapy. He is a contributor to cutting edge thought in the realm of relational psychoanalysis and to highlighting the ways in which the relational point of view provides especially fertile ground for integrating psychoanalytic insights with the ideas and methods of other theoretical and therapeutic orientations. 

In this book, Wachtel extends his integration of psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioral, systemic, and experiential viewpoints to examine closely the nature of the inner world of subjectivity, its relation to the transactional world of daily life experiences, and the impact on both the larger social and cultural forces that both shape and are shaped by individual experience. Here, he discusses in a uniquely comprehensive fashioning the subtleties of the clinical interaction, the findings of systematic research, and the role of social, economic, and historical forces in our lives. The chapters in this book help to transcend the tunnel vision that can lead therapists of different orientations to ignore the important discoveries and innovations from competing approaches. 

Explicating the pervasive role of vicious circles and self-fulfilling prophecies in our lives, Cyclical Psychodynamics and the Contextual Self shows how deeply intertwined the subjective, the intersubjective, and the cultural realms are, and points to new pathways to therapeutic and social change. Both a theoretical tour de force and an immensely practical guide to clinical practice, this book will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and students of human behavior of all backgrounds and theoretical orientations.

The Future of the Brain: Essays by the World's Leading Neuroscientists

Gary Marcus and Jeremy Freeman, Editors

Including a chapter by 2014 Nobel laureates May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser 

An unprecedented look at the quest to unravel the mysteries of the human brain, The Future of the Brain takes readers to the absolute frontiers of science. Original essays by leading researchers such as Christof Koch, George Church, Olaf Sporns, and May-Britt and Edvard Moser describe the spectacular technological advances that will enable us to map the more than eighty-five billion neurons in the brain, as well as the challenges that lie ahead in understanding the anticipated deluge of data and the prospects for building working simulations of the human brain. A must-read for anyone trying to understand ambitious new research programs such as the Obama administration's BRAIN Initiative and the European Union's Human Brain Project, The Future of the Brain sheds light on the breathtaking implications of brain science for medicine, psychiatry, and even human consciousness itself.

Contributors include: Misha Ahrens, Ned Block, Matteo Carandini, George Church, John Donoghue, Chris Eliasmith, Simon Fisher, Mike Hawrylycz, Sean Hill, Christof Koch, Leah Krubitzer, Michel Maharbiz, Kevin Mitchell, Edvard Moser, May-Britt Moser, David Poeppel, Krishna Shenoy, Olaf Sporns, Anthony Zador.

The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind

Michio Kaku 

I included this book because it is representative of the state of the science in (mis)understanding the mind. I disagree with several of the basic (reductionist) premises Kaku takes as givens.

The New York Times best-selling author of PHYSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, PHYSICS OF THE FUTURE and HYPERSPACE tackles the most fascinating and complex object in the known universe: the human brain.
For the first time in history, the secrets of the living brain are being revealed by a battery of high tech brain scans devised by physicists. Now what was once solely the province of science fiction has become a startling reality. Recording memories, telepathy, videotaping our dreams, mind control, avatars, and telekinesis are not only possible; they already exist.

THE FUTURE OF THE MIND gives us an authoritative and compelling look at the astonishing research being done in top laboratories around the world—all based on the latest advancements in neuroscience and physics.  One day we might have a "smart pill" that can enhance our cognition; be able to upload our brain to a computer, neuron for neuron; send thoughts and emotions around the world on a "brain-net"; control computers and robots with our mind; push the very limits of immortality; and perhaps even send our consciousness across the universe.

Dr. Kaku takes us on a grand tour of what the future might hold, giving us not only a solid sense of how the brain functions but also how these technologies will change our daily lives. He even presents a radically new way to think about "consciousness" and applies it to provide fresh insight into mental illness, artificial intelligence and alien consciousness. 

With Dr. Kaku's deep understanding of modern science and keen eye for future developments, THE FUTURE OF THE MIND is a scientific tour de force--an extraordinary, mind-boggling exploration of the frontiers of neuroscience.

Manifesting minds: A Review of Psychedelics in Science, Medicine, Sex, and Spirituality

Rick Doblin, PhD, and Brad Burge, Editors

Featuring essays and interviews with Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, Ram Dass, Albert Hofmann, Alexander (Sasha) Shulgin, Daniel Pinchbeck, Tim Robbins, Arne Naess, and electronic musician Simon Posford, as well as groundbreaking research and personal accounts, this one-of-a-kind anthology is a "best of" collection of articles and essays published by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). Topics include the healing use of marijuana and psychedelics--including MDMA, ibogaine, LSD, and ayahuasca--for PTSD, anxiety, depression, and drug addiction, as well as positive effects of these substances in the realm of the arts, family, spirituality, ecology, and technology.

Among many other thought-provoking and mind-opening pieces are the following:
• "On Leary and Drugs at the End," by Carol Rosen and Vicki Marshall
• "Psychedelic Rites of Passage," by Ram Dass
• "To Be Read at the Funeral," by Albert Hofmann
• "Another Green World: Psychedelics and Ecology," by Daniel Pinchbeck
• "Psychedelics and Species Connectedness," by Stanley Krippner, PhD
• "Huxley on Drugs and Creativity," by Aldous Huxley
• "Psychedelics and the Deep Ecology Movement: A Conversation with Arne Naess," by Mark A. Schroll, PhD, and David Rothenberg
• "Psychedelic Sensibility," by Tom Robbins
• "Electronic Music and Psychedelics: An Interview with Simon Posford of Shpongle," by David Jay Brown
• "How Psychedelics Informed My Sex Life and Sex Work," by Annie Sprinkle
• "Consideration of Ayahuasca for the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder," by Jessica Nielson, PhD, and Julie Megler, MSN, NP-BC
• "Psychedelics and Extreme Sports," by James Oroc
• "Youth and Entheogens: A Modern Rite of Passage?," by Andrei Foldes with Amba, Eric Johnson, et al.
• "Diary of an MDMA Subject," by Anonymous
• "Dimethyltryptamine: Possible Endogenous Ligand of the Sigma-1 Receptor?," by Adam L. Halberstadt
• "Lessons from Psychedelic Therapy," by Richard Yensen, PhD
• "Psychosomatic Medicine, Psychoneuroimmunology, and Psychedelics," by Ana Maqueda
• "Talking with Ann and Sasha Shulgin about the Existence of God and the Pleasures of Sex and Drugs," by Jon Hanna and Silvia Thyssen

Memory Development from Early Childhood Through Emerging Adulthood

Wolfgang Schneider

Based on decades of established research findings in cognitive and developmental psychology, this volume explores and integrates the leading scientific advances into infancy and brain-memory linkages as well as autobiographical and strategic memory. In addition, given that the predominantly classic research on memory development has recently been complemented by more cutting-edge applied research (e.g., eyewitness memory, memory development in educational contexts) in recent years, this volume also provides in-depth and up-to-date coverage of these emerging areas of study.

Metacognition: Fundaments, Applications, and Trends - A Profile of the Current State-Of-The-Art

Alejandro Peña-Ayala, Editor

This book is devoted to the Metacognition arena. It highlights works that show relevant analysis, reviews, theoretical, and methodological proposals, as well as studies, approaches, applications, and tools that shape current state, define trends and inspire future research. As a result of the revision process fourteen manuscripts were accepted and organized into five parts as follows:

· Conceptual: contains conceptual works oriented to: (1) review models of strategy instruction and tailor a hybrid strategy; (2) unveil second-order judgments and define a method to assess metacognitive judgments; (3) introduces a conceptual model to describe the metacognitive activity as an autopoietic system.

· Framework: offers three works concerned with: (4) stimulate metacognitive skills and self-regulatory functions; (5) evaluate metacognitive skills and self-regulated learning at problem solving; (6) deal with executive management metacognition and strategic knowledge metacognition.

· Studies: reports research related to: (7) uncover how metacognitive awareness of listening strategies bias listening proficiency; (8) unveil how metacognitive skills and motivation are achieved in science informal learning; (9) tackle stress at learning by means of coping strategies.

· Approaches: focus on the following targets: (10) social metacognition to support collaborative problem solving; (11) metacognitive skills to be stimulated in computer supported collaborative learning; (12) metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive experiences are essential for teaching practices. 

· Tools: promotes the use of intelligent tutoring systems such as: (13) BioWorld allows learners to practice medical diagnostic by providing virtual patient cases; (14) MetaHistoReasoning provides examples to learners and inquiries about the causes of historical events.

This volume will be a source of interest for researchers, practitioners, professors, and postgraduate students aimed at updating their knowledge and finding targets for future work in the metacognition arena.

The Myth of Mirror Neurons: The Real Neuroscience of Communication and Cognition

Gregory Hickok, PhD

RECOMMENDED READ.

An essential reconsideration of one of the most far-reaching theories in modern neuroscience and psychology.

In 1992, a group of neuroscientists from Parma, Italy, reported a new class of brain cells discovered in the motor cortex of the macaque monkey. These cells, later dubbed mirror neurons, responded equally well during the monkey’s own motor actions, such as grabbing an object, and while the monkey watched someone else perform similar motor actions. Researchers speculated that the neurons allowed the monkey to understand others by simulating their actions in its own brain. 

Mirror neurons soon jumped species and took human neuroscience and psychology by storm. In the late 1990s theorists showed how the cells provided an elegantly simple new way to explain the evolution of language, the development of human empathy, and the neural foundation of autism. In the years that followed, a stream of scientific studies implicated mirror neurons in everything from schizophrenia and drug abuse to sexual orientation and contagious yawning.

In The Myth of Mirror Neurons, neuroscientist Gregory Hickok reexamines the mirror neuron story and finds that it is built on a tenuous foundation—a pair of codependent assumptions about mirror neuron activity and human understanding. Drawing on a broad range of observations from work on animal behavior, modern neuroimaging, neurological disorders, and more, Hickok argues that the foundational assumptions fall flat in light of the facts. He then explores alternative explanations of mirror neuron function while illuminating crucial questions about human cognition and brain function: Why do humans imitate so prodigiously? How different are the left and right hemispheres of the brain? Why do we have two visual systems? Do we need to be able to talk to understand speech? What’s going wrong in autism? Can humans read minds?

The Myth of Mirror Neurons not only delivers an instructive tale about the course of scientific progress—from discovery to theory to revision—but also provides deep insights into the organization and function of the human brain and the nature of communication and cognition.

Neuronal Dynamics: From Single Neurons to Networks and Models of Cognition

Wulfram Gerstner, Werner M . Kistler, Richard Naud, Liam Paninski

What happens in our brain when we make a decision? What triggers a neuron to send out a signal? What is the neural code? This textbook for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students provides a thorough and up-to-date introduction to the fields of computational and theoretical neuroscience. It covers classical topics, including the Hodgkin-Huxley equations and Hopfield model, as well as modern developments in the field such as Generalized Linear Models and decision theory. Concepts are introduced using clear step-by-step explanations suitable for readers with only a basic knowledge of differential equations and probabilities, and are richly illustrated by figures and worked-out examples. End-of-chapter summaries and classroom-tested exercises make the book ideal for courses or for self-study. The authors also give pointers to the literature and an extensive bibliography, which will prove invaluable to readers interested in further study.

The Feeling Body: Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind

Giovanna Colombetti

RECOMMENDED READ.

In The Feeling Body, Giovanna Colombetti takes ideas from the enactive approach developed over the last twenty years in cognitive science and philosophy of mind and applies them for the first time to affective science -- the study of emotions, moods, and feelings. She argues that enactivism entails a view of cognition as not just embodied but also intrinsically affective, and she elaborates on the implications of this claim for the study of emotion in psychology and neuroscience. 

In the course of her discussion, Colombetti focuses on long-debated issues in affective science, including the notion of basic emotions, the nature of appraisal and its relationship to bodily arousal, the place of bodily feelings in emotion experience, the neurophysiological study of emotion experience, and the bodily nature of our encounters with others. Drawing on enactivist tools such as dynamical systems theory, the notion of the lived body, neurophenomenology, and phenomenological accounts of empathy, Colombetti advances a novel approach to these traditional issues that does justice to their complexity. Doing so, she also expands the enactive approach into a further domain of inquiry, one that has more generally been neglected by the embodied-embedded approach in the philosophy of cognitive science.

The Origins of Attachment: Infant Research and Adult Treatment

Beatrice Beebe and Frank M. Lachmann

Technically, this book came out at the end of 2013, but I am including it anyway because it is a RECOMMENDED READ, especially for therapists (according to me).

The Origins of Attachment: Infant Research and Adult Treatment addresses the origins of attachment in mother-infant face-to-face communication. New patterns of relational disturbance in infancy are described. These aspects of communication are out of conscious awareness. They provide clinicians with new ways of thinking about infancy, and about nonverbal communication in adult treatment.
Utilizing an extraordinarily detailed microanalysis of videotaped mother-infant interactions at 4 months, Beatrice Beebe, Frank Lachmann, and their research collaborators provide a more fine-grained and precise description of the process of attachment transmission. Second-by-second microanalysis operates like a social microscope and reveals more than can be grasped with the naked eye.

The book explores how, alongside linguistic content, the bodily aspect of communication is an essential component of the capacity to communicate and understand emotion. The moment-to-moment self- and interactive processes of relatedness documented in infant research form the bedrock of adult face-to-face communication and provide the background fabric for the verbal narrative in the foreground.


The Origins of Attachment is illustrated throughout with several case vignettes of adult treatment. Discussions by Carolyn Clement, Malcolm Slavin and E. Joyce Klein, Estelle Shane, Alexandra Harrison and Stephen Seligman show how the research can be used by practicing clinicians. This book details aspects of bodily communication between mothers and infants that will provide useful analogies for therapists of adults. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and graduate students.

Collaborators Joseph Jaffe, Sara Markese, Karen A. Buck, Henian Chen, Patricia Cohen, Lorraine Bahrick, Howard Andrews, Stanley Feldstein

Discussants Carolyn Clement, Malcolm Slavin, E. Joyce Klein, Estelle Shane, Alexandra Harrison, Stephen Seligman

The Therapeutic Use of Ayahuasca

Beatriz Caiuby Labate and Clancy Cavnar, Editors

This book also came out at the end of 2013, but it is an important collection of articles on a topic that has been taboo in academic circles for far too long.

This book presents a series of perspectives on the therapeutic potential of the ritual and clinical use of the Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca in the treatment and management of various diseases and ailments, especially its role in psychological well-being and substance dependence. Biomedical and anthropological data on the use of ayahuasca for treating depression, PTSD, and substance dependence in different settings, such as indigenous contexts, neo-shamanic rituals, contemporary therapeutic circles, and in ayahuasca religions, in both South and North America, are presented and critiqued. Though multiple anecdotal reports on the therapeutic use of ayahuasca exist, there has been no systematic and dense reflection on the topic thus far. The book brings the therapeutic use of ayahuasca to a new level of public examination and academic debate. The texts in this volume stimulate discussion on methodological, ethical, and political aspects of research and will enhance the development of this emergent field of studies.

Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia: Why People Sometimes Hear Voices, Believe Things that Others Find Strange, or Appear Out of Touch with Reality, and What Can Help

Edited by Anne Cooke

A report by the Division of Clinical Psychology (BPS)

RECOMMENDED READ. This is an important new book in that the authors have taken a client-centered, relational perspective on psychosis, one of the most misunderstood and stigmatized psychological adaptations to trauma. And it's FREE to download.

Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia: Why people sometimes hear voices, believe things that others find strange, or appear out of touch with reality, and what can help has been written by a group of eminent clinical psychologists drawn from eight universities and six NHS trusts, together with people who have themselves experienced psychosis. 

It provides an accessible overview of the current state of knowledge, and its conclusions have profound implications both for the way we understand ‘mental illness’ and for the future of mental health services. 

Many people believe that schizophrenia is a frightening brain disease that makes people unpredictable and potentially violent, and can only be controlled by medication.  However research conducted over the last 20 years and brought together in this report reveals that this view is false. Rather:

• The problems we think of as ‘psychosis’ – hearing voices, believing things that others find strange, or appearing out of touch with reality – can be understood in the same way as other psychological problems such as anxiety or shyness.
• They are often a reaction to trauma or adversity of some kind which impacts on the way we experience and interpret the world.
• They rarely lead to violence.
• No one can tell for sure what has caused a particular person’s problems. The only way is to sit down with them and try and work it out.
• Services should not insist that people see themselves as ill.  Some prefer to think of their problems as, for example, an aspect of their personality which sometimes gets them into trouble but which they would not want to be without.
• We need to invest much more in prevention by attending to inequality and child maltreatment.  Concentrating resources only on treating existing problems is like mopping the floor while the tap is still running.

Barbara J King - Can Psychedelics Expand Our Consciousness?

From NPR's 13.7 Cosmos and Culture blog, Barbara J King takes issue with a passage in the new book from Sam Harris - Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion - in which he advocates for the use of psychedelics at least once in most adult lives, calling it a "rite of passage."

Ms. King enlists anthropologists Greg Downey and Daniel Lende, who co-blog at Neuroanthropology, to respond to the passages from Harris. Both are somewhat dismissive of the benefits of psychedelics for personal or spiritual growth. However, the each make the point that Harris's view represents an individual and isolated mind ingesting these substance, while these anthropologists believe the experience of psychedelics goes beyond their effects in the brain and are based more in socio-cultural context.

I kind of agree with them. 

Can Psychedelics Expand Our Consciousness?

by Barbara J. King
October 02, 2014

Andrew Ostrovsky/iStockphoto

"One of the great responsibilities we have as a society is to educate ourselves, along with the next generation, about which substances are worth ingesting and for what purpose and which are not....If I knew that either of my daughters would eventually develop a fondness for methamphetamine or heroin, I might never sleep again. But if they don't try a psychedelic like psilocybin or LSD at least once in their adult lives, I will wonder whether they had missed one of the most important rites of passage a human being can experience."

Coming late in a new book by Sam Harris called Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, this passage snapped me to attention. It's not that Harris's book had lulled me up to that point: It's a provocative, informative and, at times, infuriating look at consciousness and the self. Its main argument is that techniques exist, meditation prime among them, to reduce human suffering by helping us to understand that the self — as conventionally understood — is an illusion. Our feeling of "I" is a product of thought, and thoughts merely come and go in our consciousness; there's no self behind our eyes or in our head and when we grasp this, it's easier to unmoor ourselves from the sources of suffering in our lives.

The ways in which Harris supports this thesis are worth reading. Yet as a parent of a college-age daughter, I found that it was his move beyond meditation — Harris's expressed hope that his kids, once they become adults, will ingest psychedelics — that made me stop and think hard. Is Harris's wish an ethical one? What can my field of anthropology bring to bear in thinking about this matter?

On this topic of psychedelics, Harris has an advantage that I lack. Not only has he spent considerable time in serious meditative practice, he also has experienced moments of immense beauty and love — and other moments of total terror — on MDMA (ecstasy), psilocybin (mushrooms) and LSD. I grew up in the '60s in a family whose lives centered closely on law enforcement — my father was a captain in the New Jersey State Police — and I wasn't exactly the drug-experimenting type. In high school and college, I watched a few friends go through trips good and bad, but that's as close as I got.

Harris is candid about the risks of ingesting psychedelics:

"There is no getting around the role of luck here. If you are lucky, and you take the right drug, you will know what it is to be enlightened (or to be close enough to persuade you that enlightenment is possible). If you are unlucky, you will know what it is to be clinically insane."

Harris describes one LSD trip as plunging him into "a continuous shattering and terror for which I have no words."

Some readers, Harris notes at the outset, may want to consult their mental-health professionals before carrying out any of the ideas he endorses (including meditation), and he concludes that after expanding one's consciousness through drugs "it seems wise" to find other practices that "do not present the same risks."

So how should we think about the psychedelic-ingestion experience in connection with a search for enlightenment? Research in neuroscience certainly shows real change in the brain from the action of psychedelic drugs. But I don't think it's enough to say that the outcome of any given trip is a matter of which drug one ingests — and of individual luck.

Like everything else humans do, ingesting psychedelics — even if we are totally alone while doing so — is a cultural matter, and the outcomes are culturally contingent. Anthropologists Greg Downey and Daniel Lende, who co-blog at Neuroanthropology, each made the same point to me in separate emails this week when I invited them to respond to Harris's passages about enlightenment through psychedelic drug use: "One could say that Harris goes a bit far," were Lende's words. He continued:

"Certainly taking 100[micrograms] of LSD will produce a big pharmacological effect on the person; whether that relates to some understanding of personal significance is a more open book. Many anthropologists would say that he's over-emphasizing the individual view of things, in line with Western approaches to the mind. Put differently, the link between psychoactive effect and meaning is mediated by the immediate context, personal history, the framing given to the use, and larger cultural patterns.

I'm sure there are people who have rather muted responses to psychedelics, or exaggerated responses, and part of that will lie in the person's biology, from genetics to states of arousal to how they've learned to interpret psychedelic experiences.

And as I might put it as an anthropologist, experiences of spirituality can also be had through engaging with others, for example, talking to someone who has had psychosis (rather than Harris's exaggerated view of it, likely not grounded in personal experience but cultural ideas) or talking about transformative and spiritual experiences with others."

Downey made the point to me that no intoxicant has a predictable response:

"Across cultures, intoxicants of all sorts have quite different effects: even alcohol has no uniform effect. In some places, it leads groups of people to fight, in others to cry to themselves, in others still, to raucous singing or dancing. Although the chemical may have a specific effect — such as emotional disinhibition or visions — the effect in the brain does not necessarily produce the same emotional or perceptual effect. Hallucinogens may make us prone to have visions, but they do not determine entirely what sort of visions they will be, or whether they will be a profound and life changing event, or a temporary intoxication.

To really have the sorts of effects that Sam Harris hopes for, you would need the symbolic resources and social support to leverage the hours of intoxication into serious insight. In a society hostile to visions, convinced that there is no higher form of consciousness than everyday awareness, I think it's unlikely that most users would have the sorts of experiences that Harris describes. Some will, and they show us what's possible; but they do not point the way to anything inevitable."

It's hard to escape our own cultural lens: It's a constant struggle, for anthropologists as much as anyone. Still, Harris's perspective would, I think, be strengthened by his explicitly considering the variable cultural contexts for what he's espousing.

"It is your mind, rather than circumstances themselves, that determines the quality of your life," he writes, then repeats this sentiment in similar words throughout the book.

Does Harris really think that mushrooms and meditation are enough to overcome, to take but one example, a life of hunger or poor health emerging from poverty? Of course not. Harris is smarter than that — but he's writing for a certain audience, and what comes to the fore is not a global perspective on human suffering or on what society should do about it.

Circling back to the passage from Waking Up that I used to open this post, I'll wager that we can collectively create a lengthy list of responsibilities that our society has — to each other, to our environment, to other animals — that take priority over eating mushrooms or dropping acid and urging our adult children to do so.

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Barbara's most recent book on animals was released in paperback in April. You can keep up with what she is thinking on Twitter: @bjkingape

Robin Carhart-Harris, Mendel Kaelen and David Nutt - How Do Hallucinogens Work on the Brain?

This is another article from the open access issue of The Psychologist (Volume 27 - Part 9: Sept 2014) devoted to the future of hallucinogens in psychology. This article (by Robin Carhart-Harris, Mendel Kaelen and David Nutt) looks at how these drugs work on the brain.

How do hallucinogens work on the brain?

Robin Carhart-Harris, Mendel Kaelen and David Nutt consider a big question on several levels. Pages: 662-665

Abstract

What do we know about how hallucinogens work on the brain to produce their characteristic subjective effects? This question can be approached from a number of different levels. At the lowest functionally relevant level, how do the hallucinogenic compounds themselves interact with a certain neurotransmitter receptor to alter neuronal activity? Then at the neuronal population level, how does a drug-induced change in neuronal firing interact with the integrated oscillatory activity of large populations of neurons? Finally, how does this all play out at the level of large-scale systems or networks in the brain; and of how do changes in the functional behaviour of these systems map on to specific psychological experiences?

View the complete article as a PDF document (Please note that some pictures may have been removed for copyright reasons)

The ‘classic’ hallucinogens – such as LSD (derived from ergotamine found in ergot fungi), dimethyltryptamine (DMT, the major hallucinogenic component of ayahuasca) and psilocybin (from magic mushrooms) – possess a unique and arguably unrivalled potential as scientific tools to study the mind and the brain. For those of us who are currently fortunate enough to be researching them, there is a real sense that we are exploring something destined to become the ‘next big thing’ in psychopharmacology. But how much do we really know about how they act on the brain to produce their many unusual effects? Here, we summarise the relevant research, beginning at the level of single neurons and moving towards networks in the brain.

The level of single neurons

All classic hallucinogens stimulate  a particular serotonin receptor subtype expressed on neurons in the brain, the serotonin 2A receptor. This receptor appears to be central to the action of hallucinogens because blocking it (with another drug called ketanserin) abolishes the occurrence of the hallucinatory state (Vollenweider et al., 1998). Also, the affinity (or ‘stickiness’) of different hallucinogens for the serotonin 2A receptor correlates positively with their potency, or ‘strength’; for example, LSD has an extremely high affinity for the serotonin 2A receptor and is remarkably potent (Glennon et al., 1984). That hallucinogens ‘stimulate’ serotonin 2A receptors means that they mimic the action of serotonin at the receptor by binding to it, altering its conformation or ‘shape’, and ultimately altering the internal conditions and therefore behaviour of the neuron it sits on. For the serotonin 2A receptor, the key functional effect of its stimulation is an increase in the excitability of the hosting neuron.

Serotonin 2A receptors are primarily expressed on an important type of neuron or brain cell in the brain, excitatory pyramidal neurons. More specifically, serotonin 2A receptors are especially highly expressed on excitatory pyramidal neurons in ‘layer 5’ of the cortex. The cortex is organised into layers of different cell types, like the different layers of a cake, and layer 5 is a deep layer, nearer the base than the icing (Weber & Andrade, 2010). Layer 5 pyramidal neurons are especially important functional units in the brain as they are the principal source of output from a cortical region. They project to hierarchically subordinate, or ‘lower’, cortical and subcortical regions (e.g. from a visual association region to the primary visual cortex). Layer 5 pyramidal neurons project heavily onto inhibitory interneurons and so the net effect of their excitation seems to be inhibitory (Bastos et al., 2012). This is important because hallucinogen-induced excitation of layer 5 pyramidal cells has been interpreted by some as evidence of a more general excitatory effect of these drugs, but as will be discussed in the forthcoming sections, recent animal electrophysiological and human neuroimaging recordings have cast further doubt on the assumption that hallucinogens have a general excitatory effect on cortical activity (Carhart-Harris et al., 2012; Wood et al., 2012). Captured by the idiom ‘failing to see the woods for the trees’, these results are a reminder that one should not be too hasty to extrapolate from the activity of certain single units in the brain, since the interconnected nature of cortical circuits means that local excitation can translate into net inhibition, or rather ‘disorder’, at a higher level of the system. If John Donne was a neuroscientist, he might have said: ‘no neuron is an island, entire of itself’.

Populations of neurons

Much of brain activity is rhythmic  or oscillatory in nature and electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG) and local field potential (LFP) recordings are techniques that measure the collective, synchronously oscillating activity of large populations of neurons. Studies in animals and humans have found decreases in oscillatory activity in the cortex after the administration of hallucinogens, and in one of our most recent and informative studies with psilocybin we observed a profound desynchronising influence on cortical activity (Muthukumaraswamy et al., 2013). This effect was evident in all of the frequencies recorded by MEG, from the slowest (i.e. ‘delta’, 1–4 oscillations per second) to the fastest (i.e. ‘high gamma’, 50–100 oscillations per second). Moreover, when a modelling technique was employed to infer the cellular origin of these effects, the results highlighted excitation of layer 5 pyramidal neurons as the most likely cause (Muthukumaraswamy et al., 2013). Cortical desynchrony has also been  found in studies with LSD (Bente et al., 1958) and ayahuasca (Riba et al., 2002) using EEG.

An important question that follows from these findings is: why does excitation of layer 5 pyramidal neurons cause desynchronisation at the population level? Recording simultaneously the activity of presumed layer 5 pyramidals and LFPs in rats has gone some way to answer this (Celada et al., 2008). Specifically, researchers in Barcelona found that layer 5 pyramidal neurons usually fire at a particular phase of cortical oscillations, suggesting that the single units are either entrained by cortical rhythms, exert a pacemaker influence on them, or both. Importantly, when the LSD-analogue hallucinogen DOI was administered to rats, the normal concordance between pyramidal cell firing and the phase of LFP oscillations was abolished, and this decoupling was dependent on serotonin 2A receptor stimulation.

To help illustrate this principle by analogy, the strength of cortical rhythms can be thought of as analogous to the rhythmic sound generated by a population of individuals clapping their hands in synchrony. The presence of an individual clapper among a population of clappers means that his/her rate of clapping becomes quickly entrained by the collective sound generated by the population as a whole. Now imagine  that a number of mischievous ‘ticklers’ are introduced to the scene, inducing sporadic clapping by tickling individual clappers. Although the individuals targeted may be excited into clapping more often, there will be a disruptive effect on the regularity and volume of  the sound generated by the population as a whole. The basic principle is that although hallucinogens excite certain excitatory neurons in the cortex to fire more readily, this has a disorganising influence on cortical activity as a whole.

The system level

Much of our own research on hallucinogens has focused on human brain imaging and particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique that measures changes in brain activity at a high spatial resolution. In a pair of related studies, we studied changes in brain blood flow (a reliable proxy of brain activity) and network activity in healthy individuals administered psilocybin intravenously whilst they lay in the fMRI scanner.

The results were remarkable because they showed for the first time that characteristic changes in consciousness brought about by a hallucinogen are related to ‘decreases’ in brain activity (Carhart-Harris et al., 2012). The decreases were localised to important hub structures in the brain, such as the thalamus, posterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex. These structures are important as they are centres for information integration and routing in the brain. Thus, rather than being restricted to the performance of specific functions (e.g. the visual cortex is concerned with visual processing and the motor cortex with motor action) these structures possess a more general, managerial purpose, essentially holding the entire system together; analogous to a capital city in a country, or a chief executive officer of a cooperation. The observed decrease in activity in these regions was therefore interpreted as permitting a more unconstrained mode of brain function (Carhart-Harris et al., 2012).

To further interrogate this idea we subsequently conducted a number of network analyses, testing the principle that the brain operates in a freer, less constrained manner in the hallucinogenic state. The first analyses looked at the integrity of individual networks under psilocybin and found that these were essentially less integrated, or even ‘disintegrated’, under the drug. Next, we examined how brain networks communicate with each other and found that distinct networks became less distinct under the drug, implying that they communicate more openly but, in doing so, lose some of their own individual ‘identity’. Other analyses have also supported the principle that the brain operates with greater flexibility and interconnectedness under hallucinogens (Carhart-Harris et al., 2014).

The idea that an increase in system-level flexibility in the brain relates to greater cognitive flexibility is supported by several animal studies that have found enhanced cognitive flexibility and associative learning with serotonin 2A receptor stimulation and a retardation of these things with 2A receptor blockade (Boulougouris et al., 2008; Harvey, 2003; Harvey et al., 2004; Romano et al., 2010; Romano et al., 2006). Increased cognitive flexibility may be useful clinically in terms of enhancing cognitive-based psychotherapies for disorders such as depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and addiction, in which pathological patterns of thought and behaviour become entrenched (Carhart-Harris et al., 2014). Non-clinically, hallucinogens may be explored and exploited as novel nootropics; for example, as enhancers of creative thinking (Harman et al., 1966).

To summarise, we have learned that the first site of action of hallucinogens is the serotonin 2A receptor and that their stimulation causes important neurons to fire out of phase with the rhythmic oscillations of large populations of neurons in the cortex. This disruption of cortical rhythmicity extends to large-scale brain networks, where a generalised decrease in system organisation and constraint is observed. We discuss these ideas more fully in a recent review article that characterises the hallucinatory state as ‘entropic’ (i.e. disordered, in relation to normal waking consciousness) (Carhart-Harris et al., 2014).

Drugs that act on the brain have been studied quite extensively with the aim of understanding the neurobiology of consciousness; however, the majority of this research has focused on anaesthetics and sedatives that cause a general reduction in the level of consciousness. However, in our opinion, reducing wakefulness via anaesthetics is a relatively limited strategy for studying human consciousness. In contrast, hallucinogens are much more powerful tools, since they profoundly alter the quality of consciousness whilst leaving arousal or wakefulness intact. In our working model of different dimensions of consciousness and their sensitivity to modulation via different neurotransmitter systems, we suggest a consideration of:

• Level: The GABA-A system regulates cortical arousal and when stimulated produces sedation.
• Focus: The dopamine system modulates attentional and goal-directed behaviours and enhances alertness.
• Flexibility: Serotonin 2A receptor stimulation increases cognitive flexibility.

Hitherto, we have characterised hallucinogens as agents of disorganisation; however, it must be acknowledged that the picture presented is somewhat incomplete. Specifically, it fails to address some of the most prominent and intriguing psychological properties of hallucinogens, such as their ability to produce complex visual hallucinations (de Araujo et al., 2012) or ‘ego-disintegration’ in the promotion of ‘peak-type’ experiences (Griffiths et al., 2006). Thus, in the final two sections of this article we will offer some empirically informed insights on what may be occurring in the brain to account for such phenomena. 

Chaos above, anarchy below

The discussion so far has focused almost exclusively on decremental changes in brain activity brought about by hallucinogens (e.g. decreased oscillatory activity, blood flow and network integrity); however, it is important to note that disinhibitory effects have also been observed in certain brain regions.

Before the advent of non-invasive neuroimaging, the only means of recording neuronal activity below the surface of the cortex was to surgically insert wire electrodes deep into target brain tissue. Remarkably, in the 1950s and 60s, under the pretence of research on psychosis, such procedures were carried out in human subjects who were administered hallucinogenic drugs such as mescaline and LSD. Despite the ethically questionable nature of these experiments, they did reveal some interesting clues about the neurobiology of the hallucinatory state. Specifically, phasic discharges in medial temporal lobe (MTL) circuitry (i.e. the hippocampus, amygdala and septal nuclei) appeared in recordings during periods of marked hallucinosis, while the more familiar cortical desynchrony associated with hallucinogens was also present (Monroe & Heath, 1961; Schwarz et al., 1956). 

Intriguingly, a similar cortical/MTL dichotomy has been observed in rodents administered a DMT-like compound (Riga et al., 2014) and in our fMRI research with psilocybin. Specifically, in our psilocybin studies, in addition to decreased blood flow, oscillatory activity and network integrity in the cortex, we also observed an increase in the amplitude of low-frequency signal fluctuations in the hippocampus and parahippocampus (Carhart-Harris et al., 2014). Increased medial temporal lobe activity is a major characteristic of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is strongly correlated with dreaming (Aserinsky & Kleitman, 1953), and the increases in hippocampal activity detected in our own analyses correlated positively with volunteers’ ratings of the dreamlike quality of their experiences (Carhart-Harris & Nutt, 2014). LSD given just before waking or during sleep has been found to promote REM sleep and dreaming (Carhart-Harris & Nutt, 2014; Muzio et al., 1966), and with eyes-closed, the hallucinogenic state has often been compared to dreaming (Carhart-Harris & Nutt, 2014).

Electrical stimulation of the medial temporal lobe circuitry has long been known to produce complex dreamlike visions of a similar sort to those associated with dreaming and the hallucinogenic drug state, and direct stimulations of the parahippocampal face and place sensitive regions have recently been found to produce visual distortions/hallucinations such as ‘melting’ faces and visions of complex scenes (Megevand et al., 2014), similar in many respects to reports of hallucinogen-induced visual hallucinations. Thus, it makes sense to look more closely at changes in the activity and network behaviour of the MTL structures in the future, as well as the relationship between REM sleep dreaming and the hallucinogenic drug state, in order to develop our understanding of the neurobiology of the hallucinatory state.

Finding the self by losing the self

One of the most common yet abstract experiences described in relation to the hallucinogenic drug state is a disintegration or dissolution of the self or ego. Such an experience is difficult to fathom from the vantage of normal waking consciousness, where an integrated sense of self is felt as pervasive and permanent. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that the experience of ego-disintegration is described as profoundly disconcerting and unusual (Griffiths et al., 2006). Classic accounts of so-called ‘mystical’ or ‘spiritual’ experiences have placed emphasis on the necessity for self or ego disintegration for their occurrence (James & Bradley, 2012). Thus, in order to investigate the neurobiological basis of ego-disintegration and mystical-type experiences, it is useful to first examine the neural correlates of self-awareness.

Evidence has accumulated in recent years highlighting a relationship between a particular brain system and so-called ‘ego functions’ such as self-reflection (Carhart-Harris & Friston, 2010). This network is referred to as the ‘default mode network’ because it has a high level of ongoing activity that is only suspended or interrupted when one’s attention is taken up by something specific in the immediate environment, such as a cognitive task (Raichle et al., 2001).

It was a matter of great intrigue to us therefore that we observed a marked decrease in brain activity in the default mode network under psilocybin (Carhart-Harris et al., 2012) whilst participants described experiences such as: ‘Real ego-death stuff! I only existed as an idea or concept… I felt as though I was kneeling before God!’

To scrutinise this phenomenon further, we looked at correlations between decreases in oscillatory activity in a certain frequency band (i.e. ‘alpha’), in a certain part of the default mode network (the posterior cingulate cortex, PCC – the major cortical hub) and ratings of ‘ego-disintegration’ post-psilocybin.

In what is perhaps our most intriguing and potentially important finding on the neurobiology of the hallucinogenic drug state to date, we found a highly significant correlation between the magnitude of decreases in oscillatory activity in the PCC and reports of ego-disintegration (Carhart-Harris et al., 2014; Muthukumaraswamy et al., 2013). Thus, those participants that showed the most dramatic collapses in rhythmic activity in their PCCs reported the most extreme ego-disintegration. Adding to the intrigue, alpha oscillations develop to a maximal level in mature adult humans and have been hypothesised to be a marker or ‘signature’ of high-level human consciousness (Basar & Guntekin, 2009). Could PCC alpha rhythms be critical for the development and maintenance of one’s sense of self, and if ‘yes’, what specific functions do they subserve? These are important questions for future research.

Conclusions

So, stimulation of the serotonin 2A receptor disrupts coupling between the firing of certain cells types and the rhythmic oscillations of larger populations of neurons in the cortex. Hallucinogens have a disorganising influence on cortical activity which permits the brain to operate in a freer, less constrained manner than usual.

These are exciting times, with much still to learn. Unfortunately, this research is unusually difficult to conduct, being fraught with regulatory obstacles and other challenges. However, in the inspiring words of John F. Kennedy about another endeavour that was ultimately accomplished almost half a century ago: ‘We choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’


References

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2. Basar, E. & Guntekin, B. (2009). Darwin’s evolution theory, brain oscillations, and complex brain function in a new ‘Cartesian view’ [Review]. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 71(1), 2–8.
3. Bastos, A.M., Usrey, W.M., Adams, R.A. et al. (2012). Canonical microcircuits for predictive coding. Neuron, 76, 695–711.
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14. Harman, W.W., McKim, R.H., Mogar, R.E. et al. (1966). Psychedelic agents in creative problem-solving. Psychological Reports, 19, 211–227.
15. Harvey, J.A. (2003). Role of the serotonin 5-HT(2A) receptor in learning. Learning and Memory, 10(5), 355–362.
16. Harvey, J.A., Quinn, J.L., Liu, R. et al. (2004). Selective remodeling of rabbit frontal cortex. Psychopharmacology (Berl), 172(4), 435–442.
17. James, W. & Bradley, M. (2012). The varieties of religious experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
18. Megevand, P., Groppe, D.M., Goldfinger, M.S. et al. (2014). Seeing scenes: Topographic visual hallucinations evoked by direct electrical stimulation of the parahippocampal place area. Journal of Neuroscience, 34(16), 5399–5405.
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Robin Carhart-Harris is a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London
r.carhart-harris@imperial.ac.uk
Mendel Kaelen is a PhD student at Imperial College London
David Nutt is Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London
d.nutt@imperial.ac.uk

The Psychologist: Special Issue on Hallucinogens - A Brave New World for Psychology?

The new issue of The Psychologist, from The British Psychological Society, is a special issue on the future of hallucinogens in psychology - and it's all open access (i.e., free).

Here is the introductory essay from David Nutt. There are a couple of other articles from this issue that I will be posting.

Special issue: A brave new world for psychology?

David Nutt introduces a special issue considering the use of hallucinogens in research and therapy

Volume 27(9), September, 2014: Pages: 658-661

The psychedelic state is unquestionably one of the most interesting psychological experiences humans can have. Hallucinogenic drugs that have been used by humans for as long as we can determine to provide novel insights into the mind and enhance social bonding. For moral reasons, hidden behind spurious concerns about health harms, modern society has attempted to deny the value and importance of the use of these drugs and the study of this altered state of consciousness. This article explains why this scientific censorship has occurred and outlines the lost opportunities for neuroscience research and medicinal treatments that have resulted.

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Psychedelics, used responsibly and with proper caution, would be for psychiatry what the microscope is for biology or the telescope is for astronomy. These tools make it possible to study important processes that under normal circumstances are not available for direct observation.
Stanislav Grof (1975)

Last year I had the pleasure of visiting Chile and spending a few days in the Atacama Desert, in the high Andes. To deal with the altitude-induced headaches I used the local remedy of chewing coca-leaves and drinking mate (coca-leaf tea). Following the Spanish conquest these local remedies were banned by the Catholic Church as being heathen, though the ban was rapidly overturned by the Spanish overlords as it resulted in work productivity of the ‘natives’ declining! In 1961 the coca-leaf was again banned, despite there being no evidence of its being addictive or harmful, as part of the absurd 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. For most Andean coca-leaf chewers the ban has had little impact, although in some places the coca-farmers have had their crops and livelihoods destroyed as part of the US-driven ‘war on drugs’.

However, the original Andean inhabitants used drugs other than cocaine, as I discovered in a visit to the museum of the Atacama Desert. Of the many artefacts from the pre-Columbian period well over half were related to the use of hallucinogenic extracts of the peyote cactus. These comprised pestles and mortars for grinding the flowers, pots for storing the flower buds, belt pouches for carrying the powder and ceramic straws for snorting it. Many were beautifully decorated, showing that they had symbolic as well as practical uses. Moreover, much of the art of the period seemed influenced by the visions produced under peyote.

There is extensive evidence that many, possibly all, earlier cultures used hallucinogens such as mescaline, ayahuasca and ibogaine – see Ben Sessa’s book The Psychedelic Renaissance. They appeared to be used to gain personal insights and promote social bonding, and may also have had mood-promoting and resilience-inducing actions. The latter I suspect is why they were so widely used in the Andes, which is a particularly inhospitable and difficult environment in which to survive. Use of hallucinogens has survived to the present day in indigenous cultures and some churches, such as the Santo Daime church in Brazil (and now beyond) that uses ayahuasca in its church ceremonies, even in children. The use of ibogaine for  self-enlightenment in West Africa has now developed worldwide and has become popular as an aid to overcoming addiction. Psilocybin as ‘magic mushrooms’ have been used in many cultures across much of the world, and are still taken by many young people in the UK despite attempts to ban them by making their possession illegal. The reasons for – and benefits of – this widespread social use of hallucinogens throughout human society is an important question for social psychology.

In contrast, ‘Western’ society has promoted other drugs, particularly alcohol, for social engagement, worship and pleasure. When hallucinogens, particularly the new longer-acting synthetic one LSD, began to enter popular culture in the early 1960s (the ‘flower-power’ movement) it was seen as a major threat to the current political order and so LSD plus all other hallucinogenic chemicals such as psilocybin and dimethyltryptamine (DMT) were rapidly banned in the USA and then under the UN drug conventions.

To me – and I speak here as a former Chair of the UK government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs – the justification for the banning was a concoction of lies about their health impacts coupled with a denial of their potential as research tools and treatments. Indeed their banning demonstrates the chilling power of drug regulators and enforcers to control the drug agenda, for the ban was enacted in the face of opposition from leading and open-minded politicians such as Bobby Kennedy (whose wife Ethel had undergone or was undergoing LSD therapy at the time at Hollywood Hospital). The discussion between him and them shows the challenge of getting to the truth.  

Why if [clinical LSD projects] were worthwhile six months ago, why aren’t they worthwhile now? We keep going around and around…If I could get a flat answer about that I would be happy. Is there a misunderstanding about my question? I think perhaps we have lost sight of the fact that LSD can be very, very helpful in our society if used properly.(Kennedy, quoted in Lee & Shlain, 1985, p.93) 

As is the case with almost all international drug-related legislation, the UK government slavishly followed the US  lead and psychedelics were banned here in 1964. The reason for this strict control is to prevent the recreational use of these drugs, particularly by young people. The controls are supposedly designed to reduce their harms, although in the case of hallucinogens these harms are clearly less than those from most other drugs, including legal ones such as alcohol (Nutt et al., 2010). This decision has efficiently stopped research into these drugs to the detriment of researchers; worse still, many thousands of patients have been denied potential new medicines.

Almost all nations in the world are signatories to the UN conventions, so the ban on use is almost totally worldwide, with the only exceptions being made for plants growing wild which contain psychotropic substances from among those in Schedule I and which are traditionally used by certain small, clearly determined groups in magical or religious rites (1971 Convention Commentary Article 32:4).

Before these UN regulations were brought in, LSD had been widely studied with about 1000 studies involving 40,000 subjects (Masters & Houston, 1971). The pharmaceutical company that invented LSD, Sandoz, saw its huge potential for understanding the brain and as a possible avenue to new treatments, so they made it widely available to the worldwide scientific community. In the 50 years since its ban, there has been almost no new research despite remarkable advances in neuroscience technologies such as PET and fMRI that could allow a much greater understanding of its actions than were possible in the 1950s. The limited research now developing in this field has already revealed remarkable and unexpected insights into how these drugs produce hallucinations (see Carhart-Harris et al., in this issue). They also offer a possible new human model of psychosis against which to test new antipsychotic agents.

The clinical potential of hallucinogens was always seen as one of the most important advances. The founder of Alcoholics Anonymous reportedly became abstinent after an LSD experience in which he saw he could escape from the control alcohol had over him, and many others tried the same approach. A recent meta-analysis of the old clinical trials in which LSD was used to treat alcoholism (Krebs & Johansen, 2012) found that the effect size of LSD was as great as that of any other treatment for alcoholism developed since. This apparent clinical utility of LSD has been denied to millions of patients, and alcoholism is now the leading cause of disability for men in Europe (Wittchen et al., 2011).

Another of the original benefits of LSD, as a way to come to terms with dying, could offer a more humane and positive alternative to sedatives and opioids. The value of this approach has just resurfaced with the first LSD study in 50 years (Gasser et al., 2014) where it again was shown to reduce anxiety in those with terminal illness. This complements the approach of Charles Grob in this issue, using psilocybin for cancer anxiety.

Other Schedule 1 psychedelic drugs have similar potential for treatment uses. Ibogaine is licensed for the treatment of addiction in New Zealand. Psilocybin, obtained from ‘magic mushrooms’, is a shorter-acting version of LSD that has been shown to be a possible treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (Moreno et al., 2006) and cluster headaches (Sewell et al., 2006). Roland Griffiths’ group in Johns Hopkins has shown that psilocybin given in a psychotherapy setting can produce very long-lived and profound improvements in mood and well-being (Griffiths et al., 2008).

That this small handful of studies represents all the clinical work in the last 50 years proves how destructive the banning of hallucinogens has been on treatment research. Regulators say that the UN conventions do not ban research – they just ensure that the drugs are subject to a level of control commensurate with their harmfulness and lack of clinical utility. Yet this Schedule 1 control is the highest level of security, meaning that hallucinogens are controlled to a level more extreme than that for heroin or cocaine, so belying the harm argument. The lack of clinical utility is self-fulfilling, since with virtually no research in this field clinical findings are not going to develop. Complying with the current regulations is very time-consuming and expensive. A Schedule 1 licence in the UK costs about £6000 in fees and other costs and takes a year to obtain. Obtaining the drugs is also difficult and expensive. We have been quoted more than £3000 per 2mg dose of psilocybin for an MRC-funded clinical trial on depression. Comparable compounds that are not controlled can be obtained for 1/100th of that price. Much of the expense is because there are almost no production facilities in the world that have the necessary licences for holding and dispensing Schedule 1 drugs.

I suspect that this ongoing dearth of research is tacitly encouraged by governments as it might challenge the status quo. Lack of new evidence also perpetuates the justification for severe controls on the grounds of the precautionary principle. Politicians have tried to stop our work on psilocybin on the grounds that it uses ‘illegal drugs’. They have also attempted to disrupt our psilocybin depression trial by using Freedom of Information requests to our universities and the MRC.

An exploration of the mind

One of the founding fathers of American psychology, William James, used hallucinogens as part of his exploration of the mind. From his experiences he concluded: 

Our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness. Whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. No account of the universe in its totality can be final that leaves these disregarded. How to regard them is the question – for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness.

Despite the massive influence of William James on the development of the discipline of psychology his interest in studying consciousness using drugs (in his case nitrous oxide) to produce alterations in it has been largely ignored, probably because of social pressure and the complexity of doing such work. I would argue that these drugs are central to key areas of psychology research such as consciousness and mood regulation. How can one explore consciousness without perturbing it? What mediates the positive mood effects of psychedelics and how can we use them to assist in treatments?

Psychedelics offer a remarkable and safe way of producing fast and profound changes in key psychological processes. I would support James’s desire to explore other forms of consciousness and assert that hallucinogenic drugs provide one way of mediating this research. One could in fact argue that understanding the psychedelic state is one of the great challenges for human psychology research.

The other great insight into the value of these drugs comes from the author/scientist Aldous Huxley. His self-experimentation with various hallucinogens is well documented in his books, such as the Doors of Perception, its title reflecting the writings of the visionary artist William Blake:

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern. (William Blake, 1993)

The article by Carhart-Harris, Mendel Kaelen and myself in this issue outlines just how hallucinogens open up the chinks in the cavern of the brain. We provide direct support for the idea that the brain dictates what is perceived not what is there; the human brain can and does truly close itself up to many things, and psychedelics can open it again

A way forward

The failure of the scientific community, particularly neuroscientists, to protest the denial of research on hallucinogens is one of the most disturbing failures of science leadership in the past century, and it must be rectified. Psychologists and other neuroscientists must demand the right to study these drugs. Our professional organisations should demand the overturn of the UN Schedule 1 status for hallucinogens and in the meantime push for hospital and university research groups to be given exemption from the need to hold these licences. The need for this field to be opened up to psychologists is beautifully put by Aldous Huxley himself: 

Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. By simply not mentioning certain subjects… totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.

We should value his insights not only because they derive from a broad knowledge of science and a deep understanding of his personal experience with hallucinogens, but also because he followed his beliefs to the end using LSD to ease his own death.

David Nutt is Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London
d.nutt@imperial.ac.uk 

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