How do the chemicals in LSD affect brain chemistry to make someone hallucinate? Are these chemicals already there but taking them enhances them?
In: Biology
LSD is one molecule, Lysergic acid diethylamide. It’s shaped almost like seratonin, but a little different. That means that our brains use it in place of seratonin, and it binds to seratonin receptors, but because it’s not the exact right molecule it binds differently and behaves differently. So, it basically makes your neurons communicate weird, and this has effects all over your brain. How you process sound and light, how you access memories and what memories come up, etc.
To make a very long story short, it makes you dream while you are awake. The parts of your brain that are responsible for what you see while dreaming are activated which is why you hallucinate. It’s your own vivid imagination taking form.
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