LYSERGIC ACID DERIVATIVES | |
THE BEST KNOWN of the lysergic acid derivatives is lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) , a compound which has created. an aura of excitement and magic from the moment of its discovery. Indeed, some element of its "mind-expanding" property may have been acting on Albert Hofmann on April 16, 1943, when he was able to distinguish "a peculiar sensation of vertigo and restlessness" and being "unable to concentrate"' from an ordinary case of Friday afternoon doldrums. In so doing, he was to discover a heretofore unknown property of a drug and initiate a new era in the continuing effort to understand the underlying mechanisms which control human behavior. Hofmann had, in fact, accidentally ingested minute quantities of one of the most powerful of drugs. A few years later, this potency in producing bizarre psychic phenomena, plus a lack of addictive and toxic properties, and the minimal side effects, were to impress and excite many behavioral scientists who were concerned with mental illness, particularly schizophrenia. There was a reawakened interest in the possibility of natural chemical activators in the schizophrenic process. Among the concepts re-introduced was the possibility of using drugs to initiate so-called model psychoses. Advocates reasoned that compounds such as LSD-25 could be used to induce a "schizophrenic-type" state analogous to a natural psychosis; biochemical and physiological mechanisms of the drug action could provide clues to mechanisms involved in schizophrenia; drugs counteracting the drug-induced psychoses could provide a therapeutical approach to schizophrenia. The underlying premise of these ideas is that natural psychoses could be caused by the production of a minute, perhaps undetectable, amount of aberrant metabolite by the organism. | |
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