LSD alters perception via serotonin receptors

Humans perceive everyday things and experiences differently and attach different meaning to pieces of music, for instance. In the case of psychiatric disorders, this perception is often altered. For patients suffering from addictions, for instance, drug stimuli are more meaningful than for people without an addiction. Or patients with phobias perceive the things or situations that scare them with exaggerated significance compared to healthy people. A heightened negative perception of the self is also characteristic of depressive patients. Just how this so-called personal relevance develops in the brain and which neuropharmacological mechanisms are behind it, however, have remained unclear. Researchers from the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics at Zurich University Hospital for Psychiatry now reveal that LSD influences this process by stimulating the serotonin 2A receptor, one of the 14 serotonin receptors in the brain.