This early open-label investigation (1952) reports observations of mental changes in normal adults (n=15) produced by LSD (70μg/70kg) across 17 repeated experiments. Alterations were observed in the areas of thinking and speech, emotion, mood and affect, sensory and time perception, behavior, morbid ideas, and sensory experiences, and neurological signs, which were taken to reflect a schizophrenic-like state.
Abstract
“Results: L.S.D. (Lyserg Saure Diäthylamide) produced mental changes in 15 normal adults. There were alterations in thinking, speech, emotion, mood and affect, sensory and time perception, and neurological signs. The L.S.D. reaction showed aspects of a toxic picture and simulation of schizophrenic reactions. Schizo-affective and manic-like states were also encountered. Cathartic ventilation was seen in only one patient.
Discussion: Clinical effects of LSD imply involvement of higher and perhaps lower levels of the central nervous system.”
Authors: H. Jackson Deshon, Max Rinkel & Harry C. Solomo
Summary
MENTAL CHANGES EXPERIMENTALLY PRODUCED BY L. S. D. (d-Lysergic Acid Diethylamide Tartrate) BY H. JACKSON DESHON, M. D., MAX RINKEL~ M. D, and HARRY C. SOLOMON, ~I. D.
A. M. Becker investigated the effect of d-lysergic acid diethylamide on 19 individuals and found that the psychoses were the result of an endogenously-produced substance similar to L. S. D. He suggested the designation of “psycho-ticum” for this active chemical.
M. Rinkel reported on May 1, 1950, the preliminary results of his experimental observations on LSD, and Umberto de Giacomo of Italy reported on September 18, 1950, his experiences with LSD. Both authors reported that phenobarbital tends to neutralize the activity of LSD.
The subject was given 17 times to 15 normal adult volunteers. They were students, nurses and doctors with an age range of 19 to 48 years, and the subject was under continuous surveillance by at least one of the authors for the first five hours. The main emphasis in the experiments was on the clinicaI psychiatric picture. Routine neurological and circulatory system examinations were not done, but signs occrring in these areas were noted if observed.
All subjects experienced subjective symptoms, the most common being feelings of reality and greater understanding.
Visual perception disturbances predominated, followed by color disturbances and gustatory and auditory perception disturbances. Time sense was disturbed in 11 of 17 experiments.
In 15 experiments, behavior was objectively altered. Underactivity, lack of spontaneity and initiative, and smiling, giggling and laughing were most commonly observed.
Morbid ideas and sensory experiences appeared most frequently from one hour and 30 minutes after LSD to early afternoon. These included ideas of reference and ideas of influence, visual hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, gustatory hallucinations, and haptic hallucinations.
Cerebrospinal and autonomic nervous system effects were very scanty and were noted as they appeared, although routine neurological examinations were not done. Dysarthria, involuntary smiling, giggling and laughing, and disturbances in handwriting, reading, gait, station, pupils, non-equilibrium co-ordination, deep tendon reflexes, and muscle power in the arms were not observed.
II. Course of Reaction
The course of reaction to LSD presented three phases within the first 12 to 16 hours and a fourth phase appearing as an aftereffect. Phase III was characterized predominantly by reduced activity, poverty of thought, indifference, flat affect, and shallow feeling tone.
In this phase, the subject experienced intermittent difficulty in power of expression, with occasional blocking, and periods of apparent poverty of thought.
When asked about his thoughts in such a state, he replied that he was neither depressed nor euphoric, and that he could tell whether he was happy or unhappy usually.
In an effort to be more precise, the subject stated that the pack age of cigarettes seemed different now than it did one-half hour ago, and that he took cigarettes in a different way. He also displayed suspiciousness and mild morbid ideas.
During Phase II, Shilling experienced occasional transient disturbances in visual perception, sense of time was accelerated, and he displayed occasional mild restlessness and a subjective feeling of undirected impulsiveness.
Phase III lasted throughout the afternoon and into the evening. The subject felt neutral and had variable sociability and rapport in interpersonal relationships, and felt as if he were turning his face away from people to not allow them to smell alcohol on his breath.
A nurse, aged 27, experienced increased alertness, a disturbance in visual perception, heaviness in the wrists, slight flushing, indecision, self-consciousness, and peculiar feelings. After three and one-half hours, he was unable to make any spontaneous utterance or to answer questions except by gestures.
The ability to answer in monosyllables returned near the end of this phase, and a halting productivity was again possible. However, the subject was unable to put into words the thoughts that he wished to express, and felt dependent and wanted one of the physicians with him.
In Phase III, the difficulty in symbolic expression gradually subsided, but the patient showed some psychomotor retardation and partieularly indifference. He was taken home by friends in the early evening, and the following morning regarded himself as normal, but seemed more subdued, preoccupied, and attentive to his duties.
He made revealing statements about his affect, such as, “I don’t feel able to carry on conversation at the theoretical level” and “I feel as acutely separated as if–I do have the feeling that I am separated from my body”.
There were occasional nuances of positive mood, such as feeling insecure alone and being annoyed at being taken apart, but the subject showed a recurrent inability to initiate an action.
With the sense of paralysis of will, he had feelings of immobility and a sense that his self was not under his control. There were transient ideas of influence, and he had a dull vacant expression in his eyes.
During Phase II, the patient was unable to compare his own mental states five minutes apart, had a flush on both cheeks, and felt stiff in his neck.
Phase III was characterized by a gradual diminution in the intensity of the picture in Phase II, psychomotor retardation, indifference, and diminishing feelings of poor contact, detachment and unreality. The subject felt and seemed normal the following morning.
Electr o-Encephalogram
Overbreathing was less vigorous and less well tolerated, and produced less slow wave activity in the EEG.
Rorschach Test
Five subjects were tested during the LSD reaction; three gave schizophrenic pictures, one strongly schizophrenic with autistic thinking, less organization, less inhibition of emotion, contamination responses and lack of logical thinking, and negativism, and a fourth was definitely paranoid.
Concrete-Abstract Thinking Test
Two subjects were given Concrete-Abstract Thinking Tests. The results indicated that the subjects’ thinking was overgeneralized and tangential, and that their responses fell within the entire range of the accompanying diagrammatic spectrum.
In the catharsis state, anxiety was infrequent, transient and never marked. The mood and thought content were deep and vivid, and the shifts were not without an appropriate transition.
The sensory perception disturbances, hallucinations and illusions, and neurological signs were more in keeping with the fanfiliar exogenous toxic reaction type, and did not suggest complex determination, except for one subject who saw hair on her roommate’s face.
We do not know how the effects of L. S. D. are produced, but in animals it causes excitement and muscle tone similar to bulbocapnine. In humans, it causes mental changes that are reminiscent of catatonic stupor.
The writers thank Dr. Milton Greenblatt for interpretation of the electro-encephalograms and Charles Atwell and Arnold Meadow for doing the psychological tests.