The hallucinogenic drugslike LSD or mushrooms, are well known for their recreational use and the damage that this entails. However, they can also be very beneficial. There is a very interesting line of research in which its therapeutic properties against different mental health disorders. It is a very promising area to which, moreover, has now been added the artificial intelligence (AI).
Thanks to that AI, a team of scientists from Harvard University and MIT has managed to classify the different hallucinogenic drugs based on the symptoms that they could treat more effectively. There are with a great therapeutic potential versus depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorderamong others.
And it is that, in reality, there are no good or bad substances. What can kill you can also save your life at a different dose. The demonization of drugshallucinogenic or not, it depends on the prism through which we decide to look at them. Now, thanks to artificial intelligence, scientists are learning much faster how to bring them out of the dark side.
The friendly face of hallucinogenic drugs
The detrimental or positive effect of hallucinogenic drugs depends largely on the environment in which they are consumed. He has explained it to hypertexthe Miguel Ruiz Veguillagroup research psychiatrist PsyNal. “With drugs the context is important. For example, if amphetamines are taken in a health environment, the problems of side effects and addiction that do occur recreationally are not created, even at the same dose”.
This can be extrapolated to many other substances, including hallucinogenic drugs. In fact, Ruiz Veguilla has also told us about some studies in very preliminary phases that use this type of compound to treat a wide range of mental illnesses.
Particularly noteworthy is the case of post traumatic stress disorder. This occurs when a traumatic experience is burned into the brain of the person who has suffered it, causing a wide variety of psychiatric symptoms. “When someone has post-traumatic stress, the memory stays fixed in the hippocampus in a bestial way”, explains the expert. “However, it has been seen that taking one of these substances and then performing a psychological intervention a less damaging memory than that event could be introduced.”
It is still hypothetical, but it is very interesting, both for the hallucinogenic drug use and by the way in which psychopharmaceuticals are intertwined with psychological therapy. It’s practically a inception brought to real life.
But precisely because of how hypothetical all this is, studies are as important as those that are beginning to be carried out with artificial intelligence. These algorithms help to focus research much better, by pointing out which drugs are useful for each ailment. And the way in which they achieve it is most curious.
Artificial intelligence to treat mental illness
In an article published in The Conversation, Galen Ballentine and Sam Friedmantwo of the scientists from this research from MIT and Harvard University, tell what this artificial intelligence algorithm consists of.
As is always the case with these technologies, it is necessary to train it with a good amount of data. To do this, these researchers have used a database belonging to the Erowid Centerfrom Canada, in which more than 6,000 testimonies of people who have consumed hallucinogenic substances are collected.
What the AI algorithm does is analyze all those testimonials and look for the words that are repeated the most. Then they relate to brain zones in which there are known receptors for each drug. In this way, it is possible to search for symptoms associated with the most repeated words and, with this, establish what each substance is useful for.
For example, it has been seen that changes in social perception they are normally related to a serotonin receptor found in the visual cortex of the brain. Instead, the famous feeling of transcendence associated with religious experiences typical of hallucinogenic drugs appears to be associated with dopamine and opioid receptors located in a brain network known as the salience network.
As for the auditory hallucinations, involved several receptors spread throughout the auditory cortex. As you might expect, actually.
With all this information, the most well-known hallucinogenic drugs can be grouped in a way that makes it easier to understand what each might treat. Then there would still be the phase of looking for the doses, establishing the route of administration and, above all, checking if they are really effective. That’s what they’re for clinical trials. However, there is no doubt that AI has given these scientists a great thread to start pulling.