Both personal use and scientific reports speak to the efficacy of LSD to treat depression, in the form of either a full dose, or a microdose. One of the earliest recorded trials on the effects of LSD on participants with “depressive reactions’’ took place in 19521 . Participants were given daily doses of LSD ranging from 20 µg to 100 µg.
The peer reviewed findings in this study reported that: “[Four] patients showed no improvement. In four cases, treatment was discontinued before proper evaluation could be made. Anxiety was a prominent reaction while less frequently euphoria was observed. In three patients who developed euphoria it served as an aid to psychotherapy by encouraging expression of feeling. In the others the heightened anxiety encouraged reticence rather than confidence… However, LSD affords therapeutically valuable insights into unconscious processes by the medium of the hallucinations it produces.”
In more recent years LSD has shown promising results in clinical research2 as a treatment for depression in both microdoses and larger quantities. In one study3 conducted by drug development company MindMed, LSD was shown to decrease symptoms of depression by 50 percent.
Other research4 , based upon MRI studies from Imperial College and the Beckley Foundation, showed that the brains of LSD users became less organized and more chaotic, while connecting parts of the brain that don’t ordinarily communicate with each other. During this state of “loosening up” as Imperial College London researcher Robin Carhart-Harris calls it, rigid neuronal structures become more flexible and can break depressive or addictive cycles.