TY - JOUR
T1 - LSD acutely impairs fear recognition and enhances emotional empathy and sociality
AU - Dolder, Patrick C.
AU - Schmid, Yasmin
AU - Müller, Felix
AU - Borgwardt, Stefan
AU - Liechti, Matthias E.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. 320030-1449493 to MEL) and the University of Basel (to FM). The authors declare no conflict of interest.
PY - 2016/10/1
Y1 - 2016/10/1
N2 - Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is used recreationally and has been evaluated as an adjunct to psychotherapy to treat anxiety in patients with life-threatening illness. LSD is well-known to induce perceptual alterations, but unknown is whether LSD alters emotional processing in ways that can support psychotherapy. We investigated the acute effects of LSD on emotional processing using the Face Emotion Recognition Task (FERT) and Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET). The effects of LSD on social behavior were tested using the Social Value Orientation (SVO) test. Two similar placebo-controlled, double-blind, random-order, crossover studies were conducted using 100 μg LSD in 24 subjects and 200 μg LSD in 16 subjects. All of the subjects were healthy and mostly hallucinogen-naive 25- to 65-year-old volunteers (20 men, 20 women). LSD produced feelings of happiness, trust, closeness to others, enhanced explicit and implicit emotional empathy on the MET, and impaired the recognition of sad and fearful faces on the FERT. LSD enhanced the participants' desire to be with other people and increased their prosocial behavior on the SVO test. These effects of LSD on emotion processing and sociality may be useful for LSD-assisted psychotherapy.
AB - Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is used recreationally and has been evaluated as an adjunct to psychotherapy to treat anxiety in patients with life-threatening illness. LSD is well-known to induce perceptual alterations, but unknown is whether LSD alters emotional processing in ways that can support psychotherapy. We investigated the acute effects of LSD on emotional processing using the Face Emotion Recognition Task (FERT) and Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET). The effects of LSD on social behavior were tested using the Social Value Orientation (SVO) test. Two similar placebo-controlled, double-blind, random-order, crossover studies were conducted using 100 μg LSD in 24 subjects and 200 μg LSD in 16 subjects. All of the subjects were healthy and mostly hallucinogen-naive 25- to 65-year-old volunteers (20 men, 20 women). LSD produced feelings of happiness, trust, closeness to others, enhanced explicit and implicit emotional empathy on the MET, and impaired the recognition of sad and fearful faces on the FERT. LSD enhanced the participants' desire to be with other people and increased their prosocial behavior on the SVO test. These effects of LSD on emotion processing and sociality may be useful for LSD-assisted psychotherapy.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84975251948&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/npp.2016.82
DO - 10.1038/npp.2016.82
M3 - Journal articles
C2 - 27249781
AN - SCOPUS:84975251948
SN - 0893-133X
VL - 41
SP - 2638
EP - 2646
JO - Neuropsychopharmacology
JF - Neuropsychopharmacology
IS - 11
ER -
