Does LSD make you smarter? New study suggests it promotes learning and memory

[Zinjanthropos]

you can fool some parts of the brain with serotonin and a bit of dopamine but you cant open up all the new pathways that LSD does with someone sedentary watching TV.

Why can you fool the brain with serotonin and dopamine but not LSD? This makes no sense to me. How do you know when a brain on LSD is not being fooled? Why can’t this opening up new pathways be as simple as a normal pathway misdirected* by an invasive chemical?

*for some reason I thought of WWII American forces at the Battle of the Bulge/Normandy being led astray by Germans turning directional road signs around in order to confuse enemy.

[Syne]

  you can fool some parts of the brain with serotonin and a bit of dopamine but you cant open up all the new pathways that LSD does with someone sedentary watching TV.   

Why can you fool the brain with serotonin and dopamine but not LSD? This makes no sense to me. How do you know when a brain on LSD is not being fooled? Why can’t this opening up new pathways be as simple as a normal pathway misdirected* by an invasive chemical?

There is no difference, except perhaps in degree. All psychoactive substances are fooling the brain. Serotonin and dopamine more directly than LSD, as those chemicals are actually utilized by the brain. LSD just disrupts perception, and the mental activity is altered by the perception, not the drug itself. In the case of LSD, it absolutely is just "misdirecting" usual pathways (between the perceptions and the brain's predictive additions to what we perceive).

[Ostronomos]

LSD just tricks you into believing more is possible, as your perception of reality warps and twists. If you believe that is real....well, you end up delusional, like Ostro.

NO! I AM NOT DELUSIONAL YOU ARE!

[Syne]

LSD just tricks you into believing more is possible, as your perception of reality warps and twists. If you believe that is real....well, you end up delusional, like Ostro.

NO! I AM NOT DELUSIONAL YOU ARE!

All evidence to the complete contrary. 9_9