Psychophysiological investigations in experimental psychoses; results of the exhibition of d-lysergic acid diethylamide to psychiatric patients.

Abstract

D-Lysergic acid diethylamide (L.S.D.-25) was first prepared by Stoll and Hoffmann in 1938 (35) as a derivative of rye ergot. Its profound effects in minute doses were discovered accidentally by Hoffmann and reported by Stoll (34) along with additional observations by the latter on 16 healthy controls and six schizophrenic patients. With a dose of 30–130 γ (0.03–0.13 mgm.) Stoll (34) noted motor inco-ordination, disturbances of visual perception with illusions and hallucinations, clouding of consciousness, and affective changes principally in the direction of euphoria and distractibility. Subsequent clinical reports have confirmed these findings (6, 38). Becker (1) using doses of 30–40 γ in healthy controls attempted to predict the quality of the resulting psychosis from the constitutional somatotype of the subject; he contrasted maniacal hyperkinetic states with those showing inhibition and depersonalization and drew attention to the pattern of the visual perceptual disturbances, which were principally those of differences in size, clarity and perspective. Becker's attempts at somatotypological correlation were less successful than those of Condreau (4) who used mentally ill patients as well as healthy subjects and found that L.S.D.-25 did tend to reinforce pre-existing personality characteristics, especially with regard to mood changes. Rinkel and others (30, 7) with doses of 20–90 γ in mixed healthy and psychiatrically disturbed populations stressed the scotopic nature of the hallucinations and the greater frequency of illusions of rippling or wavy lines evolving at times into geometrical designs. Affective blunting with a lack of spontaneity was commoner than the production of major delusions. In epilepsy apparently visual hallucinations are more frequently concomitants of L.S.D.-25 administration than in other mental disorders (31).