Why does the LSD trip last so long?

Psychedelics – in my opinion one of the most interesting group of substances we know. They can do really fascinating things with your mind. From the absolute state of pleasure to the darkest places you have ever visited. Today, I’d like to tell you something about one of the most famous psychedelics – Lysergic acid diethylamide or LSD. How does it work and why does the so called „trip“ last so long?

Below you can see the comparison of two molecules. One is LSD and the other one is serotonin. From the first look, they don’t seem to be much alike. But under closer investigation, it is quite obvious LSD structure poses some similarities with serotonin that are responsible for all the fun.

As you might know serotonin is a „brain messenger“ – neurotrasmitter. Brain has a lot of different messengers that are used for communication between neurons. Serotonin is very commonly reffered to as a „pleasure molecule“ or „happiness molecule“. Honestly, this is a huge oversimplification but for the sake of this post let’s keep it that way.

When one neuron wants to send a message via serotonin it simply releases couple of them in the direction of the other neuron. The second neuron has serotonin receptors on its surface that are specificly evolved to bind serotonin. It’s like a key and a lock. Once serotonin binds, it activates the receptor and send the signal further to the cell. The cell then reacts to it – by sending signal further, turning on / off different genes etc. All this signalisation results in many different outcomes – one of which is, that you feel happy.

As we mentioned above, LSD molecule share some similarities with serotonin. These similarities allow LSD to bind to serotonin receptors. „LSD-key“ is similar enough to „serotonin-key“ for unlocking the same „serotonin-lock“. But there is one very interesting additional thing happening. Although LSD is similar to serotonin, it isn‘t seroton, right? The differences between these two molecules cause the receptor to change its shape. This structural change of the receptor results in getting LSD molecule stuck inside. The receptors are then firing one signal after another. In other words- you are tripping.

How long? Well, eventually the cells realise something like „too much signalling is coming from there!“ and tries to naturally adjust this signalling. Neurons are doing that by pulling down the whole receptor with stuck LSD molecule, inside the cell and degrading them. This whole process can last up to 12 hours - the duration of the LSD trip.

A very common question is whether this is something bad for you and your neurons. And the answer is that very likely not. This mechanism of degrading the receptors when too much signalling is occuring is really common in your body. Brain cells will eventually synthese new receptors when realising they are absent and the signalling is lower that it should be.

And that's it fo today! I'm Peter and this is BeWise!