Definition and research guide
This page combines a MeSH definition, publication statistics and selected research abstracts. It is a starting point for reading the literature, not a medical textbook or a systematic evidence review.
Content available: 4 complete abstracts (720 words), 10 references. Full article text is not stored or reproduced here; follow the PMID, DOI or PMC links to read the original sources and their access terms.
Definition
Semisynthetic derivative of ergot (Claviceps purpurea). It has complex effects on serotonergic systems including antagonism at some peripheral serotonin receptors, both agonist and antagonist actions at central nervous system serotonin receptors, and possibly effects on serotonin turnover. It is a potent hallucinogen, but the mechanisms of that effect are not well understood.
Definition: NLM Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) scope note (Public domain (U.S. National Library of Medicine); attribution requested). View the MeSH record.
Also known as: Acid Diethylamide, Lysergic; Diethylamide, Lysergic Acid; LSD; LSD-25; LSD 25; Lysergide; Lysergic Acid Diethylamide Tartrate.
Where it fits in the MeSH classification
- Broader topics
- Lysergic Acid
Research landscape
PubMed indexes 5,363 records tagged with the MeSH heading “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide” (counts retrieved 2026-10-31). 492 of them (9.2%) were published from 2020 onward, and the busiest period so far is through 1999 with 4,371 records.
Reviews account for 470 records (8.8%) and meta-analyses for 23. Randomized controlled trials number 80 (1.5%) as a share of all records on the topic. Randomized trials make up only a small share of this literature, so much of what is known comes from laboratory, observational or descriptive work.
Show the data
| Period | Records |
|---|---|
| through 1999 | 4,371 |
| 2000-2009 | 226 |
| 2010-2019 | 274 |
| 2020 onward | 492 |
Publication-type chart data
| Type | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews | 470 | 8.8% |
| Meta-analyses | 23 | 0.4% |
| Randomized controlled trials | 80 | 1.5% |
Method: PubMed query "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide"[MeSH Terms] with publication-type and date filters, retrieved 2026-10-31.
Reading the evidence in drugs and chemicals
Studies of a chemical or drug can answer very different questions: what it is and how it behaves in cells and animals, how the body handles it, and whether it changes outcomes in people. Laboratory and animal findings often do not carry over to patients, and observational studies of exposures are confounded by who uses a substance and why. Nothing on this page is a recommendation to use, avoid, start or stop any substance or medicine; talk to a qualified clinician or pharmacist about your own situation. Check the dose, the species, the comparison group and whether a patient-relevant outcome was measured.
Evidence from open-access studies
These open-access studies come from PubMed’s best-match results for this heading (papers whose main topic it is), ranked here by citation count, with one recent addition. Each abstract is reproduced in full under its recorded open licence so that you can read the authors’ own words. They illustrate the literature; they are not a systematic summary of it. Citation counts measure attention, not reliability or clinical benefit.
| Study / authors | Year | Source label / design | Europe PMC citations | Licence / source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Psychedelics promote plasticity by directly binding to BDNF receptor TrkB | 2023 | Research article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 432 | cc by PMID 37280397 · DOI · PMC10244169 |
| Increased spontaneous MEG signal diversity for psychoactive doses of ketamine, LSD and psilocybin | 2017 | Research article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 322 | cc by PMID 28422113 · DOI · PMC5396066 |
| Effective connectivity changes in LSD-induced altered states of consciousness in humans | 2019 | Randomized controlled trial Design not recorded in structured metadata | 213 | cc by PMID 30692255 · DOI · PMC6377471 |
| Neuroplastic white matter changes in patients with major depression following lysergic acid diethylamide treatment | 2026 | Randomized controlled trial Design not recorded in structured metadata | 2 | cc by PMID 42102823 · DOI · PMC13293959 |
Psychedelics promote plasticity by directly binding to BDNF receptor TrkB [1]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Psychedelics produce fast and persistent antidepressant effects and induce neuroplasticity resembling the effects of clinically approved antidepressants.
- Closing excerpt
- Our data confirm TrkB as a common primary target for antidepressants and suggest that high-affinity TrkB positive allosteric modulators lacking 5-HT2A activity may retain the antidepressant potential of psychedelics without hallucinogenic effects.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (156 words)
Psychedelics produce fast and persistent antidepressant effects and induce neuroplasticity resembling the effects of clinically approved antidepressants. We recently reported that pharmacologically diverse antidepressants, including fluoxetine and ketamine, act by binding to TrkB, the receptor for BDNF. Here we show that lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocin directly bind to TrkB with affinities 1,000-fold higher than those for other antidepressants, and that psychedelics and antidepressants bind to distinct but partially overlapping sites within the transmembrane domain of TrkB dimers. The effects of psychedelics on neurotrophic signaling, plasticity and antidepressant-like behavior in mice depend on TrkB binding and promotion of endogenous BDNF signaling but are independent of serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT2A) activation, whereas LSD-induced head twitching is dependent on 5-HT2A and independent of TrkB binding. Our data confirm TrkB as a common primary target for antidepressants and suggest that high-affinity TrkB positive allosteric modulators lacking 5-HT2A activity may retain the antidepressant potential of psychedelics without hallucinogenic effects.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 37280397 · DOI · PMC10244169
Increased spontaneous MEG signal diversity for psychoactive doses of ketamine, LSD and psilocybin [2]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- What is the level of consciousness of the psychedelic state?
- Closing excerpt
- These findings suggest that the sustained occurrence of psychedelic phenomenology constitutes an elevated level of consciousness - as measured by neural signal diversity.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (171 words)
What is the level of consciousness of the psychedelic state? Empirically, measures of neural signal diversity such as entropy and Lempel-Ziv (LZ) complexity score higher for wakeful rest than for states with lower conscious level like propofol-induced anesthesia. Here we compute these measures for spontaneous magnetoencephalographic (MEG) signals from humans during altered states of consciousness induced by three psychedelic substances: psilocybin, ketamine and LSD. For all three, we find reliably higher spontaneous signal diversity, even when controlling for spectral changes. This increase is most pronounced for the single-channel LZ complexity measure, and hence for temporal, as opposed to spatial, signal diversity. We also uncover selective correlations between changes in signal diversity and phenomenological reports of the intensity of psychedelic experience. This is the first time that these measures have been applied to the psychedelic state and, crucially, that they have yielded values exceeding those of normal waking consciousness. These findings suggest that the sustained occurrence of psychedelic phenomenology constitutes an elevated level of consciousness - as measured by neural signal diversity.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 28422113 · DOI · PMC5396066
Effective connectivity changes in LSD-induced altered states of consciousness in humans [3]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Psychedelics exert unique effects on human consciousness.
- Closing excerpt
- This is important for the development of new pharmacological therapeutics and also increases our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the potential clinical efficacy of psychedelics.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (237 words)
Psychedelics exert unique effects on human consciousness. The thalamic filter model suggests that core effects of psychedelics may result from gating deficits, based on a disintegration of information processing within cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) feedback loops. To test this hypothesis, we characterized changes in directed (effective) connectivity between selected CTSC regions after acute administration of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and after pretreatment with Ketanserin (a selective serotonin 2A receptor antagonist) plus LSD in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, cross-over study in 25 healthy participants. We used spectral dynamic causal modeling (DCM) for resting-state fMRI data. Fully connected DCM models were specified for each treatment condition to investigate the connectivity between the following areas: thalamus, ventral striatum, posterior cingulate cortex, and temporal cortex. Our results confirm major predictions proposed in the CSTC model and provide evidence that LSD alters effective connectivity within CSTC pathways that have been implicated in the gating of sensory and sensorimotor information to the cortex. In particular, LSD increased effective connectivity from the thalamus to the posterior cingulate cortex in a way that depended on serotonin 2A receptor activation, and decreased effective connectivity from the ventral striatum to the thalamus independently of serotonin 2A receptor activation. Together, these results advance our mechanistic understanding of the action of psychedelics in health and disease. This is important for the development of new pharmacological therapeutics and also increases our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the potential clinical efficacy of psychedelics.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 30692255 · DOI · PMC6377471
Neuroplastic white matter changes in patients with major depression following lysergic acid diethylamide treatment [4]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- The clinical trial NCT03866252 investigates the antidepressant effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in 61 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) randomized to low-dose LSD (LD-LSD; 2 × 25 μg) or moderate-to-high-dose LSD (HD-LSD; 100 μg followed by 200 μg) 4 weeks apart.
- Closing excerpt
- These findings suggest that LSD-induced WM microstructural changes are associated with antidepressant effects in MDD.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (156 words)
The clinical trial NCT03866252 investigates the antidepressant effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in 61 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) randomized to low-dose LSD (LD-LSD; 2 × 25 μg) or moderate-to-high-dose LSD (HD-LSD; 100 μg followed by 200 μg) 4 weeks apart. Although the trial reports positive clinical outcomes, underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we test whether LSD alters white matter (WM) microstructure, potentially reflecting enhanced neuroplasticity. Diffusion tensor imaging data from 35 patients (17 HD-LSD) include pre- and post-intervention scans. Voxel-wise permutation tests reveal group-by-time interactions, with increased fractional anisotropy (FA) in the internal and external capsule, sagittal stratum, and fornix/stria terminalis in the HD-LSD group. In this group, post-intervention FA values correlate with improvements in depressive symptoms at 2, 6, and 12 weeks, measured using the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (IDS-clinician rated [C] and IDS- self report [SR]). These findings suggest that LSD-induced WM microstructural changes are associated with antidepressant effects in MDD.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 42102823 · DOI · PMC13293959
Key reviews and meta-analyses
The most cited review-type papers among PubMed’s best-match results for this heading, listed with bibliographic details only. Follow the links for the full text and access terms.
- Research article Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) for alcoholism: meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials [5]
- Research article The pharmacology of lysergic acid diethylamide: a review [6]
- Research article Recent advances in the neuropsychopharmacology of serotonergic hallucinogens [7]
- Research article Hallucinogens in Mental Health: Preclinical and Clinical Studies on LSD, Psilocybin, MDMA, and Ketamine [8]
- Research article Modern Clinical Research on LSD [9]
- Research article Role of the serotonin 5-HT(2A) receptor in learning [10]
References
- Moliner R, Girych M, Brunello CA, Kovaleva V, Biojone C, Enkavi G, et al.. Psychedelics promote plasticity by directly binding to BDNF receptor TrkB. . 2023. PMID 37280397 · DOI · PMC10244169
- Schartner MM, Carhart-Harris RL, Barrett AB, Seth AK, Muthukumaraswamy SD. Increased spontaneous MEG signal diversity for psychoactive doses of ketamine, LSD and psilocybin. . 2017. PMID 28422113 · DOI · PMC5396066
- Preller KH, Razi A, Zeidman P, Stämpfli P, Friston KJ, Vollenweider FX. Effective connectivity changes in LSD-induced altered states of consciousness in humans. . 2019. PMID 30692255 · DOI · PMC6377471
- Avram M, Menegaux A, Müller F, Zaczek H, Korda A, Rogg H, et al.. Neuroplastic white matter changes in patients with major depression following lysergic acid diethylamide treatment. . 2026. PMID 42102823 · DOI · PMC13293959
- Krebs TS, Johansen PØ. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) for alcoholism: meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. J Psychopharmacol. 2012. PMID 22406913 · DOI
- Passie T, Halpern JH, Stichtenoth DO, Emrich HM, Hintzen A. The pharmacology of lysergic acid diethylamide: a review. CNS Neurosci Ther. 2008. PMID 19040555 · DOI · PMC6494066
- Halberstadt AL. Recent advances in the neuropsychopharmacology of serotonergic hallucinogens. Behav Brain Res. 2015. PMID 25036425 · DOI · PMC4642895
- De Gregorio D, Aguilar-Valles A, Preller KH, Heifets BD, Hibicke M, Mitchell J, et al.. Hallucinogens in Mental Health: Preclinical and Clinical Studies on LSD, Psilocybin, MDMA, and Ketamine. J Neurosci. 2021. PMID 33257322 · DOI · PMC7880300
- Liechti ME. Modern Clinical Research on LSD. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2017. PMID 28447622 · DOI · PMC5603820
- Harvey JA. Role of the serotonin 5-HT(2A) receptor in learning. Learn Mem. 2003. PMID 14557608 · DOI · PMC218001
About this article
- Sources
- NLM Medical Subject Headings (definition, synonyms); NCBI PubMed (counts, identifiers); Europe PMC (open-access abstracts and citation counts).
- Verification
- Every reference was resolved against PubMed on 2026-10-31; title, year and DOI matched.
- Review state
- automated source verified; no human expert review has been recorded yet.
- Version
- 1, last updated 2026-10-31.
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Evidence strength
EvidenceHelix's computed view of the study designs behind this topic: how common meta-analyses, randomized trials and reviews are, how recent the literature is, and a plain-language reading. It describes the design mix of the literature. It is not a quality appraisal of any study, and it is not medical advice.