CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 320Psychedelics and Drug StudiesPain Management and Placebo EffectSchizophrenia research and treatment

LSD enhances suggestibility in healthy volunteers

Carhart-Harris, R. L., Kaelen, M., Whalley, M. G., Bolstridge, M., Feilding, A., Nutt, D. J.·2015·Psychopharmacology
DOI 10.1007/s00213-014-3714-z
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Rationale Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) has a history of use as a psychotherapeutic aid in the treatment of mood disorders and addiction, and it was also explored as an enhancer of mind control. Objectives The present study sought to test the effect of LSD on suggestibility in a modern research study. Methods Ten healthy volunteers were administered with intravenous (i.v.) LSD (40-80 μg) in a within-subject placebo-controlled design. Suggestibility and cued mental imagery were assessed using the Creative Imagination Scale (CIS) and a mental imagery test (MIT). CIS and MIT items were split into two versions (A and B), balanced for 'efficacy' (i.e. A ≈ B) and counterbalanced across conditions (i.e. 50 % completed version 'A' under LSD). The MIT and CIS were issued 110 and 140 min, respectively, post-infusion, corresponding with the peak drug effects. Results Volunteers gave significantly higher ratings for the CIS (p = 0.018), but not the MIT (p = 0.11), after LSD than placebo. The magnitude of suggestibility enhancement under LSD was positively correlated with trait conscientiousness measured at baseline (p = 0.0005). Conclusions These results imply that the influence of suggestion is enhanced by LSD. Enhanced suggestibility under LSD may have implications for its use as an adjunct to psychotherapy, where suggestibility plays a major role. That cued imagery was unaffected by LSD implies that suggestions must be of a sufficient duration and level of detail to be enhanced by…

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1007/s00213-014-3714-z

Cites

80 of 80 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • LSD (40-80 μg, i.v.) enhances suggestibility on the Creative Imagination Scale, while Cued Imagery remained unaffected.

    “The first study, which was limited by a small sample of 10 healthy volunteers, showed that LSD (40–80 µg, i.v.) enhances suggestibility on the Creative Imagination Scale, while Cued Imagery remained unaffected (83).”

    From Modulation of Social Cognition via Hallucinogens and “Entactogens” (2019) · cites this paper as [83]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 81 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Carhart-Harris, R. L., Kaelen, M., Whalley, M. G., Bolstridge, M., Feilding, A., & Nutt, D. J.
Affiliations
  • Imperial College London (GB)
  • Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust (GB)
  • Beckley Foundation (GB)
Corresponding author
Carhart-Harris, R. L.
ORCID
Venue
Psychopharmacology
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2014-09-23
Volume
232
Issue
4
Pages
785-794
ISSN
  • 0033-3158 (ISSN-L)
  • 1432-2072
DOI
10.1007/s00213-014-3714-z
OpenAlex
W2037317432
Cited by
320
References
81
Citations by year
2026: 25 · 2025: 40 · 2024: 52 · 2023: 36 · 2022: 40 · 2021: 38 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 1
FWCI
14.95
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
Locations
  • Psychopharmacology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • Wellcome Trust
  • Beckley Foundation
  • National Institute for Health and Care Research
  • Medical Research Council (MR/J00460X/1)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychedelics and Drug Studies
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Pain Management and Placebo Effect
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
Keywords
lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD, suggestibility, psychedelic effects, mind control, psychotherapy adjunct
MeSH terms
Adult, Affect, Dose-Response Relationship, Drug, Hallucinogens, Humans, Imagination, Infusions, Intravenous, Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, Male, Placebos, Suggestion, Single-Blind Method, Healthy Volunteers

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review