How drugs cause hallucinations
‘The apparent key to the difference was that LSD activated the receptor in a subtly different way from natural chemicals, said Mount Sinai’s Stuart C. Sealfon, a co-author of the paper. The receptor seems to be “like a switch that can go on in more than one direction,” he explained.
When the mind-bending drug activated the receptor, it not only triggered the typical changes in the cell, it caused additional cell responses, he said. The evidence for this, the group reported, was that the LSD seemed to cause a characteristic chain reaction of brain chemistry involving a class of molecules called G proteins, which are often involved in normal signaling processes.’
