LYSERGIC BLISS: LSD May Help Reveal What Makes Music Meaningful.
In the study, researchers asked people to take the drug lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, and then were able to pinpoint how people’s brains ascribed meaning to specific factors, such as songs, in their environment.
It turns out that this connection to meaning may involve certain areas of the brain that previous research has tied to how people experience their sense of self, the researchers said.
The new findings show which cells, chemicals and regions in the brain “are involved when we perceive our environment as meaningful and relevant,” study co-author Katrin Preller, a psychology and neuroscience researcher at the Zürich University Hospital for Psychiatry in Switzerland, said in a statement.
“This is important to understand, since it can reveal potential targets for the treatment of psychiatric illnesses,” Preller told Live Science.
Certain people (such as our esteemed host, Glenn) can enjoy musical synesthesia without the help of hallucinogens — and they’re often found working in the music industry. It may well prove that their unusual talent is tied into their sense of well-being, which would make music a perfectly tuned pursuit.