In the 1950s, several groups of psychiatrists on both sides of the Atlantic performed a series of pioneering studies into the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs. Their work provided preliminary evidence that LSD may be effective in treating alcoholism and various psychiatric conditions, but the substances were soon outlawed in response to the hippie counter-culture movement, and the research was halted.

The moratorium on psychedelic research lasted nearly thirty years. In the 1990s, researchers and others showed a renewed interest in the therapeutic potential of these substances, and today there are dedicated research groups around the world. In April 2019, Imperial College London launched the world’s first Centre for Psychedelic Research, and in September, Johns Hopkins University launched its own for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research.

Complexity as a Measure of Consciousness?

Disorders of consciousness typically occur following severe acquired traumatic brain injury that disrupts the brain systems involved in arousal and conscious awareness. Coma patients show no signs of being awake and no signs of conscious awareness. A coma usually lasts up to one month; after that, a patient may progress into a vegetative state, in which they are awake but show no overt signs of awareness, or into a minimally conscious state, in which they inconsistently show a little awareness of themselves and their environment. Patients are more likely to recover from the minimally conscious state than from the vegetative state; currently, however, it is very difficult for clinicians to tell these two conditions apart. (See The Struggle for Consciousness and The Ethics of Unconsciousness)              

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