Scientists have turned to crowdfunding to support an imaging study showing the effects of LSD on the brain, the first to be conducted in the UK.
The team has begun a psychedelic research programme with £100,000 of funding from The Beckley Foundation. However, the group needs a further £25,000, which they are attempting to raise through the crowdfunding website Walacea. The crowdfunding campaign will run for 45 days from 5 March 2015.
“Political stigma has silenced research,” says David Nutt, the principal investigator and a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London.
The researchers used functional MRI and magnetoencephalography imaging to record the effects of a 75μg IV dose of LSD given to 20 subjects. Additional funding is needed to fully analyse the results.