Science News

Oxford University researchers believe there is a biological predisposition to drug addiction, following their examinations of the brains of drug addicts and their non-addicted brothers and sisters. The research indicates that both siblings showed the same abnormalities in brain biology, while over the course of their lives, one became a drug addict and the other did not. This suggests that the abnormalities in the brains of addicts are not caused by the drugs they ingest but are, instead, markers of a genetic predisposition toward addiction.

Mo Costandi: Functional neuroimaging reveals the neural basis of the intense imagery induced by the "spirit vine"...

"In a hut, in a forest, in the mountains of Colombia, I am puking into a bucket. I close my eyes and every time my body convulses I see ripples in a lattice of multi-coloured hexagons that flows out to the edges of the universe." Vaughan Bell's description seems to be typical of the ayahuasca experience – at once unpleasant, frightening and enlightening.