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Research Reports: Hallucinogens and Dissociative Drugs

Glossary

Acid: Common street name for LSD.

Angel dust: Common street name for PCP.

Cerebral cortex: Region of the brain responsible for cognitive functions including reasoning, mood, and perception of stimuli.

Dissociative anesthetic: Compound, such as phencyclidine or ketamine, that produces an anesthetic effect characterized by a feeling of being detached from the physical self.

DXM: Common street name for dextromethorphan.

Flashback: Slang term for HPPD (see below).

Glutamate: A neurotransmitter associated with pain, memory, and response to changes in the environment.

Hallucinogen: A drug that produces hallucinations - distortion in perception of sights and sounds - and disturbances in emotion, judgment, and memory.

HPPD: Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder; the spontaneous and sometimes continuous recurrence of perceptual effects of LSD long after an individual has ingested the drug.

Ketamine: Dissociative anesthetic abused for its mind-altering effects and sometimes used to facilitate sexual assault.

Locus ceruleus: Region of the brain that receives and processes sensory signals from all areas of the body.

Neurotransmitter: Chemical compound that acts as a messenger to carry signals or stimuli from one nerve cell to another.

NMDA: N-methyl-D-aspartate, a chemical compound that reacts with glutamate receptors on nerve cells.

PCP: Phencyclidine, a dissociative anesthetic abused for its mind-altering effects.

Persistent psychosis: Unpredictable and long-lasting visual disturbances, dramatic mood swings, and hallucinations experienced by some LSD users after they have discontinued use of the drug.

Robo: Common street name for dextromethorphan.

Serotonin: A neurotransmitter that causes a very broad range of effects on perception, movement, and the emotions by modulating the actions of other neurotransmitters in most parts of the brain.

This page was last updated March 2001.

​Research Reports

This series of reports simplifies the science of research findings for the educated lay public, legislators, educational groups, and practitioners. The series reports on research findings of national interest.

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