UC Berkeley researchers seek to understand why psilocybin alters the visual experience

 A UC Berkeley research center seeks to understand why psilocybin alters the visual experience in a study with human subjects. 

The study marks UC Berkeley’s first experiments on humans with a Schedule I substance — those which the federal government considers to have no currently accepted medical use. The drug appears in select mushrooms, often dubbed “shrooms” or “magic mushrooms,” according to the National Institutes of Health. Upon ingestion, psilocybin can warp users’ sense of time, mood and perception, leading them to see or hear things that are not real.