Watch: Newshub speaks to experts about the recent resurgence in clinical research into psychedelics.

Watch: Newshub speaks to experts about the recent resurgence in clinical research into psychedelics. Credit: Video - Newshub; Image - Getty

It's time to chuck Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on the record player - for science.

Researchers at the University of Auckland have been given the go-ahead to see what effect microdoses of class A psychedelic drug LSD have on the human brain.

Microdosing involves taking about 10 or 20 micrograms of the drug - about a 10th the recreational amount, and far less than John Lennon would have been consuming while the Beatles were making their drug-fuelled masterpiece.

"Users report improvements in mood, wellbeing, improved attention and cognition, so those are the things we will be measuring," study leader Suresh Muthukumaraswamy of the University of Auckland's School of Pharmacy told Newshub.

Evidence so far of the benefits of microdosing LSD, also known as acid, is largely anecdotal. Previous studies have had serious design flaws, such as users bringing in their own drugs of varying quality, and tests being done in the lab.

"We'll be giving microdoses on very tightly controlled prescriptions to take at home - it'll be a more realistic assessment of what microdosing actually does," said Dr Muthukumaraswamy.