This qualitative study of how successful Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy (PAP) transforms the way of life of terminally ill subjects provides new knowledge for researchers and clinicians contemplating its use. Using an interpretive phenomenological approach (IPA) and interviews with subjects before and after PAP from a recent randomised control trial, we ...
Alcohol use disorder is a psychiatric condition characterized by excessive alcohol consumption. The drugs that are used to treat it often fail to prevent relapse. At the same time, psilocybin is increasingly being investigated for the treatment of various substance use disorders. This review aims to evaluate the results of the most recent clinical trials ass...
The global demographic shift toward aging populations has intensified the need for innovative therapeutic interventions targeting late-life mental health conditions, notably depression, loneliness, and existential distress. Traditional pharmacological treatments often exhibit limited efficacy and poor tolerability in older patients, primarily due to age-rela...
Europe PMCPublishedpsilocybinDepressionAnxietyNeuroplasticityPharmacologyMechanism of ActionDefault Mode NetworkAgingClinical TrialReview ArticleSafetyDrug InteractionsClinical TrialHumansHallucinogens
Following decades of prohibition, psychedelic drugs have reemerged as promising therapeutics for stress-related conditions, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Still, their impact on stress-related brain regions and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis remains unclear. This work explores the acute effects of psilocybin on the pr...
Unknown journal2025-12-08Cook SG, Lee S, Ference E, Shi Y, Baimoukhametova D, Rojas-Carvajal M, Hen R, Bains JS, Turi GF, Füzesi T.
Europe PMCPublishedpsilocybinDepressionPTSDNeuroplasticityMechanism of ActionReceptor PharmacologyAnimal StudyAnimal StudyPituitary-Adrenal SystemHypothalamo-Hypophyseal System
Purpose/backgroundThe therapeutic effects of psilocybin treatment are thought to be influenced by the subjective dose-dependent psychedelic experience, as well as the individual participant's mindset and the treatment environment. However, the relative contribution of an individual's pretreatment clinical characteristics and their subjective psychedelic expe...
Unknown journal2025-12-08Kirlić N, Atli M, Mistry S, Gold M, Goodwin GM.
Europe PMCPublishedpsilocybinDepressionAnxietyMechanism of ActionConsciousnessPersonality ChangeEmotional ProcessingTreatment-Resistant DepressionOtherHumansHallucinogens
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has demonstrated efficacy in treating individual mental health conditions such as addiction, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. However, current research predominantly focuses on individual experiences, overlooking the relational and systemic factors that influence healing and long-term therapeutic out...
People of color have been significantly underincluded in psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) research, despite facing challenges commonly addressed in PAT and often more severe symptoms. It may be the case that people of color are underincluded because PAT researchers have not used approaches designed to promote sample diversity. Community-engaged research (C...
IntroductionExtant literature suggests that anhedonia, defined as a loss of the ability to feel pleasure or interest, is subserved by dysregulation of reward processing in the central nervous system. Dextromethorphan (DXM), an uncompetitive N-Methyl-d-Aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist and sigma-1 (σ1) receptor agonist, is a glutamatergic modulator with an...
Approximately 20% of young people experience self-harm behaviour in their lives. Self-harm can occur across different mental health disorders, and lead to negative outcomes and risk of suicide. Current treatments are long, costly and do not suit all young people, making it essential to research alternative treatments. Therapy combined with psychedelic drugs ...
ClinicalTrials.gov2025-12-04Imperial College London
ClinicalTrials.govCLINICAL TRIALpsilocybinDepressionMechanism of ActionEmotional ProcessingSafetyOtherSelf HarmPsilocybin 5 mg with cognitive behavioural therapy intervention
BackgroundPost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating condition leading to significant personal and societal burden. Standard treatments frequently demonstrate limited efficacy, leading to persistent symptoms and high dropout rates. Psilocybin has shown promise in treating depression, a condition that is often comorbid with PTSD. We aimed to expl...
Unknown journal2025-12-04Modlin NL, Williamson V, Goodwin GM, Malievskaia E, Atli M, Elek Z, Gaillard A, Koelpin D, Cleare A, Agrawal M, Yehuda R, Kirlic N, Rucker J.
Europe PMCPublishedpsilocybinDepressionPTSDMechanism of ActionClinical TrialSafetyClinical Trial
Psilocybin holds promise as a treatment for mental illnesses. One dose of psilocybin induces structural remodeling of dendritic spines in the medial frontal cortex in mice. The dendritic spines would be innervated by presynaptic neurons, but the sources of these inputs have not been identified. Here, using monosynaptic rabies tracing, we map the brain-wide d...
Humphry Osmond coined the term ‘psychedelic’ in 1956, conjoining ‘psyche’ for ‘soul’ and ‘delic’ from ‘dêlos’ for ‘to manifest’ or ‘illuminate.’ Soul-illumination is an adjective that describes a psychological state or process. However, Osmond’s intention was to use the adjective to name- not just a state- but a category of drug that can induce the subjectiv...
This is an open-label pilot trial to assess the safety and feasibility of a novel 8-week psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy intervention to facilitate successful tapering/discontinuation of opioid pain medication in adult patients receiving long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain. Participation will last approximately 8 months and includes one or two psiloc...
ClinicalTrials.gov2025-12-03University of British Columbia
ClinicalTrials.govCLINICAL TRIALpsilocybinAddictionChronic PainMechanism of ActionSafetyAdverse EventsContraindicationsClinical TrialOpioid DependenceChronic Pain
The purpose of this research is to study the safety and effects of single-dose psilocybin 25mg versus an active placebo (single dose niacin 100mg) in the treatment of anxiety, depression, and existential distress (i.e., loss of meaning and hope; fear of death) in advanced cancer (i.e., stage 3 or 4). Study medications will be administered in conjunction with...
Humphry Osmond coined the term ‘psychedelic’ in 1956, conjoining ‘psyche’ for ‘soul’ and ‘delic’ from ‘dêlos’ for ‘to manifest’ or ‘illuminate.’ Soul-illumination is an adjective that describes a psychological state or process. However, Osmond’s intention was to use the adjective to name- not just a state- but a category of drug that can induce the subjectiv...
In their recent case report article, Peck and colleagues suggested that two patients recovered dissociated traumatic memories during psilocybin treatment for anorexia nervosa. These case reports are of clinical and scientific interest and confirm that psychedelics may induce vivid memory-like experiences. However, the reports warrant scrutiny. Here, based on...
Novel interventions for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) leverage the psychoactive properties of psychedelic compounds, such as ketamine, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine and psilocybin, which may overcome limitations of conventional treatments. Through the modulation of pathways involved in synaptic plasticity, psychedelic interventions are believed t...
Unknown journal2025-11-30Bukovsky D, Amaev A, Song J, Torres-Carmona E, Kyte S, Ueno F, Deluca V, Bowie C, Flint A, Husain I, Graff-Guerrero A, Gerretsen P.
Europe PMCPublishedpsilocybinBrain ImagingAgingOlder AdultsSafetyOther