Mental disorders represent a major global health problem, with depression being one of the most prevalent and disabling conditions worldwide. Growing evidence suggests that the serotonergic system, particularly the 5-HT2A receptor, plays an important role in modulating mood and cognitive processes, constituting a key pharmacological target for several psycho...
The acute subjective effects of serotonin (5-HT)2A receptor stimulation with psilocybin in humans are mostly positive. However, negative effects such as anxiety, paranoid thinking, or loss of trust towards other people are common effects, depending on the dose administered, the personality traits of the person consuming it (set), or the environment in which ...
Memory encoding depends on the joint convergence of substrate readiness, internal drive, environmental input, and a permissive temporal-physiological state. The same logic recurs across vertebrate learning systems: hippocampal-dependent spatial and schema-modulated memory (the Navigia substrate in the Systema Behavorum taxonomy), filial imprinting in the chi...
The goal of this clinical trial is to test whether psilocybin along with therapy in women with early breast cancer and ovarian cancer in remission can improve their fear of recurrence. The main question\[s\] it aims to answer \[is/are\]: Does psilocybin assisted therapy improve fear of cancer recurrence? Does psilocybin assisted therapy improve anxiety, depr...
The purpose of this study is to establish the safe administration of psilocybin in individuals with cocaine use disorder in terms of cardiovascular (e.g., heart rate) and subjective (e.g., mood) effects. The study's subject population consists of men and women between the ages of 21 and 55 from the Los Angeles area that meet criteria for cocaine use disorder...
Rationale: Ego-dissolution represents a key therapeutic mechanism in psychedelic-assisted therapy, yet current measurement approaches may inadequately capture its multidimensional nature. Objective: To develop and validate the Multidimensional Ego-Dissolution Assessment (MEDA) and examine substance-specific patterns across classical psychedelics. Methods: It...
PcncAAAD is a noncanonical fungal aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AAAD) featuring a unique appendage C-terminal domain (CTD) and two metal-binding sites. Unlike its mammalian and plant counterparts, PcncAAAD is activated by calcium, although the exact activation mechanism remains unclear. Here, we establish an in silico RMSD-based evaluation model throu...
Psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, have shown therapeutic potential across several psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anorexia nervosa (AN). These disorders often share social deficits that may be effectively alleviated by psychedelics considering their use has been linked with emotional empathy and ...
Psilocybin is a psychoactive tryptamine produced by a phylogenetically discontinuous yet ecologically diverse subset of fungi. Despite decades of chemical, pharmacological, and ethnobiological research, the evolutionary forces driving the emergence and persistence of this compound remain insufficiently explained. Recent hypotheses proposing that psilocybin e...
Objective: Emerging evidence suggests that mystical experiences mediate the therapeutic effects of psychedelic-assisted therapy. The current study examines associations between mystical experiences and components of “set” (positive mindset, participant intentions, and spirituality) and “setting” (perceived positivity of the dosing environment) in the context...
The CAnadian Network for Psychedelic-Assisted Cancer Therapy (CAN-PACT) was launched in 2025 to address urgent gaps in supportive care for Canadians with cancer experiencing demoralization syndrome (loss of meaning, dysphoria, disheartenment, helplessness, a sense of failure) and related psychosocial distress. CAN-PACT has six major objectives: (1) to develo...
PURPOSE/BACKGROUND: The 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 ex...
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by recurrent distressing thoughts and substantial anxiety, accompanied by repetitive behaviors or mental rituals. Individuals with OCD often have diminished quality of life, and functional impairment. The disorder cause high personal, societal and economic costs. Current availab...
The long-term objective of this project is to characterize how psilocybin affects visual perception and the brain's representation of the visual environment. It is known that psilocybin alters aspects of visual perception, but the underlying brain mechanisms contributing to these effects are poorly understood. The proposed work will address these questions i...
Psilocybin, an indoleamine alkaloid derived from various fungal species, is the subject of renewed, rigorous investigation for its therapeutic potential in psychiatry. This compound, a prodrug for the active metabolite psilocin, functions primarily as a partial agonist at the serotonin 2A (5-HT2A) receptor. Its administration within a structured psychotherap...
The purpose for this study is to observe the real world experience of participants who are receiving psilocybin in the context of (alcoholism) Alcohol Use Disorder without intervening in the model of care. The study team will engage directly with the participants to examine the outcomes in participants who have been deemed eligible and appropriate to receive...
Little is known about motives of healthy volunteers to participate in psychedelic trials and how they appraise their study experience retrospectively. This paper explored reasons why healthy people register for psychedelic trials, factors that they considered to contribute to either positive or negative study experiences, and under which circumstances they w...
Psychedelics offer promising outcomes in psychiatry. However, the preparation of participants (set) and the environmental conditions of taking a psychedelic (setting) are not standardized. We describe the set and setting for therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs in people with psychiatric disorders. In this systematic review, articles were identified in the P...
We present divergent experiences of 2 patients who participated in a clinical trial of psilocybin-assisted cognitive behavioral therapy for major depressive disorder. Both patients participated in an open trial involving 2 drug administration sessions separated by one month (10 and 25 mg, respectively) along with 12 sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy...
Abstract PcncAAAD is a calcium-activatable noncanonical aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AAAD) featuring a unique appendage C-terminal domain (CTD) and two metal-binding sites. In this study, we establish an in silico RMSD-based evaluation model through molecular dynamics simulations, validated by in vitro enzyme assays, to decipher the enzyme’s calcium ...
