Interest has grown in the effects of psilocybin on mental health, but little is known about its naturalistic use alongside alcohol and its relationship to depression and/or anxiety symptoms. Data from the nationally-representative 2024 National Survey Investigating Hallucinogenic Trends of participants who did ( n = 1234) or did not ( n = 1607) report past-y...
Informed consent in psychedelic-assisted services is ethically complex, difficult to implement, and remains largely unstudied and unstandardized. The current study sought expert recommendations on informed consent challenges, best practices and recommendations for supervised psilocybin experiences across various settings. Participants with psilocybin content...
BACKGROUND: Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) imposes a substantial public health and economic burden. Although psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) has shown clinical promise, its economic value remains uncertain. This study evaluated the cost-effectiveness of PAT compared with the standard of care for TRD. METHODS: A Markov model adopting a US healthcare p...
INTRODUCTION: Although commonly used in psychedelic-assisted therapy, the role of therapeutic touch remains loosely defined and ethically sensitive. Gaining insight into how participants experience and interpret touch during psychedelic sessions is essential for informing safe and effective clinical practice. METHODS: Participants were sampled from a large r...
Australia's reclassification of psilocybin as a Schedule 8 substance for treatment-resistant depression represents a significant shift in psychiatric policy. While this regulatory change positions Australia as a global leader in psychedelic medicine, its implementation has revealed substantial challenges. This article critically examines the regulatory, ethi...
This narrative review synthesized the use of psilocybin-assisted therapy as a promising treatment for alleviating death anxiety in terminally ill patients. The insights presented are derived from findings reported in previous studies. Therefore, this review aimed to assess the efficacy, pharmacology, and mechanisms by which psilocybin alters brain function b...
BACKGROUND: Chronic pain affects nearly one in five adults worldwide and remains a major healthcare burden due to its persistence, multidimensional impact, and resistance to conventional therapies. The opioid crisis has further highlighted the urgent need for safer and more effective alternatives. Psilocybin, a serotonergic psychedelic compound, has re-emerg...
After many years of stigma and neglect, there is a resurgence of interest in the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs. Anecdotal and evidence-based reports indicate psychedelics as a possible treatment for depression, anxiety, PTSD, substance abuse, and other disorders resistant to conventional medical interventions. The available data, however, are limited ...
Based on promising preliminary results from clinical trials, it seems likely that psychedelic substances (classic serotonergic psychedelics, such as psilocybin, and entactogens, such as MDMA) will be introduced into psychiatry as psychedelic-assisted therapy. This also raises a range of ethical questions that urgently need to be addressed before widespread r...
The stresses of the Coronavirus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic highlighted the burden of psychiatric disorders within the pediatric population, revealing a pre-existing need for rapid-onset therapies that have since driven efforts to expand effective therapeutic interventions. In this narrative review, we utilized the Preferred Reporting Items for Syste...
Motives are a highly influential force in substance use and vary depending on the substance or dose being used. Little research has compared motives across different doses of psilocybin. Psilocybin is often ingested in microdoses (0.1-0.4 g) or macrodoses (1 g+), each producing unique perceptual and mood effects. The current study examined whether motives fo...
Psilocybin, MDMA, and LSD have recently emerged as popular psychedelic substances for use in psychopharmacology in managing various disorders including treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, and anxiety. These substances mainly affect the serotonergic receptors that involve the regulation of consciousness, perceptions, and cognition. These unique alterations ...
Abstract The discussion surrounding the necessity of acquiring personal experience of non-ordinary states of consciousness in the course of psilocybin-assisted therapy training is crucial, as it can affect treatment safety, effectiveness and accessibility. As such, the ethical and practical issues associated with such a training standard require timely consi...
Since physician-assisted dying (PAD) has become a part of the clinical dialogue in the United States (US) and other Western countries, it has spawned controversy in the moral, ethical, and legal realm, with significant cross-country variation. The phenomenon of PAD includes 2 practices: Euthanasia and medical aid in dying (MAiD). Although euthanasia has been...
The revival of psilocybin in psychopharmacological research heralds a potential paradigm shift for treating mood and anxiety disorders, and other psychiatric conditions beyond the psychotic spectrum. This critical review evaluates current evidence on psilocybin's efficacy, juxtaposing potential benefits with the practical aspects of psychedelic-assisted psyc...
Despite the legalization of psilocybin therapy for depression in terminal illnesses such as advanced cancer through Oregon's Measure 109 in 2020, significant challenges have impeded its implementation. This review synthesizes the empirical data supporting the utilization of psilocybin therapy for addressing cancer-related depression, including an evaluation ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a surge in depression cases, a pervasive and debilitating mental illness1. This trend is evident in the increased prescriptions for antidepressants. Depression is a chronic condition that affects a significant proportion of the global population, with ~280 million people, or about 3.8%, suffering from it. As a result, it...
Psilocybin has been suggested as a promising transdiagnostic treatment strategy for a wide range of psychiatric disorders. Recent findings showed that psychedelic-assisted/"psycholitic" psychotherapy should provide significant and sustained alleviation of depressive symptoms. However, to date, there have been several study limitations (e.g., small sample siz...
Mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety are major contributors to the overall global health burden. COVID-19 has further aggravated mental health disorders and also increased substance abuse due to lockdowns1. The Global Burden of Disease reported that the pandemic has led to a 27.6% increase in cases of major depressive disorder (MDD) and a 2...
A striking feature of psychedelics is their ability to increase attribution of truth and meaningfulness to specific contents and ideas experienced, which may persist long after psychedelic effects have subsided. We propose that processes underlying conferral of meaning and truth in psychedelic experiences may act as a double-edged sword: while these may driv...
