Abstract Lyme disease, caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States and Europe. Although antibiotics effectively treat most cases, an estimated 10-20% of patients develop post-treatment Lyme disease (PTLD), a chronic syndrome marked by fatigue, pain, cognitive difficulties, mood disturbance, and r...
Classic psychedelics are increasingly studied as potential treatments for different psychiatric disorders. Current research protocols often require patients to discontinue antidepressants (ADs) for at least 2 weeks before psychedelic administration to decrease the risk of serotonin syndrome and limit their effect on efficacy and the acute subjective effects ...
Psychedelic drugs, known for their perception-altering properties, are gaining popularity in the treatment of mental health and pain disorders. As exploratory studies demonstrate clinical efficacy with few adverse events, it is expected that more patients will ingest psychedelic drugs. For therapeutic reasons, as with any drug, anaesthesiologists must be awa...
The goal of this multi-centre phase I/II open-label, single-arm study is to determine the safety, feasibility, therapeutic dose, and preliminary efficacy of psilocybin microdosing to treat psychological distress among patients with advanced illness. Forty patients will receive psilocybin drug product (1-3mg per day, Mon-Fri) for 4 weeks to be administered vi...
Diverse symptomatology makes Fragile X Syndrome (FXS) difficult to treat, and currently there are no approved prevention or treatment methods for FXS. Current therapies, including pharmaceutical and behavioural interventions, offer a patchwork of solutions that have limited efficacy and high toxicity. The current study aims to examine psilocybin as a safe tr...
Psychedelics like LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) and psilocybin are known to modulate perceptual modalities due to the activation of mostly serotonin receptors in specific cortical (e.g., visual cortex) and subcortical (e.g., thalamus) regions of the brain. In the visual domain, these psychedelic modulations often result in peculiar disturbances of viewed ...
There has been little research on the effects of psychedelics on menstrual and reproductive function, though anecdotal evidence suggests that these compounds may have striking effects on menstrual function in at least a subset of users. Social media and word of mouth were used to seek out individuals who had a history of changes in menstrual function followi...
Welcome to the April edition of Going on Trial, a monthly newsletter covering clinical trials and drug development for autism and related conditions. In this issue, we're talking about a serotonin agonist's path to trial for autism, debate around a trial of psilocybin for fragile X syndrome and an analysis of placebo responses in a clinical trial of the vaso...
The on-boarding of unregulatable trauma in the United States has reached 20%, which is 1/5 of the population. A population of this magnitude, by definition has now reached an epidemic classification. The population with chronic illness as stated: PTSD, Chronic Depression, MS, HIV, and SARS-CoV-2- Long Haulers Syndrome. These chronic conditions/illnesses many...
In recent years, psychedelic substances with serotonergic mechanisms have accumulated substantial evidence that they may provide therapeutic benefits for people suffering with psychiatric symptoms. Psychiatric disorders targeted by these psychedelic-assisted therapies are managed with serotonergic drugs like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) as...
Psilocybin has recently attracted a great deal of attention as a clinical research and therapeutic tool. The aim of this paper is to bridge two major knowledge gaps regarding its behavioural pharmacology - sex differences and the underlying receptor mechanisms. We used psilocin (0.25, 1 and 4 mg/kg), an active metabolite of psilocybin, in two behavioural par...
Case report. We report a case of psilocybin toxicity, causing an anticholinergic syndrome, after the consumption of Psilocybe Mexicana, a serotonergic mushroom. The patient was unconscious on admission to hospital, with mydriasis, hyperthermia, tachycardia, hypotension and respiratory failure after using cannabis all day and a portion of 'magic mushrooms' in...
Serotonergic hallucinogens produce profound changes in perception, mood, and cognition. These drugs include phenylalkylamines such as mescaline and 2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine (DOM), and indoleamines such as (+)-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin. Despite their differences in chemical structure, the two classes of hallucinogens produce rem...
Psilocybin, an indoleamine hallucinogen, produces a psychosis-like syndrome in humans that resembles first episodes of schizophrenia. In healthy human volunteers, the psychotomimetic effects of psilocybin were blocked dose-dependently by the serotonin-2A antagonist ketanserin or the atypical antipsychotic risperidone, but were increased by the dopamine antag...
To date, there is no doubt that dopamine plays a key role in the behavioural disorders associated with schizophrenia. However, dopamine is not the only neurotransmitter involved in this syndrome, as it interacts with many neuronal systems in brain. Of special interest is the interaction between dopaminergic and serotoninergic systems with evidence from pharm...
