Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) remains a major clinical challenge and is typically defined as the persistence of depressive symptoms despite at least two adequate antidepressant trials. Individuals with TRD experience substantial morbidity, impaired functioning, and elevated suicide risk, highlighting the need for therapeutic strategies beyond incremen...
Introduction: Contemporary psychiatry is grappling with a profound stagnation in innovation. It is primarily relying on the chronic management of symptoms through traditional daily-dose pharmacotherapy. The emergence of psychedelics and ketamine marks a significant departure from this model. It is offering rapid-acting, interventional alternatives that targe...
Chronic pain is common, costly, and for many, remains inadequately treated by existing pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic approaches. In parallel with growing dissatisfaction with conventional therapies, classic serotonergic psychedelics, such as psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), ayahuasca, N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), and mescaline, administer...
INTRODUCTION: Psilocybin shows promise for treatment-resistant depression (TRD), but long-term data are limited. This study examined the antidepressant effect of one or two psilocybin doses with adjunct psychotherapy in TRD until twelve months. METHODS: This is a naturalistic follow-up of a phase 2b, randomized, active placebo-controlled trial, where partici...
Recent literature suggests potential associations between hallucinogen use and valvular heart disease (VHD) due to prolonged activation of serotonin 5-HT2B receptors, which may lead to valvular fibrosis - a condition also linked to drugs including fenfluramine and pergolide. Despite these concerns, epidemiological studies exploring this association are lacki...
Abstract Background: Conventional pharmacotherapy for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) has been found to provide limited benefit in a subset of patients. Psilocybin-assisted therapy has emerged as a promising modality due to its rapid-acting antidepressant effects and favourable tolerability profile shown in early trials. Despite growing research interes...
Psilocybin-assisted therapy shows promise for depression, though current evidence relies on Phase 2 trials with notable methodological limitations. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating psilocybin-assisted therapy for major or treatment-resistant depression up to February 2024. We evaluated depre...
Introduction: Psilocybin therapy has demonstrated efficacy for cancer-related anxiety and depression, but resource-intensive individual treatment models raise important questions for psychedelic public health about equitable access and scalability. In our prior Phase 1/2 study of group retreat psilocybin therapy for patients with metastatic cancer, we observ...
INTRODUCTION: After decades of regulatory marginalization, psychedelic compounds have reemerged as promising therapeutic tools in psychiatry, driven by unmet clinical needs in treatment-resistant mental disorders and by growing evidence of rapid and sustained effects on mood, cognition, and behavior. AREAS COVERED: This narrative review critically examined t...
Disorders of consciousness pose major therapeutic challenges owing to the complexity of underlying brain dysfunctions. Current pharmacological interventions explored in disorders of consciousness target distinct molecular systems, including dopaminergic modulators (amantadine, levodopa, apomorphine, bromocriptine, selegiline, methylphenidate, and modafinil),...
psychiatric disorders, beta-carbolines, trace amine, phosphoproteomics, social hierarchy. Scientific interest in psychedelic substances has re-emerged, offering new perspectives on the treatment of neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders.Historically, psychedelics have been associated with a wide spectrum of positive and negative effects, encompassing ri...
Importance: Annual tobacco-related death estimates are 480 000 in the US and 8 million worldwide, surpassing mortality for other abused substances. Most smoking cessation interventions result in modest long-term success. Objective: To compare prolonged smoking abstinence rates in smokers receiving psilocybin plus cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with those...
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...
In Canada, the use of both prescription medications and psychedelics has become increasingly prevalent. As of 2022, approximately 16.5% of Canadians-about 6.3 million individuals-were prescribed at least one antidepressant, with fluoxetine remaining one of the most commonly used options (IQVIA, 2023). Benzodiazepine use, including drugs like alprazolam, rang...
As psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy gains momentum, clinical investigation of next-generation psychedelics may lead to novel compounds tailored for specific populations. 2,5-dimethoxy-4-bromophenethylamine (2C-B) is a psychedelic phenethylamine reported to produce less dysphoria and subjective impairment than the psychedelic tryptamine psilocybin. Despite ...
There has been a renewed interest in the use of various psychedelic agents as potential therapies for multiple psychiatric conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), to name a few. This follows the recent accumulation of evidence for ketamine pharmacotherapy and a rapid pr...
The escalating global burden of mental health disorders, coupled with the stagnation of innovation in traditional monoaminergic pharmacotherapy (e.g., SSRIs), has precipitated a critical need for novel therapeutic paradigms. This article presents a comprehensive systematic review of the so-called "Psychedelic Renaissance," focusing on the clinical resurgence...
Importance Psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) is a novel intervention for depressive symptoms, typically delivered with additional psychological therapy sessions. Quantitative evidence on how this concomitant therapy contributes to treatment outcomes is limited, highlighting the need for a systematic synthesis. Objective To evaluate whether the quantity of p...
Background: Major depressive disorder is a prevalent psychological condition that is characterized by sustained low mood, dysfunction and biological dysregulation. Depression can be treated with cognitive behavioral therapy, and newer studies indicate that psilocybin-based therapy may improve depressive symptoms when used under supervised psychological suppo...
