Langlitz and colleagues wrote about clinically used psychedelic drugs and the possibility of a “moral psychopharmacology” earlier in this journal (1). They emphasized the context-dependency of the effects of these substances (e.g., ayahuasca, psilocybin) and the importance of understanding their impact on social and moral cognition, particularly now that the...
Serotonergic psychedelic drugs, such as psilocin (4-hydroxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine), profoundly alter the quality of consciousness through mechanisms which are incompletely understood. Growing evidence suggests that a single psychedelic experience can positively impact long-term psychological well-being, with relevance for the treatment of psychiatric disord...
Psychedelic-assisted therapy research for depression and PTSD has been fast tracked in the United States with the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) granting breakthrough designations for MDMA (post-traumatic stress disorder) and psilocybin (major depressive disorder). The psychotherapeutic treatments accompanying these psychedelics have not been well-studi...
Psilocybin has shown promise for the treatment of mood disorders, which are often accompanied by cognitive dysfunction including cognitive rigidity. Recent studies have proposed neuropsychoplastogenic effects as mechanisms underlying the enduring therapeutic effects of psilocybin. In an open-label study of 24 patients with major depressive disorder, we teste...
Background: Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a serious and life-threatening psychiatric condition. With a paucity of approved treatments, there is a desperate need for novel treatment avenues to be explored. Here, we present (1) an overview of the ways through which Public Patient Involvement (PPI) has informed a trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy for AN and (2) a...
Serotonergic psychedelics are recently gaining a lot of attention as a potential treatment of several neuropsychiatric disorders. Broadband desynchronization of EEG activity and disconnection in humans have been repeatedly shown; however, translational data from animals are completely lacking. Therefore, the main aim of our study was to assess the effects of...
Psychedelic drugs (also called hallucinogens, psychotogenics, psycholytics, entheogens) are substances that act mainly on the 5-HT2 serotonergic receptor. There are two main groups of psychedelics: indoleamines (lysergic acid diethylamide-LSD, N, N-dimethyltryptamine-DMT, and psilocybin) and phenethylamines (mescaline, dimethoxymethamphetamine-DOM, methylene...
The publication in April 2021 of the Imperial College London Phase II study investigating \nthe efficacy of psilocybin-assisted therapy vs. escitalopram for depression reported differences \nin the primary outcome measure (the QIDS-SR16) between experimental and control arms as \nstatistically insignificant (1). However, secondary measures of dep...
Rationale: Previous studies with the serotonergic hallucinogens LSD and psilocybin showed that these drugs induced changes in personality traits, such as increases in Openness. However, results are inconsistent, and the effects of ayahuasca on personality were never investigated in a controlled trial. Objectives: To assess the effects of ayahuasca on persona...
IntroductionPsychedelics show promise in treating unipolar depression, though patients with bipolar disorder have been excluded from recent psychedelic trials. There is limited information on the use of classic psychedelics (e. g., LSD or psilocybin) in individuals using mood stabilizers to treat bipolar disorder. This is important to know, as individuals wi...
In the last 15 years, psychedelic substances, such as LSD and psilocybin, have regained legitimacy in clinical research. In the general population as well as across various psychiatric populations, mental well-being has been found to significantly improve after a psychedelic experience. Mental well-being has large socioeconomic relevance, but it is a complex...
Background: One of the main public health strategies adopted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic consisted of implementing strict lockdowns to stop the transmission of the virus. Despite being an effective measure, the confinement and the associated social isolation create a stressful, potentially lengthy situations that has been proven to have several...
A psychedelic drug is one that “produces thought, mood and perceptual changes otherwise rarely experienced except in dreams, contemplative and religious exaltation, flashes of vivid involuntary memory, and acute psychosis”1. It does so “without causing physical addiction, craving, major physiological disturbances, delirium, disorientation or amnesia”1. The “...
Serotonergic psychedelics such as psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), or dimethyltryptamine (DMT), as well as psychoactive drugs that trigger phenomenologically- related experiences like 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and ketamine, belong to the most promising treatment approaches in contemporary psychiatry. Psychedelic-assisted psychothe...
