Anxiety disorders are the most common type of psychiatric disorders among Western countries. Evidence-based treatment modalities including pharmacological and cognitive-behavioral therapy result in deficient treatment responses. Historical and recent research suggests psychedelic drugs may be efficacious in alleviating anxiety-related symptoms among healthy ...
Sir, Psychedelic studies have reported positive results for depression and anxiety related to cancer and other life-threatening illnesses, treatment-resistant depression, and tobacco and alcohol dependence.[1] Although there are no active psychedelic research studies going on in India, there is growing interest about these substances as evident by numerous s...
Introduction Psilocybin is a psychedelic drug found in mushrooms, often referred to as magic mushrooms due to its visual and auditory hallucinations effects upon ingestion. It is a Schedule I drug per DEA, and the FDA has not approved psilocybin for medicinal purposes. However, recent studies have shown promising therapeutic use to treat depression. Objectiv...
BackgroundThere are currently relatively few effective pharmacological treatments for obesity, and existing ones may be associated with limiting side-effects. In the search for novel anti-obesity agents, drugs that modify central serotonergic systems have historically proven to be effective in promoting weight loss. Psilocin, which is rapidly metabolized fro...
Background: The use of psychedelic compounds to treat psychiatric disorders has become a very significant topic of research over the past several years. Psilocybin has risen to prominence as one of the most studied among these psychedelic compounds. Multiple trials have already shown that it can be a safe and efficacious treatment for various medical conditi...
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...