Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a highly prevalent disorder with limited therapeutic options. The central amygdala (CeA) is a critical brain region as dysregulation within the CeA and the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) system are associated with AUD pathology. CeA CRF1 receptors regulate alcohol drinking and have served as a therapeutic target in alcohol...
Importance: Psilocybin use has surged in the US following decriminalization efforts and promising clinical trial results. Mirroring early cannabis legalization, public access and enthusiasm are outpacing regulatory oversight and scientific understanding, posing potential risks to public health. Objective: To review emerging evidence on the public health impl...
Today’s research highlights the therapeutic potential of the hallucinogen psilocybin in the treatment of pathologies associated with mood, cognitive, and affective dysregulation. These domains of function are regulated by the serotonergic system, which can be influenced by sex hormones, like estrogen and testosterone, and psychedelic compounds including psil...
Background and Aims The ongoing opioid epidemic remains a major public health crisis in the United States, with over 100,000 opioid-related deaths annually. Mental health disorders are strongly associated with opioid use disorder (OUD), compounding risks of misuse and overdose. Emerging evidence indicates that psychedelics may be associated with reduced risk...
BACKGROUND: Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy (PAP) has gained attention as a promising intervention for conditions including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, but understanding of its side-effects is limited. This review evaluates the quality of side-effects reporting in PAP trials, to guide treatment, policy and research. AIMS: To ass...
Chronic pain affects millions of people and remains one of the greatest clinical challenges due to limited response to conventional therapies. Psilocybin, a psychedelic found in mushrooms of the Psilocybe genus, has sparked interest due to its potential to modulate serotonergic receptors and promote neuroplasticity, suggesting analgesic and psychotherapeutic...
Psilocybin is a serotonergic psychedelic with growing evidence for efficacy in mood disorders, and its therapeutic potential in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and related conditions is increasingly recognised but remains understudied. We systematically evaluated clinical and preclinical evidence on psilocybin's effects on obsessive and compulsive behavi...
BACKGROUND: Individuals with advanced cancer often experience high levels of distress for which there are few standardized treatment approaches. Our multidisciplinary team has combined existing evidence-based approaches into Psilocybin-assisted Existential, Attachment, and RelationaL (PEARL) therapy. PEARL therapy combines elements from psilocybin-assisted p...
Psychedelics including psilocybin, dimethyltryptamine, and lysergic acid diethylamide are known to disrupt the normal flow of time perception, for example, producing time dilation, compression, and loss of time. These temporal anomalies provide interesting clues about how the brain processes time, what consciousness is, and what produces the sense of self. T...
In a suburb of Vancouver, Canada, a nondescript three-story building sits alongside a strip of parking lots. From the outside, it looks like an ordinary commercial office space. But inside is something more extraordinary: rows of shelves stacked with plastic tubs full of magic mushrooms-mushrooms that contain the hallucinogenic chemical psilocybin. In a year...
Psychedelic research is progressing at breakneck speed and is creating new challenges for drug developers, regulatory authorities, and legislators. Most “classic” psychedelics undergoing clinical investigation are C-I controlled drugs with perceived high potential for abuse and no medical use. These and next-generation psychedelic drug-candidates require sci...
Background: The treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) with available antidepressant drugs is characterized by considerable ineffectiveness. Classical psychedelics such as psilocybin and N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which act primarily as 5-hydroxytryptamine 2A (5-HT2A ) receptor agonists, have shown preliminary efficacy for inducing long-term remissi...
Psychiatric illness, particularly stress-related disorders including depression, anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder, presents a considerable health burden worldwide with high prevalence, disabling symptoms, and scant efficacy of available treatments. Chronic stress is a major contributor to the origin and development of these conditions, to the detrim...
Psychedelic-assisted therapies are re-emerging as credible options in psychological care amid a high global burden of mental ill-health and limited response to first-line treatments. Once marginal, psychedelics are now part of mainstream research and policy debate, while remaining illegal or tightly restricted in many jurisdictions. Classic and atypical comp...
