Emerging evidence from randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials suggests psychedelic compounds such as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), psilocybin, and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), when administered as an adjunct to psychotherapy, that is, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PAP), may be beneficial for treating substance use...
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...
BackgroundThe recognition of emotions in facial expressions (REFE) is a core aspect of social cognition. Previous studies with the serotonergic hallucinogens lysergic acid diethylamide and psilocybin showed that these drugs reduced the recognition of negative (fear) faces in healthy volunteers. This trial assessed the acute and prolonged effects of a single ...
There is an increased societal trend to engage in microdosing, in which small sub-hallucinogenic amounts of psychedelics are consumed on a regular basis. Following subjective reports that microdosing enhances the experience of nature and art, in the present study we set out to study the effects of psilocybin microdosing on feelings of awe and art perception....
BackgroundDespite tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)'s reputation for creating dramatic effects at high doses, empirical work rarely addresses cannabis's impact on subjective responses common to the tryptamine psychedelics. We focused on these effects because they have preceded and covaried with the therapeutic impact of psilocybin in previous work.AimsThe current s...
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is among the most prevalent mental health disorders worldwide, and it is associated with a reduced quality of life and enormous costs to health care systems. Available drug treatments show low-to-moderate response in most patients, with almost a third of patients being non-responders (treatment-resistant). Furthermore, most cu...
People with advanced cancer are at heightened risk of desire for hastened death (DHD), suicidal ideation (SI), and completed suicide. Loss of Meaning (LoM), a component of demoralization, can be elevated by a cancer diagnosis and predicts DHD and SI in this population. We completed a randomized controlled trial in which psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy (PAP...
Long term benefits following short-term administration of high psychedelic doses of serotonergic and dissociative hallucinogens, typified by psilocybin and ketamine respectively, support their potential as treatments for psychiatric conditions such as major depressive disorder. The high psychedelic doses induce perceptual experiences which are associated wit...
BackgroundGrowing evidence suggests psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic, is a safe and promising pharmacotherapy for treatment of mood and substance use disorders when administered as part of a structured intervention. In most trials to date, psilocybin dose has been administered on a weight-adjusted basis rather than the more convenient procedure ...
This study was designed to identify trends in the top-cited classic psychedelic publications. The top 50 publications on classic psychedelics with the greatest total of number of citations and annual citation rate were identified and pooled. Unique articles (n = 76) were dichotomized by median year of publication (2010.5); the differential distribution of st...
BackgroundSeveral measures have been developed to examine acute psychedelic effects (e.g. mystical-type and challenging experiences), but no measure assesses acute psychologically insightful experiences that may occur during psychedelic experiences.AimThe purpose of this study was to develop and examine the psychometric properties of the Psychological Insigh...
Patients with major depressive disorder who received two administrations of the psychedelic psilocybin as part of a psychotherapy regimen saw a rapid and lasting improvement in depression symptoms, a randomized open-label trial has found. These findings extend results of research that have suggested antidepressant effects for psilocybin in patients with canc...
Psilocybin therapy appears to be at least as effective as escitalopram in treating depression, findings from a small phase II study published in the New England Journal of Medicine have indicated (15 April 2021)[1]. Researchers compared two sessions of psychedelic psilocybin therapy, delivered in a specialist clinical setting, with a course of the selectiv...
Since a 1957 exposé in Life Magazine, chemical compounds derived from Psilocybe mushrooms have been the focus of dozens of attempted and successful patents, most recently to treat depression. Regrettably, the Mazatec indigenous communities who stewarded these traditional medicines for millenia are not party to any of these patents, despite a number of intern...
Novel synthetic compounds have been available for decades as quasi-legal alternatives to controlled substances. The hallucinogen-like effects of eight novel substituted tryptamines were evaluated to determine their potential abuse liability. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were trained to discriminate 2,5-dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine (DOM, 0.5 mg/kg, i.p., 30 min)...
The 5-HT2A receptor is thought to be the primary target for psilocybin (4-phosphoryloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine) and other serotonergic hallucinogens (psychedelic drugs). Although a large amount of experimental work has been conducted to characterize the pharmacology of psilocybin and its dephosphorylated metabolite psilocin (4-hydroxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine)...
Attachment insecurity is determined early in life, is a risk factor for psychopathology, and can be measured on two separate continuous dimensions: attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. Therapeutic changes toward more secure attachment correlate with reduction in psychiatric symptoms. Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy has demonstrated promise in the t...
