Psychedelics are a unique class of drug that commonly produce vivid hallucinations as well as profound psychological and mystical experiences. A grouping of interconnected brain regions characterized by increased temporal coherence at rest have been termed the Default Mode Network (DMN). The DMN has been the focus of numerous studies assessing its role in se...
In 2020, Oregon voters passed the Oregon Psilocybin Services Act (PSA). The PSA allows for the adult use of psilocybin at designated service centers and does not require a medicinal purpose for consumption. While the use of psilocybin becomes legal in Oregon in 2023 under the PSA, psilocybin remains a Schedule I substance under the federal Controlled Substan...
This article assesses the right to privacy as a ground for challenging the constitutionality of the criminalisation of psilocybin mushrooms. In doing so, it discusses the right to privacy as found in section 14 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (Constitution). Drawing on Constitutional Court case law, the article argues that the right...
Background Recent survey data indicate that some people report long-term improvement in color vision deficiency (CVD), also known as color blindness, following use of psychedelics such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin. However, there are no objective data reported in the medical literature quantifying the degree or duration of CVD improveme...
Veterans are at increased risk of experiencing symptoms of trauma. Although many benefit from available treatments, some find treatment inaccessible or ineffective and explore alternative substances. One such substance is psilocybin. This Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis study aimed to provide an initial insight into the experiences of veterans who h...
BackgroundMedicine is currently experiencing a "psychedelic renaissance", said by many to have commenced in 2006. Since then, clinical trials have consistently demonstrated promising findings for psychedelic-assisted therapies in the treatment of various mental health conditions and addictions. While most of this work has been privately funded, governmental ...
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...
In fall 2020, as the nation elected Joe Biden to be our Forty-Sixth President, Oregon voters also passed a noteworthy new drug law reform. Known as Measure 109, Oregon’s path-breaking law legalizes the use of psilocybin, a hallucinogenic substance found in magic mushrooms. Measure 109 is designed to unlock the therapeutic potential of psilocybin, which advoc...
In 2020, Oregon voters legalized therapeutic psilocybin in response to a plethora of scientific studies showing symptom reduction for depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, opioid addictions, migraines, other mental illnesses, HIV/AIDS, and cancer. The legal rethinking regarding therapeutic psilocybin continues in both state legislatures and city coun...
RationaleDepressed patients robustly exhibit affective biases in emotional processing which are altered by SSRIs and predict clinical outcome.ObjectivesThe objective of this study is to investigate whether psilocybin, recently shown to rapidly improve mood in treatment-resistant depression (TRD), alters patients' emotional processing biases.MethodsSeventeen ...
Background: Many species of hallucinogenic mushrooms have been found in the genus Psilocybe. The main psychoactive chemicals of Psilocybe mushrooms are psilocin and its phosphoryloxy derivative, psilocybin. In addition to its psychedelic effects, psilocybin is an effective agent to lift the mood of depressed patients with terminal cancers.Objective: To study...
BackgroundThis research focuses on the events leading to the 1968 U.S. federal prohibition of psilocybin. It is a study of duelling moral entrepreneurs-Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert vs. the Harvard University Administration. The goal is to show how the primary active compound in an ostensibly harmless fungus (the psilocybin mushroom) became controversial ...
Abstract14C- and 3H-Labelled psilocin (4-hydroxy-N,N-dimethyl-tryptamine), the principal, active agent of hallucinogenic mushrooms, was synthesized from 2-methyl-3-nitrophenol via 4-benzyloxyindole. 14C-Labelled potassium cyanide was reacted with 4-benzyloxygramine (obtained from 4-benzyloxyindole) to give 14C-4-benzyloxy-3-indole acetic acid, an intermediat...
