Current neuroscience research calls into question the binary model of anesthesia as a state of consciousness shifted by unconsciousness, replacing it with an idea of consciousness as a continuum created by interactions between large-scale cortex and subcortical regions.Meanwhile, psychedelic drugs are making a comeback as potential treatments for treatment-r...
Background: Although psychedelics have regained attention as potential treatment tools for various mental disorders, little research has examined their impact on temporal perception. Aims: This double-blinded placebo-controlled study aimed to investigate changes in temporal perception under psilocybin, both through performance during the Temporal Bisection T...
Background Psychedelics exert widespread effects on brain activity, but their impact on motor function is unclear. This is clinically relevant given the emerging interest in psychedelic-assisted physical therapy for disorders of motor function. This study’s primary objectives examined the feasibility and safety of administering movement tasks following low-t...
Introduced in 2014 and revised in 2018, the entropic brain hypothesis has accrued a wealth of supportive evidence. The hypothesis states that- along a dimension of breadth of conscious experience- ‘expansive states’ reliably exhibit increased brain entropy whereas the inverse applies for states of no or reduced consciousness. Examples of expansive states inc...
Introduced in 2014 and revised in 2018, the entropic brain hypothesis has accrued a wealth of supportive evidence. The hypothesis states that- along a dimension of breadth of conscious experience- ‘expansive states’ reliably exhibit increased brain entropy whereas the inverse applies for states of no or reduced consciousness. Examples of expansive states inc...
Investigators will recruit 36 individuals on MAT for OUD for a double-blind, placebo-controlled design to determine whether PEX010 (25-mg/d) shows preliminary efficacy on neural correlates of neurocognition and on clinical outcomes. Participants will be randomized to either (single dose) 25-mg (PEX010-25 group) or 1-mg (PPEX010-1 group) PEX010 in a 2:1 ratio...
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...
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...
Clinicians and researchers are showing increased interest in psychedelic-assisted therapy for patients who don't show improvement from using conventional antidepressants. This updated review integrates recent developments, including data on lesser-studied compounds like DMT and 5-MeO-DMT, findings from large clinical trials, and evolving regulatory landscape...
Introduction In recent years, psychiatry has witnessed a renaissance in the investigation of psychedelic compounds, a broad class of psychoactive substances that induce altered states of consciousness, often characterized by changes in perception, mood, and cognition, which were largely shelved following regulatory crackdowns in the 1970s. The renewed intere...
Sleep paralysis (SP), an REM parasomnia, can be characterized as one of the symptoms of narcolepsy. The SP phenomenon involves regaining meta-consciousness by the dreamer during REM, when the physiological atonia of skeletal muscles is accompanied by visual and auditory hallucinations that are perceived as vivid and distressing nightmares. Sensory impression...
Psychoactive substances are compounds that can influence perception, consciousness, cognition, and emotions. The psychoactive substances caffeine, nicotine, cannabis, and psilocybin all originate from natural sources and can be used without complex processing or synthesis. Their natural availability has contributed to a long-standing history of human use and...
ABSTRACT Joshua Falcon's comprehensive synthesis, “Anthropology of Psychedelics,” significantly addresses gaps in psychedelic anthropology, particularly urban practices in the Global North and decolonial considerations. This commentary expands upon Falcon's work by incorporating recent clinical studies and sociocultural analyses that reinforce his proposed d...
Psilocybin (active compound of "magic mushrooms") is a prototypical psychedelic substance that acts via agonism on serotonin (5-HT) 2A receptors. Psilocybin is rapidly metabolized into its active metabolite psilocin. Psilocybin is currently under investigation as potential treatment for various neuropsychiatric disorders. Psilocybin is also widely used for r...
Psychedelics have re-emerged as promising treatments for mood disorders. The current model provides a moderate-to-high dose of a psychedelic agent (e.g., psilocybin) to reliably induce an altered state of consciousness. Unfortunately, the hallucinatory effects limit the treatment's potential scalability given patients' vulnerability and extensive monitoring ...
Psychiatric disorders are marked by habitual patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior, and many mental health disorders are resistant to standard treatments (1)(2)(3)(4). For example, symptoms of major depressive disorder include ruminative negative thoughts, pervasive sadness, and lack of goaldirected behavior (5)(6)(7). Similarly, many anxiety and trauma...
The primary objective of this study is to determine whether equivalent moderately high doses of LSD, psilocybin, and DMT produce qualitatively similar peak effects when the effect duration is standardized with ketanserin. A DMT infusion mimicking oral LSD and psilocybin administrations will be tested, as well as intravenously administered ketanserin. Lysergi...
Psilocybin, MDMA, and LSD have recently emerged as popular psychedelic substances for use in psychopharmacology in managing various disorders including treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, and anxiety. These substances mainly affect the serotonergic receptors that involve the regulation of consciousness, perceptions, and cognition. These unique alterations ...
The growing interest in psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) for treating psychiatric disorders such as treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, and anxiety has led to an increasing demand for specialized training. In Switzerland, MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD are applied in the framework of limited medical use as exceptional treatment options since 2014. The Swiss M...
