Major depressive disorder (MDD) and treatment-resistant depression (TRD) are prevalent and debilitating conditions. Over 50% of patients have inadequate response to first-line serotonergic antidepressants and are left with suboptimal treatment options. Rapid-acting and individually tailored treatments for MDD remain major unmet needs. This review discusses p...
Clinical trials investigating psychedelic compounds for depression and anxiety-related disorders are yielding promising preliminary results. Psychedelics produce profound alterations in brain function-such as suppression of the default mode network and thalamocortical dysregulation-leading to intense subjective experiences including ego dissolution and mysti...
A prominent theory of psychedelics is that they increase brain entropy. Thirteen studies have evaluated psychedelic effects on fMRI brain entropy, each applying a distinct measure. Here we evaluated these metrics in an independent 28-participant healthy cohort with 121 pre- and post-psilocybin fMRI scans. We assessed relations between brain entropy and objec...
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous neurodevelopmental condition characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and interaction, restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior, and sensory processing alterations, frequently accompanied by anxiety, emotional dysregulation, and other psychiatric comorbidities. Despite advances in be...
BACKGROUND: Major depressive disorder is one of the most debilitating psychiatric disorders worldwide. First-line treatments such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have significant limitations, including delayed onset of therapeutic effects and treatment resistance in about 30% of patients. Increasing evidence suggests that acute administration of s...
This protocol describes a systematic review and meta-analysis assessing the efficacy and safety of classic serotonergic psychedelics and related serotonergic ergoline or lysergamide compounds in cluster headache and migraine. The review will include clinical studies evaluating psilocybin, psilocin, LSD, LSA, DMT/ayahuasca, mescaline, BOL-148 / 2-bromo-LSD / ...
Abstract Rationale: Major depressive disorder (MDD) shows marked sex differences in prevalence, symptomatology, and treatment response. However, women remain underrepresented in many clinical trials, and sex-specific treatment outcomes are rarely examined. Objectives This study reanalyzed data from a randomized controlled trial comparing psilocybin and escit...
= 26.38, ~50% past-month cannabis use by design) completed an online survey. Multivariable regression assessed sociodemographics, mental health, and adverse childhood events (ACEs) in relation to: (1) past-year psychedelic use; and (2) among those reporting lifetime use: (a) lifetime microdosing and (b) use motives. Lifetime and past-year psychedelic use wer...
Microdosing and related low-dose psychoactive practices have become increasingly visible in discussions of mental health, cognition, creativity, emotional regulation, pain, sleep, spirituality, and psychological flexibility. However, the term microdosing is often used as if it referred to a single pharmacological phenomenon. More precisely, it describes a lo...
Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) remains a major clinical challenge and is typically defined as the persistence of depressive symptoms despite at least two adequate antidepressant trials. Individuals with TRD experience substantial morbidity, impaired functioning, and elevated suicide risk, highlighting the need for therapeutic strategies beyond incremen...
Psilocybin, a psychedelic drug with reported anxiolytic and antidepressant potential, is rapidly metabolized to its active metabolite psilocin. However, a lack of adequate toxicity studies and tissue distribution studies currently restricts its development and application. This study combined behavioral assays in zebrafish with desorption electrospray ioniza...
PurposeThis paper aims to examine evolving practices and discourses surrounding psilocybin mushrooms on an online drug forum. Situating use within hybrid digital and ecological contexts, it traces shifts in user engagement before and after the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic to contextualize localized realities of the contemporary psychedelic renaissance.Design/metho...
Informed by a community engagement process, we have developed a pragmatic, open-label, hybrid feasibility-implementation study of Group Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy (GPAT) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As psychedelic-assisted therapies begin to enter the broader mental health arena, engaging communities in the design of research and care models i...
In recent decades, the psychedelic psilocybin has been studied as a potential treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD), offering an alternative to traditional antidepressants. However, the brain changes underlying the clinical effects of different interventions remain unclear. Here, we investigated the effects of psilocybin and a conventional antidepres...
Introduction: Contemporary psychiatry is grappling with a profound stagnation in innovation. It is primarily relying on the chronic management of symptoms through traditional daily-dose pharmacotherapy. The emergence of psychedelics and ketamine marks a significant departure from this model. It is offering rapid-acting, interventional alternatives that targe...
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Dextromethorphan (DXM), widely used as an over-the-counter antitussive in the United States, exhibits psychoactive effects at supratherapeutic levels that overlap with those of classic and dissociative psychedelics. Reported psychoactive effects have generated interest in DXM as a potential therapeutic agent for treatment-resistant ...
This scoping review aims to comprehensively map and synthesize the breadth of evidence from original research on the relationship between psilocybin and health, spanning clinical trials, epidemiological surveys, mechanistic experiments, and cross-sectional attitudinal studies. The review uses 145 references and builds its evidence map from 216 original studi...
Background: This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluates the efficacy and safety of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy (PAP) for adults with major depressive disorder (MDD). Methods: A PROSPERO-registered search (CRD42024561979) of CENTRAL, Scopus, PsycINFO, and MEDLINE (2010-2024) identified clinical trials assessing PAP. Risk of bias was assessed usin...
Recent studies have shown promising results for psychedelics in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. Both in clinical and recreational settings, contextual elements, such as music, can influence the experience of users and may be linked to positive outcomes. This systematic review identifies how music is being selected and used in psychedelisc-assisted ps...
Stable, high-level biosynthesis of complex natural products requires precise control of heterologous pathway expression, yet transcriptional architectures optimized on plasmids often fail when transferred to the chromosome. Here, we present ePathIntegrate, a genome-centric pathway engineering strategy that leverages CRISPR-associated transposases (CASTs) to ...
