Psilocybin fungi, also more informally known as psychedelic mushrooms, have a rich, cultural history and were criminalized in the 1970s. However, recent developments, including Food and Drug Administration breakthrough status and state-level legalization, revive interest in these substances. They may be able to treat many disorders without the addictiveness ...
Psilocybin has shown promise for alleviating symptoms of depression and is currently in clinical trials for the treatment of anorexia nervosa (AN), a condition that is characterised by persistent cognitive inflexibility. Considering that enhanced cognitive flexibility after psilocybin treatment is reported to occur in individuals with depression, it is plaus...
Several phase II studies have demonstrated that psilocybin-assisted therapy shows therapeutic potential across a spectrum of neuropsychiatric conditions, including major depressive disorder (MDD). However, the mechanisms underlying its often persisting beneficial effects remain unclear. Observational research suggests that improvements in psychological flexi...
Abstract Psychological flexibility has been proposed as a core process of change when psychedelics are used for therapeutic purposes, but to date empirical outcomes have only documented changes on the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-II), a very general measure of psychological flexibility. This pilot study measured outcomes from psilocybin administe...
Psychedelics are quite unique among drugs that impact the central nervous system, as a single administration of a psychedelic can both rapidly alter subjective experience in profound ways and produce sustained effects on circuits relevant to mood, fear, reward, and cognitive flexibility. These remarkable properties are a direct result of psychedelics interac...
Introduction to the Special Section on Psychedelics Research and Treatment Dominic Sisti Against a backdrop of post-pandemic malaise, diseases of despair, and a fragmented mental health care system, psychedelics have enjoyed a resurgence of interest as powerful psychotherapeutic agents and as catalysts of personal growth. The true power of these substances-s...
Mental illness is a hot topic of concern worldwide. The psilocybin has great potential in the treatment of mental disorders, but there is still a research gap on whether it can truly be applied in the treatment of mental disorders. Therefore, this research explores the feasibility of psilocybin’s true application in the treatment of mental disorders by colle...
Psychedelic mushrooms containing psilocybin and related tryptamines have long been used for ethnomycological purposes, but emerging evidence points to the potential therapeutic value of these mushrooms to address modern neurological, psychiatric health, and related disorders. As a result, psilocybin containing mushrooms represent a re-emerging frontier for m...
Psilocybin, a psychoactive alkaloid with hallucinogenic properties, exists in a variety of hallucinogenic mushrooms. As a study tool to imitate psychosis, psilocybin has aroused a lot of interest in the biological community due to its various possible therapeutic benefits. It is also a very popular and widely misused natural hallucinogens with distinct metab...
Traditional psychedelics are undergoing a transformation from recreational drugs, to promising pharmaceutical drug candidates with the potential to provide an alternative treatment option for individuals struggling with mental illness. Sustainable and economic production methods are thus needed to facilitate enhanced study of these drug candidates to support...
Abstract Psychoactive substances such as psilocybin and 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA) are currently being investigated for a variety of psychiatric indications including major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. It is critical that clinicians working in the mental health field understand the regulatory framework that balances ...
Psychiatric illnesses - such as major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, substance use disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - are widely prevalent and represent a substantial health burden worldwide. Yet, conventional medications for mental illnesses often fail to provide relief to patients' disruptive and disabling symptoms. Existing and e...
In 2020, Oregon became the first state in the US to decriminalize use of many illicit substances, including mushrooms containing psilocybin, and allow adults aged 21 years and older to take psilocybin under supervision in state-licensed service centers. Numerous states and municipalities have since proposed similar policies, 1 a process catalyzed by exciteme...
Langlitz and colleagues wrote about clinically used psychedelic drugs and the possibility of a “moral psychopharmacology” earlier in this journal (1). They emphasized the context-dependency of the effects of these substances (e.g., ayahuasca, psilocybin) and the importance of understanding their impact on social and moral cognition, particularly now that the...
Interest in the potential therapeutic efficacy of psilocybin and other psychedelic compounds has escalated significantly in recent years. To date, little is known regarding the biological activity of the psilocybin pathway intermediate, norbaeocystin, due to limitations around sourcing the phosphorylated tryptamine metabolite for in vivo testing. To address ...
Standards are useful in the development of medicine because they enable communication and consistency in experimentation. Standards, however, often require expensive tools like laboratories and clinical trials. How, then, might citizen scientists develop standards given the difficulty of obtaining these tools? This article provides one answer, by describing ...
Antibody engineering is a powerful method used to generate high-affinity antibodies that enables sensitive immunoassays. It is commonly performed with the following steps: First, antibody fragments (e.g., single-chain Fv fragments; scFvs) with various mutations are displayed on the surface of filamentous bacteriophages to generate a diverse scFv-phages libra...
