Demoralization syndrome is frequently present in palliative care and oncology patients. In particular, up to a third of patients diagnosed with cancer will experience demoralization due to their illness. The relevance of demoralization syndrome in oncology is tied to this syndrome's association with other mental health ailments such as depression, anxiety, s...
Can a guided psychedelic experience with psilocybin successfully treat refractory depression? In other words, setting aside any simple direct biological drug effect, can psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy1 alleviate suffering via what William James would call a mystical experience?2
Introduction This computational modeling study introduces a novel Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) framework for optimizing single-dose psilocybin treatment protocols through personalized intervention modeling using publicly available mental health datasets. All results presented are derived from novel simulated data and predictive modeling only, no...
Abstract Depression and anxiety affect one in five adults, with age affecting prevalence. While clinical trials suggest classic psychedelics (e.g., psilocybin, LSD) and non-classic psychedelics (e.g., MDMA, ketamine) may alleviate these symptoms, it remains unclear how these relationships function in naturalistic settings or how they vary across the lifespan...
This study will serve as a pilot randomized controlled trial to assess the feasibility of Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy (PAP) in Treating Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Patients with severe IBS will undergo 3 pre-psychotherapy sessions with two licensed and trained psychedelic therapists, then will be randomized to undergo a guided psychotherapy session...
The primary aim of this study is to assess the safety and efficacy of psilocybin-assisted therapy in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder in United States military Veterans. The objective of this study is to determine the safety and efficacy of psilocybin assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of Veterans with PTSD. This study will recruit 15 Uni...
This study is assessing the efficacy and safety of NPX-5 in psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of adjustment disorder due to cancer diagnosis. Who is it for? This study is for people who are aged between 18 and 80 years old and suffer from anxiety after adjusting to an acutely stressful event of their cancer diagnosis. This is called adjustm...
Rationale: Ego-dissolution represents a key therapeutic mechanism in psychedelic-assisted therapy, yet current measurement approaches may inadequately capture its multidimensional nature. Objective: To develop and validate the Multidimensional Ego-Dissolution Assessment (MEDA) and examine substance-specific patterns across classical psychedelics. Methods: It...
This paper follows 8 scientists who ventured into the world of psychedelics on a quest to find transformational pathways forward. Each have worked on aspects of global environmental change for decades, and observing environmental crises converging into a global polycrisis/metacrisis with genuine potential for collapse, we have all carried psychological burde...
BACKGROUND: Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) imposes a substantial public health and economic burden. Although psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) has shown clinical promise, its economic value remains uncertain. This study evaluated the cost-effectiveness of PAT compared with the standard of care for TRD. METHODS: A Markov model adopting a US healthcare p...
Classic psychedelics, such as psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), have emerged as potent modulators of neuroplasticity and metaplasticity in the adult brain, offering novel therapeutic strategies for neuropsychiatric disorders. Recent findings reveal that beyond their transient psychotropic effects, these compounds...
Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a highly prevalent and disabling psychiatric condition associated with substantial clinical, social, and economic burden [1,2]. Despite the availability of conventional antidepressants, their limited effectiveness, delayed onset of action, and high relapse rates have renewed interest in innovative therapeutic ap...
Abstract Lyme disease, caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States and Europe. Although antibiotics effectively treat most cases, an estimated 10-20% of patients develop post-treatment Lyme disease (PTLD), a chronic syndrome marked by fatigue, pain, cognitive difficulties, mood disturbance, and r...
Background: Informed consent in psychedelic-assisted services is ethically complex, difficult to implement, and remains largely unstudied and unstandardized. Objective: The current study sought expert recommendations from experienced psychedelic facilitators on what constitutes informed consent best practices for supervised psychedelic experiences across var...
INTRODUCTION: This article presents a narrative review of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy as a promising intervention for addressing anxiety, depression and psycho-existential distress in patients with advanced cancer. This group of disorders, often resistant to conventional treatments, significantly impacts patients' quality of life and autonomy, as well ...
People with cancer often experience anxiety and depression following a diagnosis and can face barriers to accessing treatment for their mental health. An increasing number of patients are considering alternative approaches to managing their mental health symptoms, such as the psychedelic, psilocybin. A growing number of clinical trials show significant and e...
The overall objective of this study is to develop and pilot test a novel regimen of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for demoralization in patients receiving hospice care. -The name of the study drug involved in this study is Psilocybin The purpose of this research is to understand how psilocybin-assisted therapy may be adapted in the context of hospice car...
Demoralization syndrome (DS) - a distinct clinical entity characterized by helplessness, hopelessness, and a persistent loss of meaning - affects approximately one in five Canadians with advanced cancer and is associated with increased desire for hastened death, negative clinical outcomes, and higher economic burden, yet recognition and treatment of DS remai...
Psilocybin is the primary psychoactive compound in "magic mushrooms"; it has been used by humans for millennia, it is in promising clinical trials with humans and used in legalized psilocybin-assisted therapy, and researchers use and are further developing human-based methods with cutting-edge technologies.However, researchers are still allowed to conduct un...
