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...
Neuroplasticity refers to the ability of the brain to modify synaptic connections and reorganize neural circuits, underpinning cognitive function, emotional regulation, and recovery from injury. Recent advances have redefined adult neuroplasticity as more dynamic and therapeutically accessible than previously thought, spurring investigation into pharmacologi...
Psilocybin, a classic psychedelic compound, has garnered renewed interest as a potential treatment for various psychiatric disorders. This review provides a comprehensive overview of psilocybin's history, recent clinical evidence, ongoing clinical trials, neuroimaging findings, and regulations. Historically used in spiritual and healing rituals, psilocybin w...
Background: Psilocybin is a psychoactive compound found in hallucinogenic mushrooms and is rapidly dephosphorylated in vivo to psilocin, its pharmacologically active metabolite. Despite the growing clinical and scientific interest in these substances, information regarding their interaction with cytochrome P450 (CYP450) enzymes remains scarce, raising concer...
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...
BackgroundPsychedelics such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin have shown a beneficial effect on substance use disorder (SUD) symptoms. In this systematic review, we aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of psychoactive tryptamines in patients with an SUD or non-substance-related disorder (i.e., gambling disorder) in order to provide a comp...
This study will examine the effect of a single high dose of psilocybin therapy (30 mg) versus a very low dose (1 mg) as an adjunctive therapy to individuals undergoing standard-of-care buprenorphine treatment for Opioid use disorder (OUD). Effects of adjunctive psilocybin will be determined for longitudinal outcomes of opioid abstinence, compliance with bupr...
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 ...
Psilocybin is a hallucinogen with complex neurobiological and behavioral effects. Underlying these effects are changes in brain neuroplasticity. We hypothesized psilocybin given during adolescence, a time of heightened neuroplasticity, particularly in the forebrain, would affect emotional behavior and the associated underlying neuroanatomy, neurocircuitry, a...
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...
In our original case report we provide detailed accounts of two research participants who reported the emergence of spontaneously recovered, previously forgotten traumatic memories of sexual assaults during psilocybin treatment. In their commentary of this article, Kangaslampi et al. argue that we preemptively label the experiences as dissociated traumatic m...
BACKGROUND: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the leading cause of disability worldwide, affecting roughly 322 million people. Recently, doses of psilocybin have shown promise in treating mood disorders, sparking interest in other dosing practices. According to anecdotal reports and observational studies, microdosing psilocybin yields benefits to mental hea...
The therapeutic potential of psilocybin in treating psychiatric disorders has gained attention recently. While most research has focused on isolated psilocybin, evidence suggests that whole mushroom extracts exhibit greater efficacy, implicating a possible entourage effect of additional bioactive compounds. This study aimed to elucidate the holistic neuropha...
Anhedonia, a core symptom of depression, is often resistant to conventional treatments and significantly impacts quality of life. This secondary analysis aimed to evaluate the effects of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy (PAP) on anhedonia severity in individuals with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Participants (n = 30) with TRD and a primary diagnosi...
The goal of this open-label, dose-escalation, prospective study is to evaluate the safety and psychological effects of a Psilocybin and D-Serine formulation in healthy volunteers. The main objectives are: 1. To assess the psychological and physiological effects of psilocybin administered with D-Serine in healthy adults. 2. To determine whether D-Serine modul...
There has been a renewed interest in the use of various psychedelic agents as potential therapies for multiple psychiatric conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), to name a few. This follows the recent accumulation of evidence for ketamine pharmacotherapy and a rapid pr...
Psilocybin-assisted interventions have shown rapid reductions in depressive symptoms in controlled clinical settings, raising questions about biological mechanisms supporting durability beyond the acute drug effect. [5,7] Mechanistic accounts increasingly focus on neuroplasticity as a candidate pathway linking transient serotonergic receptor activation to lo...
Clinical investigations into the therapeutic actions of psilocybin have been the focus of much attention in recent years as duly cited in the manuscript.The authors of the present manuscript discuss potential targets through which psilocybin may help prevent suicide using computational network pharmacology coupled with molecular docking investigations.Unfort...
Psilocybin is a psychoactive tryptamine produced by a phylogenetically discontinuous yet ecologically diverse subset of fungi. Despite decades of chemical, pharmacological, and ethnobiological research, the evolutionary forces driving the emergence and persistence of this compound remain insufficiently explained. Recent hypotheses proposing that psilocybin e...