Clinical research into serotonergic psychedelic drugs including psilocybin, LSD and N,N-DMT (e.g., in ‘ayahuasca’) is expanding rapidly and clinical trials across a range of psychiatric conditions have shown promising efficacy, with larger trials ongoing. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has emerged as a brain imaging strategy commo...
Clinical research into serotonergic psychedelic drugs including psilocybin, LSD and N,N-DMT (e.g., in ‘ayahuasca’) is expanding rapidly and clinical trials across a range of psychiatric conditions have shown promising efficacy, with larger trials ongoing. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has emerged as a brain imaging strategy commo...
Background: Experiences with psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin or lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), are sometimes followed by changes in patterns of tobacco, opioid, and alcohol consumption. But, the specific characteristics of psychedelic experiences that lead to changes in drug consumption are unknown.Objective: Determine whether quantitative descripti...
Serotonergic hallucinogens psilocybin, and its active metabolite psilocin, have shown promise as rapid-acting antidepressants. The FDA granted breakthrough therapy designation for psilocybin's use as an antidepressant in 2019, and phase II clinical trials are currently ongoing. Psilocybin is converted to psilocin following oral administration, and this metab...
Depression is a widespread and devastating mental illness and the search for rapid-acting antidepressants remains critical. There is now exciting evidence that the psychedelic compound psilocybin produces not only powerful alterations of consciousness, but also rapid and persistent antidepressant effects. How psilocybin exerts its therapeutic actions is not ...
After a cessation of almost 40 years, there is renewed interest into therapeutic applicationsof the serotonergic psychedelic psilocybin for the treatment of patients with various psychiatric disorders. PubMed was searched for clinical trials into "psilocybin" between 2000 and 2020, complemented by handsearching. Articles were also screened for explanatory mo...
BACKGROUND: Psilocybin is a serotonergic psychedelic with psychoactive effects mediated by serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT2AR) activation. It produces an acute psychedelic altered state of consciousness with a unique phenomenology that can be temporally characterized by three intensity phases: onset of psychoactive effect, a peak plateau and return to normal con...
Despite observed correlations between acute glucocorticoid release, self-reported anxiety, and long-term treatment outcomes for human studies using psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy approaches, the mechanistic relationship between psychedelic-dependent stress and subsequent behavioral responses remains unclear. Using rodents, direct manipulation of stress-as...
Abstract The recent revivification of interest in the therapeutic use of psychedelics has had a particular focus on mood disorders and addiction, although there is reason to think these drugs may be effective more widely. After outlining pertinent aspects of psilocybin and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the current review summarizes the evidence indica...
Introduction Psilocybin (PSI) has persistent antidepressant efficacy in human trials. We have shown one dose of PSI to significantly decrease depressive-like behavior in male Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats for at least five weeks without losing efficacy. However, the outcome assay we used to evaluate depressive-like behavior, the forced swim test (FST), has been cr...
OBJECTIVE: Psilocybin is a serotonin receptor agonist with a therapeutic potential for treatment-resistant depression and other psychiatric illnesses. We investigated whether the administration of psilocybin had an antidepressant-like effect in a rat model of depression. METHODS: Using the Flinders Sensitive Line (FSL) rat model of depression, we assessed th...
Bufotenine is an alkaloid derived from serotonin, structurally similar to LSD and psilocin. This molecule is able to inhibit the rabies virus infection in in vitro and in vivo models, increasing the survival rate of infected animals. Being a very promising molecule for an incurable disease and because of the fact that there is no consensus regarding its neur...
Background and objectives: Considering the increasing prevalence of depression, many studies are launched to investigate new antidepressant treatments. The present research has shown how psilocybin as an active compound of Psilocybe cubensis (Earle) Singer extract (PCE) can change the parameters related to depression and anxiety in animal models. Both seroto...
In a large-scale ( N = 1487) general population online study, we investigated the relationship between past experience with classic psychedelic substances (e.g. LSD, psilocybin, mescaline), nature relatedness, and ecological behavior (e.g. saving water, recycling). Using structural equation modeling we found that experience with classic psychedelics uniquely...
Research activity on the potential clinical value of classic hallucinogens and other psychedelics has increased markedly in the past two decades, and promises to continue to expand. Experimental study of hallucinogen-assisted treatment, and any future clinical use, requires the development of psychotherapeutic models that are appropriate to the disorder bein...
The 30-item revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30) was previously developed within an online survey of mystical-type experiences occasioned by psilocybin-containing mushrooms. The rated experiences occurred on average eight years before completion of the questionnaire. The current paper validates the MEQ30 using data from experimental studies with...
Schizophrenia is a complex mental health disorder with positive, negative and cognitive symptom domains. Approximately one third of patients are resistant to currently available medication. New therapeutic targets and a better understanding of the basic biological processes that drive pathogenesis are needed in order to develop therapies that will improve qu...
Despite the widespread application of drug modelling in psychiatric research, the relative value of different models has never been formally compared in the same analysis. Here we compared the effects of five drugs (cannabis, psilocybin, amphetamine, ketamine and alcohol) in relation to psychiatric symptoms in a two-part subjective analysis. In the first par...
The serotonin 5-HT(2A) receptor is the major target of psychedelic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), mescaline, and psilocybin. Serotonergic psychedelics induce profound effects on cognition, emotion, and sensory processing that often seem uniquely human. This raises questions about the validity of animal models of psychedelic drug action. None...
