Psilocybin is a drug with renewed clinical interest because of its potential to treat psychiatric diseases. Preliminary human data suggest that psilocybin could be used to treat chronic pain, but whether psilocybin produces direct analgesia remains unclear, and existing human data have not resolved how it works if it does. The preclinical literature has conf...
Mystical experiences are characterized by a profound sense of interconnectedness and transcendence of ordinary reality. These experiences can facilitate feelings of connectedness with oneself and others and have been documented as leading to significant positive changes in thoughts, emotions, and behavior. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the...
Psychedelic drugs are serotonergic hallucinogens that can be divided into two types: naturally occurring (psilocybin, psilocin, and N,N-dimethyltryptamine) and synthetic (LSD, MDMA, 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine, and ketamine). Psychedelics generally work on 5-hydroxytryptamine receptors and might be useful in cognitive enhancement, brain connectivity, neu...
The integration of psychedelics and music in therapeutic settings is gaining recognition for its potential to enhance mental health outcomes. This review synthesizes current evidence on the neurobiological mechanisms underlying this synergy, focusing on receptor-level pathways (e.g., 5-HT2A receptor agonism, BDNF-TrkB signaling) and neural circuit dynamics (...
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Methamphetamine (MA) use disorder is associated with widespread disruption of large-scale brain networks involved in cognitive control, attention, and salience processing. Resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) provides a means to characterize these alterations; however, little is known about the capacity for functional network reorga...
Reliable documentation of the traditional use of serotonergic psychedelics has long been confined to the Americas. Prevailing narratives often overstate the global prevalence and uniformity of traditional psychedelic use, extrapolating from a limited set of well-documented cases. Here, we report evidence of psilocybin mushroom use among Basotho traditional h...
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by persistent social-communication deficits, cognitive rigidity, and atypical sensory processing. Current pharmacological treatments, including risperidone and aripiprazole, provide only limited symptomatic relief and do not address the underlying neurobiological mechanisms. Converging evidence implicates dysre...
Affective biases are important neuropsychological mechanisms by which emotions modulate cognition, behaviour and the subjective experience of mood. Previous studies have shown that the rapid-acting antidepressant, ketamine, and serotonergic psychedelic, psilocybin, modulate affective biases in a translational rat model. Both treatments differ from convention...
Introduction. Limitations of conventional treatments for depression and anxiety, particularly in treatment-resistant cases, have driven interest in alternative therapeutic approaches. Psilocybin, a serotonergic agonist with demonstrated effects on neuroplasticity and large-scale brain networks, has emerged as a promising therapeutic option. Materials and met...
This systematic review and meta-analysis synthesized data from 13 clinical trials (n=606) evaluating psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for major depressive disorder and treatment-resistant depression. Despite early enthusiasm, the pooled standardized mean difference (-0.79, 95% confidence interval: -3.98 to 2.40, p=0.63) revealed no statistically significant...
Psilocybin-assisted therapy shows promise for depression, though current evidence relies on Phase 2 trials with notable methodological limitations. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating psilocybin-assisted therapy for major or treatment-resistant depression up to February 2024. We evaluated depre...
Serotonergic psychedelics such as N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and 4-phosphoryloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (psilocybin) show therapeutic promise for psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders but may be limited by liabilities from serotonin (5-HT)-2A mediated psychoactive effects and potential cardiotoxicity via 5-HT2B activation. To address these limitation...
Background Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can present significant challenges to individuals mental health, characterized by intrusive thoughts and repetitive maladaptive behaviors. Recent research into alternative treatments has highlighted psychedelics, notably psilocybin, for their potential therapeutic benefits in various psychiatric disorders, inclu...
