A6-week study comparing the psychedelic psilocybin with the antidepressant escitalopram found no significant difference in antidepressant effects in patients with moderate to severe depression. Some secondary outcome measures favored psilocybin, but those analyses were not adjusted for multiple comparisons. Study results were published in the April 15, 2021 ...
A psychedelic drug is one that “produces thought, mood and perceptual changes otherwise rarely experienced except in dreams, contemplative and religious exaltation, flashes of vivid involuntary memory, and acute psychosis”1. It does so “without causing physical addiction, craving, major physiological disturbances, delirium, disorientation or amnesia”1. The “...
ObjectivesPsychedelics are powerful psychoactive substances. Natural psychedelics have been used for millennia by human civilizations, in particular in Latin America, while synthetic psychedelics were discovered in the 50s, giving rise to a lot of research before they were prohibited. More recently, their therapeutic properties have been studied especially t...
BackgroundPsilocybin may have antidepressant properties, but direct comparisons between psilocybin and established treatments for depression are lacking.MethodsIn a phase 2, double-blind, randomized, controlled trial involving patients with long-standing, moderate-to-severe major depressive disorder, we compared psilocybin with escitalopram, a selective sero...
Attachment insecurity is determined early in life, is a risk factor for psychopathology, and can be measured on two separate continuous dimensions: attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. Therapeutic changes toward more secure attachment correlate with reduction in psychiatric symptoms. Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy has demonstrated promise in the t...
ObjectiveTo conduct a systematic review of modern-era (post-millennium) clinical studies assessing the therapeutic effects of serotonergic psychedelics drugs for mental health conditions. Although the main focus was on efficacy and safety, study characteristics, duration of antidepressants effects across studies, and the role of the subjective drug experienc...
BACKGROUND: Psilocybin therapy has shown promise as a rapid-acting treatment for depression, anxiety, and demoralization in patients with serious medical illness (e.g., cancer) when paired with individual psychotherapy. This study assessed the safety and feasibility of psilocybin-assisted group therapy for demoralization in older long-term AIDS survivor (OLT...
Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Journal DigestFull AccessJournal Digest: Home Environment; Postpartum Mental Illness; Placebo in Psychedelic Study; Single Gene Mutation; TopiramateNick ZagorskiNick ZagorskiSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:28 May 2020https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2020.6a34Nurturing Home Environme...
psilocybin; depression; terminal cancer; CME; CNE: psilocybin; depression; terminal cancer; CME; CNEPsilocybin is a naturally occurring alkaloid found in more than 200 species of mushrooms. This compound, which was first isolated by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofman in 1959, is the active constituent of psychedelic mushrooms which are thought to have been util...
Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Clinical and Research NewsFull AccessIs Psychedelic Medicine on the Horizon?Nick ZagorskiNick ZagorskiPublished Online:28 Feb 2019https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2019.1b1AbstractNew research suggests that, if used properly, psychedelic compounds may be able to help patients with treatment-resistant psyc...
ObjectiveTo explore whether psilocybin with psychological support modulates personality parameters in patients suffering from treatment-resistant depression (TRD).MethodTwenty patients with moderate or severe, unipolar, TRD received oral psilocybin (10 and 25 mg, one week apart) in a supportive setting. Personality was assessed at baseline and at 3-month fol...
RationalePrevious research suggests that classical psychedelic compounds can induce lasting changes in personality traits, attitudes and beliefs in both healthy subjects and patient populations.AimHere we sought to investigate the effects of psilocybin on nature relatedness and libertarian-authoritarian political perspective in patients with treatment-resist...
Recent evidence indicates that psilocybin with psychological support may be effective for treating depression. Some studies have found that patients with depression show heightened amygdala responses to fearful faces and there is reliable evidence that treatment with SSRIs attenuates amygdala responses (Ma, 2015). We hypothesised that amygdala responses to e...
The main aim of the study is to investigate the possible long-term therapeutic effects of psilocybin on the symptoms of severe depression, as well as the brain mechanisms underlying these changes. Depression severity is assessed before and after (i.e., 1 week, 3 months and 6 months after) a single dose of psilocybin and compared to respective scores of a gro...
RationaleRecent clinical trials are reporting marked improvements in mental health outcomes with psychedelic drug-assisted psychotherapy.ObjectivesHere, we report on safety and efficacy outcomes for up to 6 months in an open-label trial of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression.MethodsTwenty patients (six females) with (mostly) severe, unipolar, treat...
Psilocybin and other 5-hydroxytryptamine2A agonist classic psychedelics have been used for centuries as sacraments within indigenous cultures. In the mid-twentieth century they were a focus within psychiatry as both probes of brain function and experimental therapeutics. By the late 1960s and early 1970s these scientific inquires fell out of favor because cl...
Data suggest psychedelics such as psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) may hold therapeutic potential in the treatment of addictions, including tobacco dependence. This retrospective cross-sectional anonymous online survey characterized 358 individuals (52 females) who reported having quit or reduced smoking after ingesting a psychedelic in a non-...
