Background and Aims The ongoing opioid epidemic remains a major public health crisis in the United States, with over 100,000 opioid-related deaths annually. Mental health disorders are strongly associated with opioid use disorder (OUD), compounding risks of misuse and overdose. Emerging evidence indicates that psychedelics may be associated with reduced risk...
Serotonergic psychedelics are being explored as treatments for a range of psychiatric conditions. Promising results in mood disorders indicate that their effects on emotional processing may play a central role in their therapeutic potential. However, mechanistic and clinical studies paint a complex picture of the impact of psychedelics on emotions and mood. ...
BACKGROUND: Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy (PAP) has gained attention as a promising intervention for conditions including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, but understanding of its side-effects is limited. This review evaluates the quality of side-effects reporting in PAP trials, to guide treatment, policy and research. AIMS: To ass...
Chronic pain affects millions of people and remains one of the greatest clinical challenges due to limited response to conventional therapies. Psilocybin, a psychedelic found in mushrooms of the Psilocybe genus, has sparked interest due to its potential to modulate serotonergic receptors and promote neuroplasticity, suggesting analgesic and psychotherapeutic...
BackgroundOver the past ten years, several psychedelic compounds, including tryptamines like lysergic acid diethylamide/LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and dimethyltryptamine/DMT, have been tested in clinical trials for a range of psychiatric conditions, such as anxiety and depression. While these compounds are relatively available for treatment, ketamine and it...
IntroductionBipolar disorder (BD) is a severe and persistent mental disorder characterized by recurrent mood episodes, with BD depression accounting for most of the illness burden. Although the mainstay treatment of BD consists of pharmacotherapy with mood stabilizers and atypical antipsychotics, a large proportion of patients with BD depression do not respo...
Psilocybin is a serotonergic psychedelic with growing evidence for efficacy in mood disorders, and its therapeutic potential in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and related conditions is increasingly recognised but remains understudied. We systematically evaluated clinical and preclinical evidence on psilocybin's effects on obsessive and compulsive behavi...
Objectives: This study investigates psychedelic drugs to treat substance use disorder (SUD). Researchers have recently begun conducting clinical trials of psychedelic treatment for SUD. The current meta-analysis investigates the extent of efficacy in alleviating SM behaviours (P) using psychedelic therapy (I), concurrent with determining which psychedelic en...
Psilocybin, a psychedelic prodrug, has gained renewed interest for its potential to treat various psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders. While promising, concerns remain regarding its safety profile and the management of potential adverse events (AEs). This systematic review aimed to evaluate the incidence, nature,...
Psychedelic clinical research is expanding rapidly. This review analyses the state and trends in psychedelic clinical trial registrations. A systematic search of ClinicalTrials.Gov was conducted on 11 November 2024, to identify registered interventional trials investigating (therapeutic) effects of serotonergic psychedelics (e.g. lysergic acid diethylamide [...
Psychedelics are mind-altering substances that have shown promising effects in the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders owing to their antidepressant, anxiolytic and antiaddictive effects. However, data on their developmental toxicity is scarce, which might hinder its therapeutic suitability, and preclinical data on their behavioral effects is mainly rest...
Alcohol use disorder is a psychiatric condition characterized by excessive alcohol consumption. The drugs that are used to treat it often fail to prevent relapse. At the same time, psilocybin is increasingly being investigated for the treatment of various substance use disorder. This review aims to evaluate the results of the most recent clinical trials asse...
BackgroundResults from contemporary clinical trials of serotonergic psychedelic therapies have led to an increasing focus on their potential clinical use across mental disorders. However, studies examining mechanisms of clinical response to psychedelic therapy in psychiatric populations are limited. This review aimed to synthesize evidence from studies exami...
Prior research has determined that music plays a central role in psychedelic assisted therapy (PAT). While there is a general consensus of the importance of music during PAT, there are only three empirical studies published to date that directly investigate which type of music might best support PAT. Importantly, no review to date has critically analyzed the...
Recent antidepressant drug development focuses on a next generation of drugs to rapidly relieve symptoms. Yet, how ketamine, the prototype rapid-acting antidepressant, maintains symptom relief days after drug elimination, and how repeated doses sustain longer-lasting therapeutic effects, remains unclear. Derived from elements of metaplasticity (synaptic prim...
The primary purpose of this study is to preliminarily determine if the use of psilocybin to promote abstinence from methamphetamine is feasible and well tolerated in populations such as those found in Northern Louisiana. Investigators will assess the impact of psilocybin-facilitated treatment on methamphetamine abstinence, craving, negative affect, cognitive...
Psychedelic use in naturalistic settings in Australia is increasing. Although the risks and harms of psychedelics from a physical perspective are low, psychedelic drugs carry a unique psychological risk profile which is increased in uncontrolled settings. Harm reduction support services align with the Australian Government's Federal Drug strategy, which incl...
The potential use of psychedelic-assisted therapy for adolescents with mental illness has sparked both interest and concern. Modern psychedelic research has focused on adults, and adolescents younger than 18 years are typically excluded due to ethical and legal challenges. To explore whether adolescents have been included in 21st century psychedelic research...
Based on promising preliminary results from clinical trials, it seems likely that psychedelic substances (classic serotonergic psychedelics, such as psilocybin, and entactogens, such as MDMA) will be introduced into psychiatry as psychedelic-assisted therapy. This also raises a range of ethical questions that urgently need to be addressed before widespread r...
