People living with cancer (PLWC) often face profound existential distress that is insufficiently addressed by conventional psychosocial supports. This qualitative study explored PLWC's attitudes, beliefs, and experiences regarding psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) as a novel approach to addressing psychosocial suffering, particularly existential distress. F...
Chronic stress exerts profound effects on mental health, contributing to disorders such as depression, anxiety, and cognitive impairment. This study examines the potential of psilocybin to alleviate behavioral despair and cognitive deficits in a rodent model of chronic stress, focusing on the interplay between the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis an...
Empathy plays a crucial role in interpersonal relationships and mental health. It is decreased in a variety of psychiatric disorders including major depression. Psilocybin, a promising candidate for treating depression, has been shown to acutely increase emotional empathy in healthy volunteers. However, no study has investigated this effect and its relevance...
This secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial examines the association between treatment expectancies and the relative efficacy of psilocybin compared with escitalopram for major depressive disorder.
Methamphetamine (MA) dependence leads to severe physical and psychological issues. Current treatments, including psychosocial therapies and residential rehabilitation, face limitations such as high relapse rates, cost, and accessibility issues. As a result, there is an urgent need for novel approaches to treat MA dependence that are effective, affordable, an...
ImportanceA clear and comprehensive understanding of risks associated with psychedelic-assisted therapy is necessary as investigators extend its application to new populations and indications.ObjectiveTo assess adverse events (AEs) associated with classic psychedelics, particularly serious AEs (SAEs) and nonserious AEs (NSAEs) requiring medical or psychiatri...
Background: Psilocybin can produce long-term changes in personality, personal values, and behavior. Although psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) is being actively studied for various psychiatric conditions, its effects on personal values in patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) remain unexplored. This study examined the effects of PAT on personal values in ...
Psilocybin-containing mushrooms, commonly known as magic mushrooms, drastically affect mental processing, cognitive functioning, and the mood state. In the present study, we investigated the effect of the Psilocybe cubensis extract on spatial memory and the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in rats exposed to chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS). ...
Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a psychiatric illness with high mortality rates and limited treatment outcomes. Psilocybin treatment (PT) has shown promise for various mental health indications and there is significant interest in exploring its potential for AN; however, studies to date are preliminary. Given the probable surge in psychedelic studies for AN, more i...
Psilocybin has been shown to induce fast and sustained improvements in mental well-being across various populations, yet its long-term mechanisms of action are not fully understood. Initial evidence suggests that longitudinal functional and structural brain changes implicate fronto-striatal-thalamic (FST) circuitry, a broad system involved in goal-directed b...
Psilocybin is a serotonergic psychedelic with therapeutic potential for treating mental illnesses 1-4. At the cellular level, psychedelics induce structural neural plasticity 5,6, exemplified by the drug-evoked growth and remodeling of dendritic spines in cortical pyramidal cells 7-9. A key question is how these cellular modifications map onto cell type-spec...
Neuroinflammation that is caused by microglia, the main immune cells of the brain, contributes to neurodegenerative diseases. Psychedelics, including psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), possess certain anti-inflammatory properties and, therefore, should be considered as drug candidates for treating neuroinflammatory pathologies. When ingested, p...
Recent studies highlight the promising use of psychedelic therapies for psychiatric disorders, including depression. The persisting clinical effects of psychedelics such as psilocybin are commonly attributed to activation of the serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT2AR) based on its role in the acute hallucinatory effects. However, the active metabolite of psilocybin ...
Executive function deficits, common in psychiatric disorders, hinder daily activities and may be linked to diminished neural plasticity, affecting treatment and training responsiveness. In this pioneering study, we evaluated the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of psilocybin-assisted frontal-midline theta neurofeedback (NF), a neuromodulation technique l...
ABSTRACT Psychedelics have robust effects on acute brain function and long-term behavior but whether they also cause enduring functional and anatomical brain changes is unknown. In a placebo-controlled, within-subjects, electroencephalography, and magnetic resonance imaging study in 28 healthy, entirely psychedelic-naive participants, anatomical and function...
BACKGROUND: Psilocybin is a psychedelic 5HT2A receptor agonist found in "magic mushrooms". Recent studies have indicated that 5HT2A agonists, such as dimethyltryptamine, given before middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAo), improve staircase behavior, increased BDNF expression, and reduce brain infarction in stroke rats. The objective of this study is to det...
Abstract Psychedelic drugs have profound effects on perception, cognition and mood. How psychedelics affect neural signaling to produce these effects remains poorly understood. We investigated the effect of the classic psychedelic psilocybin on neural activity patterns and spatial encoding in the retrosplenial cortex of head-fixed mice navigating on a treadm...
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