BackgroundDepression and anxiety are prevalent psychiatric disorders that carry significant morbidity. Pharmacological and psychosocial interventions are used to manage these conditions, but their efficacy is limited. Recent interest into the use of psychedelic-assisted therapy using ayahuasca, psilocybin or lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) may be a promisin...
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...
Fatalities implicating psychedelic mushrooms are not a common clinical situation in everyday forensic medicine. Despite classification as an illegal drug in many countries, psilocybin mushrooms have the reputation of being safe. We report the case of a young man who jumped from a second story balcony under the influence of psilocybin mushrooms. The psilocin ...
The effects of hallucinogenic drugs on the human brain have been studied since the earliest days of neuroimaging in the 1990s. However, approaches are often hard to compare and results are heterogeneous. In this chapter, we summarize studies investigating the effects of hallucinogens on the resting brain, with a special emphasis on replicability and limitati...
AimThe aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship between escalating higher doses of psilocybin and the potential psilocybin occasioned positive subjective effects.MethodsHealthy participants ( n=12) were given three escalating doses of oral psilocybin (0.3 mg/kg; 0.45 mg/kg; 0.6 mg/kg) or (18.8-36.6 mg; 27.1-54.0 mg; 36.3-59.2 mg) a minimu...
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...
IntroductionPsilocybin is a psychedelic tryptamine that has shown promise in recent clinical trials for the treatment of depression and substance use disorders. This open-label study of the pharmacokinetics of psilocybin was performed to describe the pharmacokinetics and safety profile of psilocybin in sequential, escalating oral doses of 0.3, 0.45, and 0.6 ...
RationaleAlthough psilocybin and dextromethorphan (DXM) are hallucinogens, they have different receptor mechanisms of action and have not been directly compared.ObjectiveThis study compared subjective, behavioral, and physiological effects of psilocybin and dextromethorphan under conditions that minimized expectancy effects.MethodsSingle, acute oral doses of...
Psilocybin with psychological support is showing promise as a treatment model in psychiatry but its therapeutic mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, cerebral blood flow (CBF) and blood oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) were measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before and after treatment with p...
Psilocybin, the active compound in psychedelic mushrooms, is an agonist of various serotonin receptors. Seminal psilocybin positron emission tomography (PET) research suggested regional increases in glucose metabolism in frontal cortex (hyperfrontality). However, a recent arterial spin labeling (ASL) study suggests psilocybin may lead to hypo-perfusion in va...
Psilocybin, a psychoactive component of magic mushrooms, is thought to have therapeutic potential in psychiatric disorders but its mechanism of action within the brain is unclear. In a study, researchers gave two doses of psilocybin to 19 patients with treatment-resistant depression, and studied blood flow within the brain using functional magnetic resonance...
In medicine we must always expect the unexpected. Medicine is replete with paradoxes, where poisons become cures. Snake venom is deadly but is being used to treat some cancers, (1) because it produces contortrostatin, a protein that paralyzes cancer cells and prevents them from migrating. Venoms from spiders are being investigated as a treatment to slow the ...
BackgroundSalvinorin-A is a terpene found in the leaves of the plant Salvia divinorum. When administered to humans, salvinorin-A induces an intense but short-lasting modified state of awareness, sharing features with those induced by the classical serotonin-2A receptor agonist psychedelics. However, unlike substances such as psilocybin or mescaline, salvinor...
Psychedelics (serotonergic hallucinogens) are powerful psychoactive substances that alter perception and mood and affect numerous cognitive processes. They are generally considered physiologically safe and do not lead to dependence or addiction. Their origin predates written history, and they were employed by early cultures in many sociocultural and ritual c...
This case was submitted to the Washington State Patrol Toxicology Laboratory in September 2014. A15-year-old male went to a party where he ingested 25I-NBOMe and mushrooms. A short time later, he started to vomit and began seizing until he eventually passed out. Resuscitation efforts were made, but were unsuccessful. He was transported to a local hospital, w...
Substances of plant origin have been used to induce hallucinations for a long time, in religious ceremonies and rituals as well as in pain relief. Psilocybin and psilocin naturally occur in the fungal genus Psilocybe. Due to the psychedelic effects and relative harmlessness of these substances and the fact that they do not cause physical addiction, psilocybi...
The development of pharmacological magnetic resonance imaging (phMRI) has presented the opportunity for investigation of the neurophysiological effects of drugs in vivo. Psilocin, a hallucinogen metabolised from psilocybin, was recently reported to evoke brain region-specific, phMRI signal changes in humans. The present study investigated the effects of psil...
Light microscopical examination of plant and fungal remains in the post mortem gut may be capable of demonstrating the ingestion of unexpected natural psychotropic materials. This is demonstrated here in a case in which a 'shaman' was accused of causing the death of a young man. The deceased had participated in a ceremony which involved the drinking of ayahu...
Background: Many species of hallucinogenic mushrooms have been found in the genus Psilocybe. The main psychoactive chemicals of Psilocybe mushrooms are psilocin and its phosphoryloxy derivative, psilocybin. In addition to its psychedelic effects, psilocybin is an effective agent to lift the mood of depressed patients with terminal cancers.Objective: To study...
The study of rapid changes in brain dynamics and functional connectivity (FC) is of increasing interest in neuroimaging. Brain states departing from normal waking consciousness are expected to be accompanied by alterations in the aforementioned dynamics. In particular, the psychedelic experience produced by psilocybin (a substance found in "magic mushrooms")...
