Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy : A Paradigm Shift in Psychiatric Research and Development Eduardo Ekman Schenberg Frontiers in Pharmacology, 2018, Volume 9, Article 733, 1-11 doi: 10.3389/fphar.2018.00733 Abstract Mental disorders are rising while development of novel psychiatric medications is declining. This stall in innovation has also been linked with intense debates on the current diagnostics and explanations for mental disorders, together constituting a paradigmatic crisis. A radical innovation is psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PAP): professionally supervised use of ketamine, MDMA, psilocybin, LSD and ibogaine as part of elaborated psychotherapy programs. Clinical results so far have shown safety and efficacy, even for “treatment resistant” conditions, and thus deserve increasing attention [...]
Lire la suitePsychiatry might need some psychedelic therapy Matthew W. Johnson International Review of Psychiatry, 2018, 30, 4, 285-290, DOI: 10.1080/09540261.2018.1509544 EDITORIAL Psychiatry might need some psychedelic therapy In historical and modern-day studies, psychedelic drugs have shown promise in managing a variety of psychiatric disorders, but their medical use has often raised controversies. The controversies have related to social, political, and legal challenges. History Although anthropological evidence suggests that classic psychedelic drugs (hereafter, ‘psychedelics’) have been used by various indigenous peoples as sacraments and healing agents before recorded history, in the mid-twentieth century they came to occupy a place at the cutting edge of psychiatric research (Johnson, Richards, & Griffiths, [...]
Lire la suiteUnifying Theories of Psychedelic Drug Effects Link R. Swanson Frontiers in Pharmacology, 2018, Volume 9, Article 172, 1-23 www.frontiersin.org (2 March 2018) doi: 10.3389/fphar.2018.00172 Abstract How do psychedelic drugs produce their characteristic range of acute effects in perception, emotion, cognition, and sense of self? How do these effects relate to the clinical efficacy of psychedelic-assisted therapies? Efforts to understand psychedelic phenomena date back more than a century in Western science. In this article I review theories of psychedelic drug effects and highlight key concepts which have endured over the last 125 years of psychedelic science. First, I describe the subjective phenomenology of acute psychedelic effects using [...]
Lire la suite“Microdosers” of LSD and magic mushrooms are wiser and more creative. Anderson T., Petranker R. The Conversation, 2018 Available from: http://theconversation.com/microdosers-of-lsd-and-magicmushrooms- are-wiser-and-more-creative-101302 We just ran the first ever pre-registered scientific study on the microdosing of psychedelics and found some very promising results. We compared people who microdose — that is, who take a psychedelic substance such as LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) or “magic” mushrooms (psilocybin) in very small quantities — with those who don’t, and found that microdosers had healthier scores on key mental health and well-being measures. Specifically, we found that microdosers scored higher on measures of wisdom, open-mindedness and creativity. Microdosers also scored lower on measures [...]
Lire la suitePsychedelic microdosing benefits and challenges : an empirical codebook Thomas Anderson, Rotem Petranker2, Adam Christopher, Daniel Rosenbaum, Cory Weissman, Le-Anh Dinh-Williams, Katrina Hui and Emma Hapke Harm Reduction Journal, 2019, 16, 43, 1-10 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-019-0308-4 Abstract Background : Microdosing psychedelics is the practice of consuming very low, sub-hallucinogenic doses of a psychedelic substance, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or psilocybin-containing mushrooms. According to media reports, microdosing has grown in popularity, yet the scientific literature contains minimal research on this practice. There has been limited reporting on adverse events associated with microdosing, and the experiences of microdosers in community samples have not been categorized. Methods : In the [...]
Lire la suitePsychedelics in the treatment of unipolar mood disorders : a systematic review James J.H. Rucker, Luke A. Jelen, Sarah Flynn, Kyle D. Frowde and Allan H. Young Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2016, 1-10 DOI: 10.1177/0269881116679368 Abstract Unipolar mood disorders, including major depressive disorder and persistent depressive disorder (dysthymia), confer high rates of disability and mortality and a very high socioeconomic burden. Current treatment is suboptimal in most cases and there is little of note in the pharmaceutical development pipeline. The psychedelic drugs, including lysergic acid diethylamide and psilocybin, were used extensively in the treatment of mood disorders, and other psychiatric conditions, before their prohibition in the [...]
Lire la suiteThe paradoxical psychological effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) R. L. Carhart-Harris, M. Kaelen, M. Bolstridge, T. M. Williams, L. T. Williams, R. Underwood, A. Feilding and D. J. Nutt Psychological Medicine, 2016, 46, 1379–1390. doi:10.1017/S0033291715002901 Background : Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a potent serotonergic hallucinogen or psychedelic that modulates consciousness in a marked and novel way. This study sought to examine the acute and mid-term psychological effects of LSD in a controlled study. Method : A total of 20 healthy volunteers participated in this within-subjects study. Participants received LSD (75 μg, intravenously) on one occasion and placebo (saline, intravenously) on another, in a [...]
Lire la suitePsychedelic Drugs in Biomedicine Evan J. KYZAR, Charles D. NICHOLS, Paul R. GAINETDINOV, David E. NICHOLS, Allan V. KALUEFF Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, 2017, 38, (1), 992-1005 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tips.2017.08.003 Trends Psychedelic drugs profoundly alter human behavior, acting primarily via agonism at the 5-HT2A receptor in the brain. Research into the mechanisms of psychedelic drugs is experiencing a renaissance after years of stagnation. Animal models show that psychedelic drugs alter a number of crucial molecular mechanisms. Psychedelic drugs cause widespread changes in cognition and brain connectivity. Recent pilot studies show LSD and psilocybin are effective in treating psychiatric disorders and possibly other illnesses. Psychedelic biomedicine is rapidly emerging as an important area [...]
Lire la suiteRole of the Serotonin 5-HT2A Receptor in Learning John A. Harvey Learning & Memory, 2003, 355-362 www.learnmem.org http://www.learnmem.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/lm.60803. This study reviews the role of the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor in learning as measured by the acquisition of the rabbit’s classically conditioning nictitating membrane response, a component of the eyeblink response. Agonists at the 5-HT2A receptor including LSD (d-lysergic acid diethylamide) enhanced associative learning at doses that produce cognitive effects in humans. Some antagonists such as BOL (d-bromolysergic acid diethylamide), LY53,857, and ketanserin acted as neutral antagonists in that they had no effect on learning, whereas others (MDL11,939, ritanserin, and mianserin) acted as inverse agonists in that [...]
Lire la suitePotential Therapeutic Effects of Psilocybin Matthew W. Johnson & Roland R. Griffiths Neurotherapeutics, 2017, 14, 734–740 DOI 10.1007/s13311-017-0542-y Abstract 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 classic psychedelics were being used outside of medical research and in association with the emerging counter culture. However, in the twenty-first century, scientific interest in classic psychedelics has returned and grown as a result of [...]
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