iScience
January 16, 2026
Amir Valizadeh, John D Roache, Xinyu Zhang et al.
2 citations
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) exhibits extensive clinical and biological variability, making treatment challenging. The Consortium to Alleviate PTSD (CAP)-ketamine trial, the largest randomized study of ketamine for PTSD, found no overall benefit of ketamine over placebo, underscoring the necessity to identify responsive subgroups. Using pre-treatment blood DNA methylation profiles and...
Psychopharmacology
October 1, 2024
Ardavan Mohammad Aghaei, Lia Urban Spillane, Brian Pittman et al.
9 citations
Recent reports have shown increased cannabis use among women, leading to growing concerns about cannabis use disorder (CUD). While there is preclinical evidence suggesting biological sex influences cannabinoid effects, human research remains scant. We investigated sex differences in the acute response to oral tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in humans. 56 healthy men and women with prior exposure to...
Neuropsychopharmacology
September 1, 2022
Deepak Cyril D'Souza, Shariful A. Syed, L Taylor Flynn et al.
156 citations
There is considerable interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs. Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a potent, rapid-onset, and short-acting psychedelic drug that has not yet been independently tested for the treatment of depression. The safety, tolerability, and efficacy of intravenous DMT were investigated in treatment-resistant individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) and...
Neuropsychopharmacology
July 2022
Chadi G. Abdallah, John D Roache, Ralitza Gueorguieva et al.
This study tested the efficacy of repeated intravenous ketamine doses to reduce symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Veterans and service members with PTSD (n = 158) who failed previous antidepressant treatment were randomized to 8 infusions administered twice weekly of intravenous placebo (n = 54), low dose (0.2 mg/kg; n = 53) or standard dose (0.5 mg/kg; n = 51) ketamine....
Psychopharmacology
May 2022
Anahita Bassir Nia, Maria J Orejarena, Leigh Flynn et al.
Cannabis is the most common illicit drug used in the USA and its use has been rising over the past decade, while the historical gap in rates of use between men and women has been decreasing. Sex differences in the effects of cannabinoids have been reported in animal models, but human studies are sparse and inconsistent. We investigated the sex differences in the acute subjective,...
The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry
March 22, 2022
Deepak C. D’Souza, Marta DiForti, Suhas Ganesh et al.
Abstract Objectives The liberalisation of cannabis laws, the increasing availability and potency of cannabis has renewed concern about the risk of psychosis with cannabis. Methods The objective of the WFSBP task force was to review the literature about this relationship. Results Converging lines of evidence suggest that exposure to cannabis increases the risk for psychoses ranging from...
Journal of Affective Disorders
2022
Lynnette A. Averill, Christopher L. Averill, Ralitza Gueorguieva et al.
Suicide is a public health crisis with limited treatment options. Ketamine has demonstrated rapid and robust improvements in suicidal ideation (SI). The parent study for the secondary pilot analyses presented here was a double-blind, cross-over trial that found pretreatment with the mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) prolonged the antidepressant effects of ketamine. Here we...
JAMA Network Open
May 1, 2020
K. Beck, Guy Hindley, Faith Borgan et al.
179 citations
This meta-analysis assesses the psychopathological outcomes in healthy volunteers and patients with schizophrenia treated with ketamine and the experimental factors associated with these findings.
medRxiv Preprint Server
April 10, 2020
Chadi G. Abdallah, Kyung-Heup Ahn, Lynnette A. Averill et al.
1 citation
preprint
Over the past decade, various N-Methyl-D-Aspartate modulators have failed in clinical trials, underscoring the challenges of developing novel rapid-acting antidepressants based solely on the receptor or regional targets of ketamine. Thus, identifying the effect of ketamine on the brain circuitry and networks is becoming increasingly critical. In this longitudinal functional magnetic resonance...
Neuropsychopharmacology
February 24, 2020
Chadi G. Abdallah, Lynnette A. Averill, Ralitza Gueorguieva et al.
181 citations
Twenty-four hours after administration, ketamine exerts rapid and robust antidepressant effects that are thought to be mediated by activation of the mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1). To test this hypothesis, depressed patients were pretreated with rapamycin, an mTORC1 inhibitor, prior to receiving ketamine. Twenty patients suffering a major depressive episode were randomized...
Psychopharmacology
September 1, 2019
Swapnil Gupta, Joao P De Aquino, Deepak C D'Souza et al.
Δ-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ-9-THC) produces psychotomimetic effects in humans. However, the role of dopamine signaling in producing such effects is unclear. We hypothesized that dopaminergic antagonism would reduce the psychotomimetic effect of Δ-9-THC. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether pre-treatment with haloperidol would alter the psychotomimetic and perceptual-altering...
Journal of Psychopharmacology
December 2018
Douglas L Boggs, Jose A Cortes-Briones, Toral Surti et al.
Binding studies have demonstrated that levels of the cannabinoid receptor type-1 are highest in the basal ganglia and cerebellum, two areas critical for motor control. However, no studies have systematically examined the dose-related effects of intravenous delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the primary cannabinoid receptor type-1 partial agonist in cannabis, on broad domains of psychomotor function...
Neuropharmacology
June 2018
Patrick D. Skosnik, Mihály Hajós, Jose A Cortes-Briones et al.
Cannabis use has been associated with altered sensory gating and neural oscillations. However, it is unclear which constituent in cannabis is responsible for these effects, or whether these are cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1R) mediated. Therefore, the present study in humans and rats examined whether cannabinoid administration would disrupt sensory gating and evoked oscillations utilizing...
Neuropsychopharmacology
January 2018
Douglas L Boggs, Jacques D. Nguyen, Daralyn Morgenson et al.
The plant Cannabis sativa, commonly called cannabis or marijuana, has been used for its psychotropic and mind-altering side effects for millennia. There has been growing attention in recent years on its potential therapeutic efficacy as municipalities and legislative bodies in the United States, Canada, and other countries grapple with enacting policy to facilitate the use of cannabis or its...
Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry
October 3, 2017
Mohini Ranganathan, Rajiv Radhakrishnan, Peter H. Addy et al.
Cannabis and agonists of the brain cannabinoid receptor (CB1R) produce acute memory impairments in humans. However, the extent to which cannabinoids impair the component processes of encoding and retrieval has not been established in humans. The objective of this analysis was to determine whether the administration of Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive constituent of...
Biological Psychiatry
April 1, 2016
Mohamed Sherif, Rajiv Radhakrishnan, Deepak Cyril D'Souza et al.
127 citations
Some of the most compelling evidence supporting an association between cannabinoid agonists and psychosis comes from controlled laboratory studies in humans. Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover laboratory studies demonstrate that cannabinoid agonists, including phytocannabinoids and synthetic cannabinoids, produce a wide range of positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms...
Neuropsychopharmacology
August 2015
Jose A Cortes-Briones, Patrick D. Skosnik, Daniel H. Mathalon et al.
Gamma (γ)-band oscillations play a key role in perception, associative learning, and conscious awareness and have been shown to be disrupted by cannabinoids in animal studies. The goal of this study was to determine whether cannabinoids disrupt γ-oscillations in humans and whether these effects relate to their psychosis-relevant behavioral effects. The acute, dose-related effects of...
Psychopharmacology
June 2014
Mohini Ranganathan, R Andrew Sewell, Michelle Carbuto et al.
A family history (FH) of alcoholism accounts for approximately 50% of the risk of developing alcohol problems. Several lines of preclinical evidence suggest that brain cannabinoid receptor (CB1R) function may mediate the effects of alcohol and risk for developing alcoholism including the observations that reduced CB1R function decreases alcohol-related behaviors and enhanced CB1R function...
Psychopharmacology
November 24, 2012
Richard A Sewell, Ashley Schnakenberg, Jacqueline Elander et al.
Cannabinoids have been shown to alter time perception, but existing literature has several limitations. Few studies have included both time estimation and production tasks, few control for subvocal counting, most had small sample sizes, some did not record subjects’ cannabis use, many tested only one dose, and used either oral or inhaled administration of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), leading...
Biological Psychiatry
November 15, 2012
Mohini Ranganathan, Ashley Schnakenberg, Patrick D. Skosnik et al.
125 citations
Salvia divinorum (Salvia) is an increasingly popular recreational drug amongst adolescents and young adults. Its primary active ingredient, Salvinorin A (SA)-a highly selective agonist at the κ opiate receptor-is believed to be one of the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogens. However, there is little experimental data on the effects of SA in humans. In a 3-day, double-blind,...
The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology
October 2012
Mohini Ranganathan, Michelle Carbuto, Gabriel Braley et al.
Although a wealth of preclinical evidence indicates an interplay between the μ-opioid (MOR) and cannabinoid 1 receptor (CB1R) systems, the precise nature of the cross modulation in humans is unclear. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of pretreatment with the MOR antagonist, naltrexone, on the subjective, behavioural and cognitive effects of the CB1R agonist,...
Neuropsychopharmacology
June 2012
Deepak Cyril D'Souza, Daniel J Fridberg, Patrick D. Skosnik et al.
Cannabinoids induce a host of perceptual alterations and cognitive deficits in humans. However, the neural correlates of these deficits have remained elusive. The current study examined the acute, dose-related effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ⁹-THC) on psychophysiological indices of information processing in humans. Healthy subjects (n=26) completed three test days during which they...
Psychopharmacology
February 2012
Michelle Carbuto, R Andrew Sewell, Ashley H Williams et al.
Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is one of the few cannabinoid receptor ligands that can be used to probe the cannabinoid system in humans. Despite increasing interest in the cannabinoid receptor system, use of intravenous THC as a research tool has been limited by concerns about its abuse liability and psychoactive effects. This study aims to evaluate the safety of all intravenous THC...
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
July 16, 2009
Deepak C. D’Souza, Richard A Sewell, Mohini Ranganathan
The association between cannabis use and psychosis has long been recognized. Recent advances in knowledge about cannabinoid receptor function have renewed interest in this association. Converging lines of evidence suggest that cannabinoids can produce a full range of transient schizophrenia-like positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms in some healthy individuals. Also clear is that in...
Psychopharmacology
May 2009
Mohini Ranganathan, Gabriel Braley, Brian Pittman et al.
Cannabis is one of the most widely used illicit substances, and there is growing interest in the therapeutic applications of cannabinoids. While known to modulate neuroendocrine function, the precise acute and chronic dose-related effects of cannabinoids in humans are not well-known. Furthermore, the existing literature on the neuroendocrine effects of cannabinoids is limited by small sample...