Progress in Neuro-psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry
February 18, 2026
Dimitri Henriques Daldegan-Bueno, C Donegan, Rachael Sumner et al.
1 citation
Results suggest short-term improvements in mood following microdosed LSD in people with depression, warranting confirmation in controlled trials. It provides the pharmacokinetic parameters of 8 μg of LSD in a sample of people with depression and indicates no tolerance or sensitisation to repeated microdoses of LSD, despite incremental dose titration.
Journal of Humanistic Psychology
November 10, 2025
Robin J Murphy, Mia Wardlaw, Thomas A. Smith et al.
Microdosing psychedelics is an increasingly popular phenomenon where small amounts of psychedelic drugs are taken regularly. Qualitative data have been published regarding the experiences of microdosers, but never in the context of a randomised controlled trial. Semi-structured video interviews with 40 healthy males were conducted following a double-blind placebo-controlled trial of 10 µg of...
The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology
August 1, 2025
C Donegan, D Daldagen-Bueno, Robin J Murphy et al.
Abstract Background Depressive disorders affect about 280 million people worldwide, with many struggling to find effective relief. Conventional antidepressants are widely prescribed but often lack efficacy and have side effects, leaving many patients dissatisfied or untreated. Concurrently, psychedelic therapies have gained momentum in both research and ‘in the wild’, with emerging evidence...
Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England)
April 18, 2025
James D Morse, Soo Hee Jeong, Robin J Murphy et al.
3 citations
Microdosing is the practice of taking psychedelic drugs at doses that produce no or minimal perceptible subjective or behavioural effects. This study investigated the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of microdosed lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). This was a Phase 1 double-blind placebo-controlled parallel-groups trial with 80 healthy male volunteers (four withdrawals due to anxiety)....
Psychopharmacology
February 1, 2025
Robin J Murphy, Rachael Sumner, Kate Godfrey et al.
9 citations
Enhanced creativity is often cited as an effect of microdosing (taking repeated low doses of a psychedelic drug). There have been recent efforts to validate the reported effects of microdosing, however creativity remains a difficult construct to quantify. The current study aimed to assess microdosing's effects on creativity using a multimodal battery of tests as part of a randomised controlled...
Trials
August 24, 2024
Dimitri Daldegan-Bueno, Carina Joy Donegan, Anna Forsyth et al.
14 citations
Major depressive disorder (MDD) poses a significant global health burden with available treatments limited by inconsistent efficacy and notable side effects. Classic psychedelics, including lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), have garnered attention for their potential in treating psychiatric disorders. Microdosing, the repeated consumption of sub-hallucinogenic doses of psychedelics, has emerged...
Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging
May 1, 2024
Robin J Murphy, Suresh Muthukumaraswamy, Harriet de Wit
31 citations
Taking regular low doses of psychedelic drugs (microdosing) is a practice that has drawn recent scientific and media attention for its potential psychotherapeutic effects. Yet, controlled studies evaluating this practice have lagged. Here, we review recent evidence focusing on studies that were conducted with rigorous experimental control. Studies conducted under laboratory settings using...
Translational Psychiatry
April 15, 2024
Nathan Allen, Aron Jeremiah, Robin J Murphy et al.
15 citations
Microdosing psychedelic drugs at a level below the threshold to induce hallucinations is an increasingly common lifestyle practice. However, the effects of microdosing on sleep have not been previously reported. Here, we report results from a Phase 1 randomized controlled trial in which 80 healthy adult male volunteers received a 6-week course of either LSD (10 µg) or placebo with doses...
BMC Neuroscience
February 5, 2024
Robin J Murphy, Kate Godfrey, Alexander D Shaw et al.
16 citations
Microdosing psychedelics is a phenomenon with claimed cognitive benefits that are relatively untested clinically. Pre-clinically, psychedelics have demonstrated enhancing effects on neuroplasticity, which cannot be measured directly in humans, but may be indexed by non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) paradigms. This study used a visual long-term potentiation (LTP) EEG paradigm to test the...
Biological Psychiatry
September 15, 2023
Robin J Murphy, Rachael Sumner, William Evans et al.
69 citations
Microdosing psychedelic drugs is a widespread social phenomenon with diverse benefits claimed for mood and cognition. Randomized controlled trials have failed to support these claims, but the laboratory-based dosing in trials conducted to date may have limited ecological validity. Healthy male volunteers were randomized into lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) (n = 40) and placebo (n = 40) groups...
Trials
April 23, 2021
Robin J Murphy, Rachael Sumner, William Evans et al.
23 citations
BACKGROUND: Regular ingestion of sub-hallucinogenic doses of psychedelics, referred to as "microdosing", has gained increasing popularity and attention in the press and in online forums, with reported benefits across multiple cognitive and emotional domains. Rigorously controlled studies to date, however, have been limited in scope and have failed to produce results comparable to those reported...