Journal of Pain
August 1, 2026
Jon G. Dean, Ethan Hurwitz, T. Furnish et al.
Phantom limb pain (PLP) is a refractory condition defined by pain experienced in a missing limb. Psilocybin, a classical serotonergic psychedelic drug, can alleviate various treatment-resistant disorders but has scantly been investigated for chronic pain. This placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized clinical pilot trial (NCT05224336) tested the feasibility, tolerability, and preliminary...
Topics in Cognitive Science
May 26, 2026
Ethan Hurwitz, Jon G. Dean, Caren M. Walker
Psychedelic drugs have shown promise as a novel therapeutic for a variety of health conditions, yet the mechanisms underlying their clinical benefits remain unclear. A leading hypothesis suggests that psychedelics may enhance cognitive flexibility, a trait impaired in many of these conditions. While existing data from self-report and qualitative-interview studies support this hypothesis, data...
Biological Psychiatry
2025
Gabriel Riegner, Jon G Dean, Tor D Wager et al.
Rather than a passive reflection of nociception, pain is shaped by the interplay between one's experiences, current cognitive-affective states, and expectations. The placebo response, a paradoxical yet reliable phenomenon, is postulated to reduce pain by engaging mechanisms shared with active therapies. It has been assumed that mindfulness meditation, practiced by sustaining nonjudgmental...
Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology
June 1, 2024
Lora Khatib, Jon G Dean, Valeria Oliva et al.
9 citations
Chronic low back pain (cLBP) is the most prevalent chronic pain condition. There are no treatments that haven been found to directly assuage evoked cLBP. To this extent, mindfulness-meditation is a promising pain therapy. Yet, it is unclear if meditation can be utilized to directly attenuate evoked chronic pain through endogenous opioids. A double-blind, randomized, and placebo-controlled...
Anesthesia and analgesia
June 1, 2022
Michael A. Brito, Duan Li, Christopher W Fields et al.
Neurophysiologic complexity has been shown to decrease during states characterized by a depressed level of consciousness, such as sleep or anesthesia. Conversely, neurophysiologic complexity is increased during exposure to serotonergic psychedelics or subanesthetic doses of dissociative anesthetics. However, the neurochemical substrates underlying changes in neurophysiologic complexity are...
Pharmacology Research & Perspectives
February 2, 2021
Benjamin Stewart, Jon G Dean, Adriana Koek et al.
15 citations
Abstract Functional neurological disorders (FNDs), which are sometimes also referred to as psychogenic neurological disorders or conversion disorder, are common disabling neuropsychiatric disorders with limited treatment options. FNDs can present with sensory and/or motor symptoms, and, though they may mimic other neurological conditions, they are thought to occur via mechanisms other than...
Scientific Reports
June 27, 2019
Jon G Dean, Tiecheng Liu, Sean Huff et al.
111 citations
N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a psychedelic compound identified endogenously in mammals, is biosynthesized by aromatic-L-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC) and indolethylamine-N-methyltransferase (INMT). Whether DMT is biosynthesized in the mammalian brain is unknown. We investigated brain expression of INMT transcript in rats and humans, co-expression of INMT and AADC mRNA in rat brain and...
Frontiers in Neuroscience
April 23, 2018
Jon G Dean
39 citations
N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a powerful serotonergic psychedelic whose exogenous administration elicits striking psychedelic effects in humans. Studies have identified DMT and analogous compounds (e.g., 5-hydroxy-DMT, 5-methoxy-DMT) alongside of an enzyme capable of synthesizing DMT endogenously from tryptamine, indolethylamine-N-methyltransferase (INMT), in human and several other mammalian...