BMJ Open
May 11, 2026
Julia Colcott, Alexandre A. Guerin, Olivia Carter et al.
Despite growing interest in the therapeutic potential of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), no targeted measure to systematically assess side effects of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy (MDMA-AP) exists. Our aim was to develop an MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy Side Effects Tool (M-SET) to capture side effects over the course of MDMA-AP. Informed by a systematic review and a review of other...
Schizophrenia Research
March 13, 2026
Michel Sabé, Paul Grof, Nathan Sackett et al.
1 citation
Serotonergic psychedelics are re-emerging as therapeutic candidates across psychiatry, particularly for treatment-resistant depression. Their rapid and sustained antidepressant effects, alongside evidence for neuroplastic, dopaminergic, and glutamatergic modulation, have prompted interest in whether they could address depressive and negative symptoms in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs)....
Psychopharmacology
February 1, 2026
Ana Deutsch, Connor J Haggarty, Gavin N Petrie et al.
1 citation
Stimulant drugs such as methamphetamine (MA) and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) can impact neurobiological systems implicated in stress, reward processing, and drug use. Although recent preclinical evidence implicates the endocannabinoid (eCB) system in these processes, little is known about the acute effects of stimulants on eCB levels in humans. The aim of the present study was to...
July 22, 2025
Luke Leckie, Anya K. Bershad, Jes Heppler et al.
Dreams offer a unique window into the cognitive and affective dynamics of the sleeping and the waking mind. Recent quantitative linguistic approaches have shown promise in obtaining corpus-level measures of dream sentiment and topic occurrence. However, it is currently unclear how the affective content of individual dreams relates to their semantic content and structure. Here, we combine word...
Biological Psychiatry
May 15, 2025
Anya K. Bershad, Harriet de Wit
3 citations
Social disequilibrium, or disrupted social homeostasis, underlies many behavioral disorders, including problematic drug use. One way to study the relationship between drug use and social homeostasis is to determine whether single doses of psychoactive drugs relieve some of the discomfort of social isolation and promote social connection. In this narrative review, we discuss challenges and...
Neurorehabilitation
September 27, 2024
Walter Dunn, Anya K. Bershad, David E. Krantz et al.
2 citations
BACKGROUND: Neurorehabilitation in military populations is complicated by higher rates of PTSD and unique characteristics of military institutions. These factors can adversely impact the patient-therapist therapeutic alliance and engagement with the rehabilitation process leading to poorer outcomes. MDMA is a non-classical psychedelic with pro-social and fear regulating properties....
The European journal of neuroscience
June 1, 2024
Connor J Haggarty, Anya K. Bershad, Mahesh K Kumar et al.
1 citation
The 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) has long been used non-medically, and it is currently under investigation for its potential therapeutic benefits. Both uses may be related to its ability to enhance empathy, sociability, emotional processing and its anxiolytic effects. However, the neural mechanisms underlying these effects, and their specificity to MDMA compared to other stimulants,...
Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England)
March 1, 2024
Anya K. Bershad, David T Hsu, Harriet de Wit
9 citations
The prosocial compound ± 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is an amphetamine derivative that has shown promise as an adjunct to psychotherapy in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. MDMA increases positive responses to social images, and it has been suggested that the ability of MDMA to positively bias social perception may underlie its therapeutic efficacy as a psychotherapy...
Biological Psychiatry Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging
February 9, 2024
Yasmin Schmid, Anya K. Bershad
15 citations
There has been renewed interest in the use of 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA) and serotonergic psychedelics in the treatment of multiple psychiatric disorders. Many of these compounds are known to produce prosocial effects, but how these effects relate to therapeutic efficacy and the extent to which prosocial effects are unique to a particular drug class is unknown. In this article,...
Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)
2024
Hanna Molla, Giovanni Novembre, Anya K. Bershad et al.
The stimulant ± 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) has been shown to enhance the perceived pleasantness of touch. However, the underlying neural processes contributing to touch-related effects of MDMA are not well understood. Using a double-blind, randomized, within-subject design, this study used fMRI to examine hemodynamic changes following MDMA (1.5 mg/kg) vs. lactose placebo...
Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology
September 1, 2023
Harriet de Wit, M Heilig, Anya K. Bershad
Psychedelic drugs, when used in the context of psychotherapy, can produce significant and long-lasting memories with enduring beneficial effects. Yet, the behavioral and neurobiological mechanisms that underlie these beneficial effects remain a mystery. Here, we suggest that both the quality and durability of memories of the drug-facilitated therapeutic experience may be mediated, in part, by...
Schizophrenia Bulletin
June 26, 2023
Anya K. Bershad, Harriet de Wit
12 citations
BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS: Diminished social motivation is a negative symptom of schizophrenia and leads to severe functional consequences for many patients suffering from the illness. However, there are no effective medications available to treat this symptom. Despite the lack of approved treatments for patients, there is a growing body of literature on the effects of several classes of drugs...
Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England)
March 1, 2022
Harriet de Wit, Anya K. Bershad, Charles S. Grob
11 citations
Despite substantial progress in the use of mind-altering drugs to treat psychiatric disorders, the psychological processes through which these drugs change mood or behavior are poorly understood. Controlled laboratory studies with well-defined psychological constructs are valuable to understand how these drugs manifest their therapeutic benefit. However, there are substantial methodological...
Addict Biol
February 1, 2022
Harriet de Wit, Hanna Molla, Anya K. Bershad et al.
82 citations
The resurgence of interest in using psychedelic drugs, including lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), in psychiatry has drawn attention to the medically unsupervised practice of 'microdosing'. Thousands of users claim that very low doses of LSD, taken at 3-4-day intervals, improve mood and cognitive function., However, few controlled studies have described the effects of the drug when taken in...
Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging
December 20, 2019
Anya K. Bershad, Katrin H. Preller, Royce Lee et al.
95 citations
BackgroundThe practice of "microdosing," or the use of repeated, very low doses of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) to improve mood or cognition, has received considerable public attention, but empirical studies are lacking. Controlled studies are needed to investigate both the therapeutic potential and the neurobiological underpinnings of this pharmacologic treatment.MethodsThe present study...
Biological Psychiatry
June 3, 2019
Anya K. Bershad, Scott T. Schepers, Michael P. Bremmer et al.
176 citations
BackgroundNumerous anecdotal reports suggest that repeated use of very low doses of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), known as microdosing, improves mood and cognitive function. These effects are consistent both with the known actions of LSD on serotonin receptors and with limited evidence that higher doses of LSD (100-200 μg) positively bias emotion processing. Yet, the effects of such...
Psychopharmacology
July 1, 2017
Anya K. Bershad, Melissa A. Miller, Harriet de Wit
12 citations
Rationale ±3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, “ecstasy”) is a stimulant-psychedelic drug with unique social effects. It may dampen reactivity to negative social stimuli such as social threat and rejection. Perhaps because of these effects, MDMA has shown promise as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the effect of single doses of MDMA on responses to an acute...
Journal of Psychopharmacology
August 26, 2016
Anya K. Bershad, Melissa A. Miller, Matthew J. Baggott et al.
104 citations
±3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is a popular recreational drug that enhances sociability and feelings of closeness with others. These “prosocial” effects appear to motivate the recreational use of MDMA and may also form the basis of its potential as an adjunct to psychotherapy. However, the extent to which MDMA differs from prototypic stimulant drugs, such as dextroamphetamine,...
Social Neuroscience
January 20, 2016
Anya K. Bershad, Jessica Weafer, Matthew G. Kirkpatrick et al.
35 citations
3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, "ecstasy") enhances desire to socialize and feelings of empathy, which are thought to be related to increased oxytocin levels. Thus, variation in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) may influence responses to the drug. Here, we examined the influence of a single OXTR nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) on responses to MDMA in humans. Based on findings that...