Public and patient interest in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is increasing, but people seeking access to psychedelic trials may be more clinically heterogeneous than the populations these trials can enrol. We conducted a cross-sectional descriptive analysis of previously unreported aggregate telephone-screening data from the coordinating site of PRIDE, an ongoing Italian multicentre phase...
Clinical trials investigating psychedelic compounds for depression and anxiety-related disorders are yielding promising preliminary results. Psychedelics produce profound alterations in brain function—such as suppression of the default mode network and thalamocortical dysregulation—leading to intense subjective experiences including ego dissolution and mystical-type states. While often...
Scientific ReportsMarch 27, 2026Gianmauro Palombelli, Valentina Zecca, Marta Boffa et al.1 citation
Major depressive disorder is highly prevalent and disabling, and many patients do not respond to standard therapies, resulting in treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Progress in TRD requires preclinical models with poor response to conventional treatments. The Wistar-Kyoto rat exposed to chronic mild stress (WKY/CMS) offers a robust paradigm: it shows limited responsiveness to standard...
Disturbances of the minimal self, or anomalous self-experiences (ASEs), are increasingly regarded as a core feature of primary psychotic disorders (PPDs). However, it remains unclear whether similar self-disorders are present in substance-induced psychosis (SIP), a condition that often mimics PPDs in its early stages. The study aims to compare ASEs between PPD and SIP using the EASE interview,...
Depression is a prevalent and heterogeneous disorder with significant personal and social consequences. The rise of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) challenges traditional approaches and underscores the need for a broader neurobiological perspective. When monoaminergic modulation proves insufficient, clinical guidelines increasingly turn to non-monoaminergic interventions such as...
Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) represents a severe clinical condition with high social and economic costs. Esketamine Nasal Spray (ESK-NS) has recently been approved for TRD by EMA and FDA, but data about predictors of response are still lacking. Thus, a tool that can predict the individual patients' probability of response to ESK-NS is needed. This study investigates sociodemographic and...
There is growing recognition that substance use is associated with the emergence of psychosis.Elements of post-modernity dominate contemporary social contexts and operate as existential background factors that contribute to the emergence of substance-related psychotic phenomena, particularly use of potent and highly rewarding novel psychoactive substances (NPS). About 25% of first-episode...
Over the past 20 years, the advent of advanced techniques has significantly enhanced our knowledge on the brain. Yet, our understanding of the physiological and pathological functioning of the mind is still far from being exhaustive. Both the localizationist and the reductionist neuroscientific approaches to psychiatric disorders have proven to be largely unsatisfactory and are outdated....