BACKGROUND: Over the past ten years, several psychedelic compounds, including tryptamines like lysergic acid diethylamide/LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and dimethyltryptamine/DMT, have been tested in clinical trials for a range of psychiatric conditions, such as anxiety and depression. While these compounds are relatively available for treatment, ketamine and its S(+) enantiomer, esketamine, are...
Abstract Background Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD) affects almost 30% of patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) (1). Esketamine Nasal Spray (ESK-NS) has recently been approved for TRD in combination with a Serotonin Specific Reuptake Inhibitor/SSRI or a Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor/SNRI. There is a lack of studies investigating the effectiveness and safety of ESK-NS...
Background Natural Cannabis (NC) and Synthetic Cannabinoids (SCs) use can increase the risk and exacerbate the course of psychotic disorders. These could be influenced by the Aberrant Salience (AS) construct. It refers to an excess of attribution of meaning to stimuli that are otherwise regarded as neutral, thereby transform them into adverse, dangerous, or mysterious entities. This leads the...
BACKGROUND: Ibogaine and noribogaine are psychedelic substances with dissociative properties naturally occurring in plants of the Apocynaceae family. Research has shown their efficacy in treating substance use disorders (SUD), particularly in opiate detoxification, but their efficacy and toxicity are still unclear. OBJECTIVE: This review aims to assess the anti-addictive role of ibogaine and...
BACKGROUND: The Duration of Untreated Psychosis (DUP) is the time between the first-episode psychosis (FEP) and the initiation of antipsychotic treatment. It is an important predictor of several disease-related outcomes in psychotic disorders. The aim of this manuscript is investigating the influence of cannabis on the DUP and its clinical correlates. METHODS: During years 2014-2019, sixty-two...
BACKGROUND Cannabis is the most used recreational drug worldwide. Its use can increase the risk of developing psychotic disorders and exacerbate their course. However, the relationship between cannabis use and dissociative symptoms has been scarcely investigated. AIMS To examine differences in psychotic and dissociative symptoms, and in functioning in first-episode psychotic patients (FEPp)...
The obsessive-compulsive spectrum refers to disorders drawn from several diagnostic categories that share core features related to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), such as obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviors and anxiety. Disorders that include these features can be grouped according to the focus of the symptoms, e.g., bodily preoccupation (i.e., eating disorders, ED) or impulse control...