Frontiers in Psychiatry
August 31, 2020
Giovanni Martinotti, Attilio Negri, Stefania Schiavone et al.
22 citations
In this study, we described the acute psychiatric presentations related to recreational drug use in subjects on holiday in Ibiza. The use of psychoactive substances was characterized by poly-use of both traditional and novel substances, with several psychopathological consequences. Future research should focus on a better understanding of the psychopathological effects of specific substances,...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
August 28, 2020
Veronika Andrashko, Tomáš Novák, Martin Brunovský et al.
46 citations
The rapid antidepressant effect of ketamine has become a breakthrough in the research and treatment of depression. Although predictive and modulating factors of the response to ketamine are broadly studied, little is known about optimal concurrent medication protocols. Concerning gamma-aminobutyric acid neurotransmission being a shared target for both ketamine and benzodiazepines (BZD), we...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
August 20, 2020
Jeremy J. Watts, Ranjini Garani Ramesh, Tânia Maria Sarmento Silva et al.
21 citations
There is evidence that long-term cannabis use is associated with alterations to glutamate neurotransmission and glial function. In this study, twenty-six long-term cannabis users (males=65.4%) and 47 non-cannabis using healthy controls (males=44.6%) underwent proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in order to characterize neurometabolite...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
August 7, 2020
Richard J. Zeifman, Anne Catherine Wagner, Ros Watts et al.
104 citations
Psychedelic therapy shows promise as a novel intervention for a wide range of mental health concerns but its therapeutic action is incompletely understood. In line with acceptance and commitment therapy's (ACT's) transdiagnostic model, qualitative research has suggested that reductions in experiential avoidance are an important component of therapeutic outcomes associated with psychedelics....
Frontiers in Psychiatry
July 17, 2020
Peter Nagele, Frank Brown, Victoria Bass et al.
Nitrous oxide (N2O, laughing gas) has shown early promise as a rapidly acting treatment for treatmentresistant major depression (1–3). Antidepressant effects of nitrous oxide in these studies started within 2 h and lasted up to 1 week. Due to the study design, however, it was impossible to determine whether antidepressant efficacy lasted beyond 1 week after nitrous oxide administration. There...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
July 7, 2020
Michael Specka, Thomas Kuhlmann, Jürgen Sawazki et al.
42 citations
Background About 15 years ago, a diverse group of new recreational psychotropic substances began to emerge, which were marketed for example as “legal highs,” “research chemicals,” or “designer drugs.” These substances were later subsumed under the label “Novel Psychoactive Substances” (NPS). Important NPS classes are cathinones, synthetic cannabimimetics, phenethylamines, and herbal drugs. The...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
June 3, 2020
Alina Wilkowska, Łukasz P. Szałach, Jakub Słupski et al.
9 citations
There is a growing evidence for the rapid and robust antidepressive effect of ketamine in unipolar and bipolar treatment resistant depression although evidence for the risk of affective switch is still limited. This case presents bipolar I disorder patient with treatment resistant depressive episode experiencing a switch to manic episode with mixed features shortly after receiving eight...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
May 21, 2020
Morgana M. Novaes, Fernanda Palhano-Fontes, Heloisa Onias et al.
110 citations
Pranayama refers to a set of yoga breathing exercises. Recent evidence suggests that the practice of pranayama has positive effects on measures of clinical stress and anxiety. This study explored the impact of a Bhastrika pranayama training program on emotion processing, anxiety and affect. We used a randomized controlled trial design with thirty healthy young adults assessed at baseline and...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
March 31, 2020
Kristin Heuschkel, Kim P. C. Kuypers
82 citations
Depression is a major public health problem that affects approximately 4.4% of the global population. Since conventional pharmacotherapies and psychotherapies are only partially effective, as demonstrated by the number of patients failing to achieve remission, alternative treatments are needed. Mindfulness meditation (MM) and psilocybin represent two promising novel treatments that might even...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
February 21, 2020
Max Wolff, Ricarda Evens, Lea J. Mertens et al.
188 citations
The efficacy of psychedelic-assisted therapies for mental disorders has been attributed to the lasting change from experiential avoidance to acceptance that these treatments appear to facilitate. This article presents a conceptual model that specifies potential psychological mechanisms underlying such change, and that shows substantial parallels between psychedelic therapy and cognitive...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
February 11, 2020
James D. Sexton, Charles D. Nichols, Peter S. Hendricks
45 citations
IntroductionThe majority of contemporary psychedelic research has focused on ayahuasca, lysergic acid diethylamide, and psilocybin, though there are hundreds of novel psychedelic compounds that may have clinical utility. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the therapeutic potential of classic and novel phenethylamine, tryptamine, and lysergamide psychedelics via a large, nationally...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
January 22, 2020
Earth Erowid, Fire Erowid, Albert Garcia‐romeu et al.
155 citations
While these cross-sectional and self-report methods cannot determine whether psychedelics caused changes in drug use, results suggest the potential that psychedelics cause reductions in problematic substance use, and support additional clinical research on psychedelic-assisted treatment for SUD.
Frontiers in Psychiatry
January 21, 2020
Juan José Fuentes, Francina Fonseca, Matilde Elices et al.
176 citations
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was studied from the 1950s to the 1970s to evaluate behavioral and personality changes, as well as remission of psychiatric symptoms in various disorders. LSD was used in the treatment of anxiety, depression, psychosomatic diseases and addiction. However, most of the studies were not performed under contemporary standards, and it has taken several decades for a...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
2020
Ram P Sapkota, Alain Brunet, Laurence J. Kirmayer
21 citations
This paper presents the first systematic case-control study of correlates of mass psychogenic illness (MPI) in an adolescent school population. MPI is generally construed as a dissociative phenomenon spread by social contagion to individuals who are prone to dissociation. We sought to test if the correlates of dissociative experiences most commonly proposed in the literature could predict...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
2020
Jonathan Levy, Oren Bader
19 citations
The neuroscience of empathy has enormously expanded in the past two decades, thereby making instrumental progress for the understanding of neural substrates involved in affective and cognitive aspects of empathy. Yet, these conclusions have relied on ultrasimplified tasks resulting in the affective/cognitive dichotomy that was often modeled and overemphasized in pathological, developmental, and...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
2020
Wei Liu, Qian Li, Binglu Ye et al.
Clinical studies have demonstrated that exposure to the inhalational general anesthetic nitrous oxide (N2O) produces antidepressant effects in depressed patients. However, the mechanisms underlying the antidepressant effects of N2O remain largely unknown. Neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS)-mediated nitric oxide (NO) synthesis is essential for brain function and underlies the molecular...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
2020
Rachel V Aaron, Scott D Blain, Matthew A Snodgress et al.
Alexithymia, or a reduced ability to label and describe one's emotions, is a transdiagnostic construct associated with poor psychosocial outcomes. Currently, the mechanisms underlying affective deficits associated with alexithymia are unclear, hindering targeted treatment delivery. Recent research suggests deficient interoceptive awareness, or reduced awareness of one's internal bodily state,...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
December 3, 2019
Katrin H. Preller, Franz X. Vollenweider
67 citations
Social cognition is a fundamental ability in human everyday lives. Deficits in social functioning also represent a core aspect of many psychiatric disorders. Yet, despite its significance, deficits in social cognition skills are insufficiently targeted by current treatments. Hallucinogens and entactogens have been shown to have the potential to modulate social processing. This article reviews...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
November 20, 2019
Laura Orsolini, Stefania Chiappini, Duccio Papanti et al.
41 citations
The critical spread and dissemination of novel psychoactive substances (NPS), particularly among the most vulnerable youngsters, may pose a further concern about the psychotic trajectories related to the intake of new synthetic drugs. The psychopathological pattern of the "new psychoses" appears to be extremely different from the classical presentation. Therefore, clinicians need more data on...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
October 24, 2019
Patrick Vizeli, Matthias E. Liechti
9 citations
3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy) is a recreational substance also investigated as medication for posttraumatic stress disorder. Dopamine (DA) system stimulation likely contributes to the acute mood effects of amphetamines, including MDMA. Genetic variants, such as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and polymorphic regions of the DA system genes may in part explain...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
October 23, 2019
Aurore Monnart, Marie-Anne Vanderhasselt, Elisa Schroder et al.
Background: This pilot study explores a therapeutic setting combining transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for patients with drug-resistant depression. tDCS has shown efficacy for depression treatment and improvement could be maintained with the combination with mindfulness, which has shown depression relapse-prevention...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
September 13, 2019
Nadia R. P. W. Hutten, Natasha L. Mason, Patrick C. Dolder et al.
78 citations
Background: There is a growing interest in the use of psychedelic substances for health related purposes, including symptom relief for disorders like anxiety, depression, and pain. Although the focus of recent clinical trials has been on high doses of these substances, anecdotal evidence suggests that low (micro) doses are also effective, and may be more suitable for certain conditions....
Frontiers in Psychiatry
September 12, 2019
Allison A. Feduccia, Lisa Jerome, Berra Yazar-Klosinski et al.
172 citations
Unsuccessfully treated posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a serious and life-threatening disorder. Two medications, paroxetine hydrochloride and sertraline hydrochloride, are approved treatments for PTSD by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Analyses of pharmacotherapies for PTSD found only small to moderate effects when compared with placebo. The Multidisciplinary Association for...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
April 24, 2019
J. Breedvelt, Yagmur Amanvermez, Mathias Harrer et al.
Background: Meditation, yoga, and mindfulness are popular interventions at universities and tertiary education institutes to improve mental health. However, the effects on depression, anxiety, and stress are unclear. This study assessed the effectiveness of meditation, yoga, and mindfulness on symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress in tertiary education students. Methods: We searched...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
March 20, 2019
Ben Sessa, David Nutt, Laurie Higbed
141 citations
This paper provides a brief review of the history, proposed pharmacological mechanisms, safety issues, and clinical applications of the medicine 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). Most clinical MDMA research in patients to date has focused on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to treat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this review paper other potential therapeutic applications for MDMA...