Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
July 31, 2024
Friederike Holze, Matthias E. Liechti, Felix Müller
4 citations
Psychedelics are a group of substances within the heterogeneous class of hallucinogenic drugs. Via binding to the serotonin (5-HT) 2A receptor, psychedelics exert profound alterations in various mental domains, including sensation, cognition, emotions, and self-perception. Psychedelics comprise phenethylamines (e.g., mescaline), tryptamines (e.g., psilocybin), and ergolines (e.g., LSD). These...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
July 24, 2024
Kelan Thomas
3 citations
As psychedelics are being investigated for more medical indications, it has become important to characterize the adverse effects and pharmacological interactions with these medications. This chapter will summarize what is known about the toxicology and drug-drug interactions for classic psychedelics, such as LSD, psilocybin, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, mescaline, 2C-B, Bromo-DragonFLY, and 25X-NBOMe.
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2024
Trevor Sharp, Helen M Collins
40 citations
SSRIs are one of the most widely used drug therapies in primary care and psychiatry, and central to the management of the most common mental health problems in today's society. Despite this, SSRIs suffer from a slow onset of therapeutic effect and relatively poor efficacy as well as adverse effects, with recent concerns being focused on a disabling SSRI discontinuation syndrome. The mechanism...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2024
D J Nutt, Joseph Peill, B Weiss et al.
30 citations
Psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and ketamine are returning to clinical research and intervention across several disorders including the treatment of depression. This chapter focusses on psychedelics that specifically target the 5-HT2A receptor such as psilocybin and DMT. These produce plasma-concentration related psychological effects such as hallucinations and out of body experiences,...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
March 22, 2022
Marina Kojić, Johan Saelens, Bashkim Kadriu et al.
11 citations
The approval of ketamine for treatment-resistant depression has created a model for a novel class of rapid-acting glutamatergic antidepressants. Recent research into other novel rapid-acting antidepressants – most notably serotonergic psychedelics (SPs) – has also proven promising. Presently, the mechanisms of action of these substances are under investigation to improve these novel treatments,...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2022
Tasha L. Golden, Susan Magsamen, Clara C. Sandu et al.
89 citations
The health and well-being impacts of art and aesthetic experiences have been rigorously studied by a range of disciplines, including cognitive neuroscience, psychiatry, public health, and translational clinical research. These experiences, encompassed in the concepts of set and setting, have long been claimed to be pivotal in determining the acute and enduring effects of psychedelic...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2022
Matthias E. Liechti, Friederike Holze
35 citations
Classic psychedelics, including psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), dimethyltryptamine, and mescaline, and entactogens/empathogens, especially 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, have received renewed attention in psychiatric research and may be developed into medications for such indications as anxiety, depression, cluster headache, and posttraumatic stress disorder, among others....
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2022
David B. Yaden, Sandeep M. Nayak, Natalie Gukasyan et al.
31 citations
End of life and palliative care has improved in recent decades but the psychopharmacological options available to clinicians and patients in these contexts remain limited. In particular, psychological factors such as depression, existential distress, and well-being remain challenging to address with current medications. Here, we review recent research on the use of psychedelics in clinical...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2022
Matthew W. Johnson
31 citations
This manuscript reviews research suggesting that classic psychedelics (5-HT2A receptor agonists) are effective in treating addictions including tobacco use disorder. I review historical research from the 1950s to 1970s suggesting that classic psychedelics are associated with addiction recovery across pharmacologically distinct drugs of addiction. I then review anthropological reports about...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2022
Fernanda Palhano-Fontes, Bruno Lobão‐soares, Nicole Leite Galvão‐coelho et al.
25 citations
Ayahuasca, the vine of the souls in Quechua, is a psychedelic brew with a few formulations that most often include the bark of a liana in the Malpighiaceae family (Banisteriopsis caapi), with leaves from a shrub in the coffee family Rubiaceae (Psychotria viridis). Mixed with water and boiled for hours or days, it produces a brownish-colored liquid with a strong and characteristic taste....
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2022
Gabrielle Agin-Liebes, Alan K. Davis
16 citations
Depression is highly prevalent and represents the leading cause of global disability and primary contributor to overall global burden of disease. Several lines of evidence from early-phase experimental trials suggest that serotonergic psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, with therapeutic support show great promise in the treatment of depression with large effect sizes. Neuroimaging data have...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2022
Hakan Kayır, Jessica Ruffolo, Patrick McCunn et al.
15 citations
America and across the globe. Cannabis use has multifaceted impacts on cognition in schizophrenia patients and healthy subjects. Healthy subjects, particularly those who initiated cannabis use at earlier ages and used high-potency cannabis for longer durations, exhibited poorer cognition mainly in working memory and attention. Cannabis use in schizophrenia has been associated with symptom...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2022
Janis Phelps, James Henry
This chapter presents an integrative model for training psychedelic therapists. It begins with an overview of the psychedelic healing process - remembering the disconnected parts of ourselves and reestablishing fundamental trust. The authors then walk through six therapist competencies that describe the root principles of practice, breadth of knowledge, transpersonal perspective, and...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2022
Katja Ehrmann, John J B Allen, Francisco Moreno
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a highly prevalent and disabling condition for which currently available treatments are insufficiently effective and alternatives merit priority attention. Psilocybin may represent a safe and effective avenue for treatment of individuals affected by this condition. In this chapter we briefly introduce OCD symptoms, epidemiology, as well as relevant...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2022
Albert Garcia‐romeu, Sean Darcy, Hillary Jackson et al.
Serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT2AR) agonist "classic psychedelics" are drawing increasing interest as potential mental health treatments. Recent work suggests psychedelics can exert persisting anxiolytic and antidepressant effects lasting up to several months after a single administration. Data indicate acute subjective drug effects as important psychological factors involved in observed...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2021
Alicia Danforth
5 citations
Access to the Internet has upended long-standing myths and misconceptions about autism as autistic individuals are enabled through technology increasingly to influence the dialog around neurodiversity, the experience of being autistic, and the effectiveness of mental health interventions for autistic adults. Autistic self-advocates are speaking up in support of including neurodivergent adults...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2018
Laia Lladó-Pelfort, Pau Celada, Maurizio S Riga et al.
18 citations
Hallucinogens evoke sensory, perceptual, affective, and cognitive effects that may be useful to understand the neurobiological basis of mood and psychotic disorders. The present chapter reviews preclinical research carried out in recent years in order to better understand the action of psychotomimetic agents such as the noncompetitive NMDA receptor (NMDA-R) antagonists and serotonergic...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2018
Tomohisa Mori, Tsutomu Suzuki
The subjective effects of drugs are related to the kinds of feelings they produce, such as euphoria or dysphoria. One of the methods that can be used to study these effects is the drug discrimination procedure. Many researchers have been trying to elucidate the mechanisms that underlie the discriminative stimulus properties of abused drugs (e.g., alcohol, psychostimulants, and opioids). Over...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2017
Juan F López-Giménez, Javier González-Maeso
302 citations
The neuropsychological effects of naturally occurring psychoactive chemicals have been recognized for millennia. Hallucinogens, which include naturally occurring chemicals such as mescaline and psilocybin, as well as synthetic compounds, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), induce profound alterations of human consciousness, emotion, and cognition. The discovery of the hallucinogenic...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2017
Adam L. Halberstadt
100 citations
Serotonergic hallucinogens induce profound changes in perception and cognition. The characteristic effects of hallucinogens are mediated by 5-HT2A receptor activation. One class of hallucinogens are 2,5-dimethoxy-substituted phenethylamines, such as the so-called 2C-X compounds 2,5-dimethoxy-4-bromophenethylamine (2C-B) and 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodophenethylamine (2C-I). Addition of an N-benzyl...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2016
Katrin H. Preller, Franz X. Vollenweider
285 citations
Classic serotonergic hallucinogens or psychedelics produce an altered states of consciousness (ASC) that is characterized by profound alterations in sensory perception, mood, thought including the perception of reality, and the sense of self. Over the past years, there has been considerable progress in the search for invariant and common features of psychedelic states. In the first part of this...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2016
Mark A. Geyer, Adam L. Halberstadt
104 citations
Because of the ethical and regulatory hurdles associated with human studies, much of what is known about the psychopharmacology of hallucinogens has been derived from animal models. However, developing reliable animal models has proven to be a challenging task due to the complexity and variability of hallucinogen effects in humans. This chapter focuses on three animal models that are frequently...
Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences
2015
Dennis J. Mckenna, Jordi Riba
31 citations
New World indigenous peoples are noted for their sophisticated use of psychedelic plants in shamanic and ethnomedical practices. The use of psychedelic plant preparations among New World tribes is far more prevalent than in the Old World. Yet, although these preparations are botanically diverse, almost all are chemically similar in that their active principles are tryptamine derivatives, either...