Psychopharmacology
July 1, 2025
Otto Simonsson, Simon B. Goldberg, Richard Chambers et al.
33 citations
Research on psychedelics has recently shown promising results in the treatment of various psychiatric disorders, but relatively little remains known about the psychiatric risks associated with naturalistic use of psychedelics. The objective of the current study was to investigate associations between naturalistic psychedelic use and psychiatric risks. Using a sample representative of the US...
Psychopharmacology
July 1, 2025
Raly James Perez Custodio, Darlene Mae Ortiz, Hyun Jun Lee et al.
8 citations
Serotonergic psychedelics exert their effects via their high affinity for serotonin (5-HT) receptors, particularly through activating 5-HT2A receptors (5-HT2AR), employing the frontal cortex-dependent head-twitch response (HTR). Although universally believed to be so, studies have not yet fully ascertained whether 5-HT2AR activation is the sole initiator of these psychedelic effects. This is...
Psychopharmacology
June 1, 2025
Nathan J Wellington, Ana P. Bouças, Jim Lagopoulos et al.
16 citations
Existing studies predominantly focus on the molecular and neurobiological mechanisms underlying Ketamine's acute treatment effects on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This emphasis has largely overlooked its sustained therapeutic effects, which hold significant potential for the development of targeted interventions. This systematic review examines the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic...
Psychopharmacology
June 1, 2025
Parsa Yousefi, Morten P. Lietz, Fiachra O'Higgins et al.
7 citations
Psilocybin shows promise for treating neuropsychiatric disorders. However, insight into its acute effects on cognition is lacking. Given the significant role of executive functions in daily life and treatment efficacy, it is crucial to evaluate how psilocybin influences these cognitive domains. This meta-analysis aims to quantify the acute effects of psilocybin on executive functions and...
Psychopharmacology
June 1, 2025
Bahar Yuksel, Zeynep Sen, Gunes Unal
2 citations
Ketamine, a non-competitive NMDA receptor antagonist, produces antidepressant effects at subanesthetic doses. The therapeutic effect, however, is often accompanied by cognitive side effects, including memory impairments. Yet, the specific effects of ketamine on different processes of implicit and explicit memory remain to be elucidated. We examined the effect of an antidepressant dose of...
Psychopharmacology
June 1, 2025
Carmen Abate, Richard Young, Małgorzata Dukat et al.
2 citations
Rationale α-ET (α-ethyltryptamine), a homolog of the classical hallucinogen α-methyltryptamine, was once prescribed clinically as an antidepressant. Classical psychedelic drugs are currently of interest as potential pharmacotherapy for psychiatric disorders. Objectives Drug discrimination was used to (a) determine if α-ET-like stimulus effects could be engendered by the prototypical...
Psychopharmacology
May 17, 2025
Shelby A. McGriff, Jacquelin C Hecker, Alexander D. Maitland et al.
12 citations
The head twitch response (HTR) is a spontaneously occurring behavior in mice that is increased in frequency by serotonergic psychedelics. The mouse HTR is often used as a proxy for psychedelic-like drug effects, but limited information is available about sex differences in HTRs evoked by various classes of psychedelics (i.e., phenethylamines, lysergamides, tryptamines). To examine potential sex...
Psychopharmacology
May 8, 2025
Agnieszka Pałucha-Poniewiera, Anna Rafało-Ulińska, Agata Faron-Górecka et al.
1 citation
(S)-Ketamine, which is used to treat depression, has significant undesirable effects and has potential for abuse. A safe alternative to (S)-ketamine is (R)-ketamine. The relationship between (R)-ketamine and the mGlu5 receptor is unknown, although screening tests indicate the possibility of potentiation of the antidepressant effect of (R)-ketamine by the mGlu5 receptor negative allosteric...
Psychopharmacology
April 30, 2025
Johannes G. Ramaekers, Johannes T. Reckweg, Natasha L. Mason et al.
4 citations
3-Methylmethcathinone (3-MMC) is a synthetic cathinone that has been scheduled in many jurisdictions after it appeared on the consumer market as a designer drug or "legal high". At present, there are no medical applications for synthetic cathinones, but in the past cathinone and other compounds that are structurally related to amphetamine have been evaluated and recognized for their intrinsic...
Psychopharmacology
April 23, 2025
Nicholas C. Borgogna, Tyler Owen, Dan Petrovitch et al.
8 citations
Abstract Rationale Psilocybin is a potentially paradigm-shifting depression intervention. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of psilocybin-for-depression randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Objectives Systematically assess harm reporting, risk of bias, action mechanism specification, and incremental therapeutic effect sizes in the psilocybin-for-depression RCT literature....
Psychopharmacology
April 23, 2025
Jonathan David, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Yair Dor-Ziderman
2 citations
The human psyche's interaction with death fundamentally shapes cognition, emotions, and behavior in both individuals and society. Death-related psychological phenomena have been shown to be influenced by psychedelic interventions. However, the literature lacks a comprehensive assessment of death-related processes in non-clinical settings, the mechanisms underlying long-term changes, and...
Psychopharmacology
April 22, 2025
Anthony N Nist, Stephen J Walsh, Timothy A Shahan
The probabilistic reversal learning task (PRL) is sometimes used in the context of major depressive disorder (MDD) to assess impairments in cognitive flexibility and feedback sensitivity because behavior in the task is sensitive to pharmacological interventions. Because traditional antidepressants are limited in their effectiveness, new drugs are needed to combat MDD. Ketamine has recently been...
Psychopharmacology
April 21, 2025
Noah N T Barr, Kayla J Giese, Sam G. Moreton
1 citation
Emerging evidence suggests that psychedelic experiences have the potential to change attitudes towards death and reduce death anxiety. Improved attitudes towards death, specifically reduced death anxiety, are of psychological significance for clinical and non-clinical populations alike. Despite this emerging evidence, little is known about the phenomenology of this potential outcome. To provide...
Psychopharmacology
April 11, 2025
Swanti Gupta, Raj K Bhatnagar, Dinesh Gupta et al.
27 citations
N, N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a potent serotonergic psychedelic, bridges ancient wisdom and modern science. The mechanisms underlying its powerful psychedelic effects and out-of-body experiences continue to intrigue scientists. The functional role of DMT remains ambiguous. This paper explores the endogenous presence of DMT in the human body and its diverse neuroregulatory functions, which...
Psychopharmacology
April 8, 2025
Megan L Bertholomey, Camryn Forbes, Bryan D McElroy et al.
3 citations
Alcohol use and major depressive disorder are frequently comorbid, with individuals diagnosed with a substance use disorder being nearly three times as likely to have major depression. Poor treatment responses are found for both disorders and are further complicated when they co-occur, underscoring the need for better therapies. One potential candidate is ketamine, which has been shown to have...
Psychopharmacology
March 26, 2025
Laura Ley, Matthias E. Liechti, Anna M Becker et al.
3 citations
Little is known about motives of healthy volunteers to participate in psychedelic trials and how they appraise their study experience retrospectively. This paper explored reasons why healthy people register for psychedelic trials, factors that they considered to contribute to either positive or negative study experiences, and under which circumstances they would seek a psychedelic experience...
Psychopharmacology
March 17, 2025
Samuli Kangaslampi, Morten P. Lietz
10 citations
Since the earliest LSD research, psychedelics have been claimed to enhance autobiographical memory. Revisiting and processing autobiographical memories has further been suggested to be a major component of the therapeutic action of psychedelics. However, modern psychedelic research has largely neglected autobiographical elements of psychedelic experiences, and many vital questions remain...
Psychopharmacology
February 10, 2025
Will Lawn, Xuejun Hao, Anna B. Konova et al.
2 citations
RATIONALE: Despite the critical role of choice processes in substance use disorders, the neurobehavioral mechanisms guiding human decisions about drugs remain poorly understood. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to characterize the neural encoding of subjective value (SV) for cannabis versus non-drug rewards (snacks) in people who use cannabis on a near-daily/daily frequency (PWUCF) and assessed the impact...
Psychopharmacology
February 7, 2025
Sabrina Zequeira, Emely A. Gazarov, Alara A. Güvenli et al.
With increasing legalization of recreational and medical cannabis, use of this drug is growing rapidly among older adults. As cannabis can impair cognition in young adults, it is critically important to understand how its consumption interacts with the cognitive profile of aged subjects, who are already at increased risk of decline. The current study was designed to determine how cannabis...
Psychopharmacology
February 1, 2025
Jiabao Dai, Yanfeng Lu, Zhiqing Zou et al.
11 citations
Previous studies have reported conflicting findings regarding the efficacy of esketamine in managing postoperative depression. While the positive effects of subanesthetic doses esketamine have been observed in treatment-resistant depression, the response to this medication in patients experiencing depression following surgery has not been consistent. Building upon the known impact of anesthesia...
Psychopharmacology
February 1, 2025
Robin J Murphy, Rachael Sumner, Kate Godfrey et al.
9 citations
Enhanced creativity is often cited as an effect of microdosing (taking repeated low doses of a psychedelic drug). There have been recent efforts to validate the reported effects of microdosing, however creativity remains a difficult construct to quantify. The current study aimed to assess microdosing's effects on creativity using a multimodal battery of tests as part of a randomised controlled...
Psychopharmacology
February 1, 2025
Jack Stroud, Charlotte Rice, Aaron Orsini et al.
8 citations
Anecdotal reports suggest that psychedelic drugs can improve psychological wellbeing and social engagement in autistic people. However, there are few contemporary studies on this topic. To examine autistic participants' experiences with psychedelic drugs and the extent to which they attributed changes in mental health and social engagement to their most 'impactful' psychedelic experience. We...
Psychopharmacology
February 1, 2025
Maricela X. Martinez, Vanessa Alizo Vera, Christina M. Ruiz et al.
1 citation
Adolescent cannabis use is linked to later-life changes in cognition, learning, and memory. Rodent experimental studies suggest Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) influences development of circuits underlying these processes, especially in the prefrontal cortex, which matures during adolescence. We determined how 14 daily THC injections (5 mg/kg) during adolescence persistently impacts medial...
Psychopharmacology
January 18, 2025
Sharon R. Sznitman, Yoel A Behar, Sheila Daniela Dicker-Oren et al.
3 citations
Abstract Rationale To examine the acute effects of ayahuasca use and their relationship to sub-acute changes in affect and mindfulness in a non-clinical sample, addressing the need for a better understanding of ayahuasca’s immediate and short-term impacts as interest in its use grows. Objectives Using prospective ecological assessment, this study investigates how ayahuasca used at a 4-day...
Psychopharmacology
January 7, 2025
Mona Irrmischer, Drew J. Puxty, Hessel Engelbregt et al.
4 citations
Abstract Rationale Psychedelic-assisted therapy is increasingly applied within mental health treatment. Objectives This study focused on factors moderating changes in the acute and long-term effects of an individual psilocybin-assisted program on depression, anxiety, PTSD and personality structures by including demographic factors, subjective experience and degree of mystical type experiences...