Neuroimaging and the Investigation of Drug-Drug Interactions Involving Psychedelics.
Matthew B. Wall, Rebecca Harding, Natalie Ertl, Tommaso Barba, Rayyan Zafar, Mark Sweeney, David Nutt, Eugenii A Rabiner, David Erritzøe
Neurosci Insights October 8, 2024 DOI: 10.1177/26331055241286518 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Commentary Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Psychedelics Drug-interactions Brain-imaging Mental-health |
| Citations | 3 |
| Key points | Proposes that multimodal neuroimaging combining PET and fMRI is the best approach to study drug-drug interactions involving psychedelics and psychiatric medications. |
Abstract
Psychedelic therapies are an emerging class of treatments in psychiatry with great potential, however relatively little is known about their interactions with other commonly used psychiatric medications. As psychedelic therapies become more widespread and move closer to the clinic, they likely will need to be integrated into existing treatment models which may include one or more traditional pharmacological therapies, meaning an awareness of potential drug-drug interactions will become vital. This commentary outlines some of the issues surrounding the study of drug-drug interactions of this type, provides a summary of some of the relevant key results to date, and charts a way forward which relies crucially on multimodal neuroimaging investigations. Studies in humans which combine Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), plus ancillary measures, are likely to provide the most comprehensive assessment of drug-drug interactions involving psychedelics and the relevant effects at multiple levels of the drug response (molecular, functional, and clinical).