A revolutionary change in contemporary therapeutic paradigms may be seen in the renewed interest in psychedelic plant remedies. Psychedelic plants like psilocybe mushrooms, ayahuasca, iboga, and salvia divinorum, which have long been valued for their spiritual and therapeutic qualities in a variety of cultures, are now the subject of intense scientific research. According to recent clinical...
People with HIV (PWH) are disproportionately affected by cigarette use, with a 40 - 70% prevalence rate. Although many express a strong interest in quitting, many PWH who smoke experience lower cessation rates with traditional treatments, in part due to their comorbid anxiety and depressive symptoms. Psilocybin, a classic psychedelic referred to as "breakthrough therapy" by the U.S. Food & Drug...
Background: The brain is never truly at rest. Even in the absence of external tasks, it remains active, continuously organizing itself into large-scale resting-state networks involved in shaping our internal thoughts and experiences. Understanding the networks' structure and dynamics is key to uncovering how the brain functions as a whole. While previous studies have mapped resting-state...
Meditation and Yoga practices are being adopted and gaining considerable interest as a tool that prevents the occurrence of numerous ailments. Meditation is well prescribed in several old religious manuscripts and has origins in past Indian practices that encourage emotional and personal well-being. Two different classification tasks were performed. One way to identify the mind state allied...
Depression during pregnancy is often overlooked and undertreated. Ketamine has been shown to exert prompt and sustained antidepressant effects in patients with depression, although concerns of potential neurotoxicity prohibit its use in pregnant women. Here, we aim to investigate the neurobehavioral effects of subanesthetic ketamine on pregnant mice and their offspring. We found that pregnant...
Ketamine has emerged as a versatile therapeutic agent with applications spanning anesthesia, pain management, and psychiatric disorders. This review examines ketamine's clinical utility across diverse administration routes, including intravenous, intramuscular, intranasal, and oral, emphasizing the need to individualize dosing regimens. We explore factors influencing ketamine dosing, such as...
Accumulating evidence suggests that psilocybin can produce rapid and sustained clinical benefits when administered in conjunction with psychological support. Though non-pharmacological procedures are considered integral, the field lacks therapeutic guidelines and little is known about current practices. This systematic review sought to provide a comprehensive and cross-diagnostic synthesis of...
Recent clinical trials show that serotonergic psychedelics, including the prototypical hallucinogen lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), possess a great promise for treating affective disorders. Interestingly, LSD displays strong functional activity on 5-HT2B receptors and a modulatory role of the latter receptors in anxious and depressive-like behaviors has been reported. Using behavioral and in...
ABSTRACT In the 1950s–60s, serotonergic psychedelic drugs were studied as potential adjuvants to psychotherapy to treat addiction and alcoholism. However, starting in the 70s, preclinical and clinical studies on psychedelics stopped for decades because legislation controlled its recreational use, citing their hallucinogenic and psychotomimetic effects, as well as their abuse potential....
Northover, R.A. (2025) Trance and transfiguration in rock art and literature. Pretoria: UNISA Press. 104 pages. ISBN 9781041011255. Academic courses on psychedelic drugs and religion are very popular among Ivy League universities, notably Brown University, Berkeley, Duke, and Harvard University. Current research articles and books abound on the topic (cf. e.g., Johnson, 2022; Richards, 2016;...