The online drug marketplace called 'Silk Road' has operated anonymously on the 'Deep Web' since 2011. It is accessible through computer encrypting software (Tor) and is supported by online transactions using peer to peer anonymous and untraceable crypto-currency (Bit Coins). The study aimed to describe user motives and realities of accessing, navigating and purchasing on the 'Silk Road'...
PsychopharmacologyOctober 1, 2013Katja Clarissa Ward, Halima Zainab Khattak, Louise Richardson et al.
Visual perception is impaired during pathological psychosis, which can be mimicked by NMDA receptor antagonists. However, the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood, partly due to limits of current rodent models for visual integration. The objectives of the study are (1) to develop a rodent task that can differentiate between effects on perception and nonspecific effects on task...
Researchers have become increasingly interested in the link between spirituality and the use and misuse of drugs as well as intervention. First, studies have pointed to spirituality and religious involvement as a protective factor against substance use. Second, the quest for spirituality can play a role in drug use. This article has two aims. First, it seeks to examine the features of...
Methoxydine is a dissociative anaesthetic belonging to the arylcyclohexylamine class. This substance shows pharmacodynamic similarities with ketamine, a medication with demonstrated rapid-acting antidepressant effects. Like ketamine, results of binding assays have shown that methoxydine is an uncompetitive antagonist of NMDA receptor approximately as potent as ketamine, but less potent than...
Methoxetamine (MXE), a ketamine analogue, is one of the new "legal highs" sold on the Internet. The aim of this qualitative study was to provide an initial understanding of what characterizes the experiences induced by MXE. Anonymously written reports (33 persons) on the effects of MXE were collected from public Internet forums and analyzed using the Empirical Phenomenological Psychological...
Despite the widespread application of drug modelling in psychiatric research, the relative value of different models has never been formally compared in the same analysis. Here we compared the effects of five drugs (cannabis, psilocybin, amphetamine, ketamine and alcohol) in relation to psychiatric symptoms in a two-part subjective analysis. In the first part, mental health professionals...
NeuronApril 10, 2013S. Schobel, Nashid H Chaudhury, Usman A. Khan et al.
SUMMARY The hippocampus in schizophrenia is characterized by both hypermetabolism and reduced size. It remains unknown whether these abnormalities are mechanistically linked. Here, in addressing these questions we used MRI tools that can map hippocampal metabolism and structure in patients and mouse models. In at-risk patients, hypermetabolism was found to begin in CA1 and spread to the...
Classic examples of psychoactive arylcycloalkylamines include ketamine and 1-(1-phenylcyclohexyl)piperidine (PCP) and many others serve as important structural templates for neuropharmacological research. The recent emergence of PCP analogues that can be obtained from internet retailers requires the implementation of appropriate monitoring strategies for harm reduction purposes. Access to...
Depression is a common chronic psychiatric disorder that is also often co-morbid with numerous neurological and immune diseases. Accumulating evidence indicates that disturbances of neuroplasticity occur with depression, including reductions of hippocampal neurogenesis and cortical synaptogenesis. Improper trophic support stemming from stressor-induced reductions of growth factors, most notably...
Neuropsychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia and bipolar illness alter the structure and function of distributed neural networks. Functional neuroimaging tools have evolved sufficiently to reliably detect system-level disturbances in neural networks. This review focuses on recent findings in schizophrenia and bipolar illness using resting-state neuroimaging, an advantageous approach for...