Editorials1 March 1979The Paradox of Phencyclidine (PCP) AbuseRICHARD STILLMAN, M.D., ROBERT C. PETERSEN, PH.D.RICHARD STILLMAN, M.D.Search for more papers by this author, ROBERT C. PETERSEN, PH.D.Search for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-90-3-428 SectionsAboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack...
With a rapid rise in clinical trials investigating psychogenic substances, the field faces considerable concerns regarding transparency and conflicts of interest. This study aims to systematically characterize ongoing NIH-registered clinical trials investigating psychogenic substances for psychiatric disorders as of late 2024, including research protocols, institutional settings, and funding...
3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) (also known as "ecstasy" or "Molly") has regained attention in recent years for its efficacy in treating posttraumatic stress disorder, and the drug was granted breakthrough therapy designation for such use by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2017. However, little is known about the current epidemiology of recreational ecstasy/MDMA use. We...
Psychedelic drugs have recently emerged as plausibly effective pharmacological agents for the management of depression, anxiety, and other neuropsychiatric conditions, including those that are treatment-resistent. The latter half of the 20th century marked a revolution in the treatment of mental illnesses, exemplified by the introduction of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and other...
The primary psychoactive drug in magic mushrooms, psilocybin, induces profound alterations in consciousness through the 5-HT2A receptor. This review consolidates current research findings to elucidate the pharmacology, safety profile, and clinical applications of psilocybin. Despite initial concerns that psilocybin could cause psychosis, contemporary research has demonstrated that psilocybin is...
How do psychedelic drugs alter human brain function? Answering this question relies on our ability to understand how information is stored, transferred, and transformed across the cortex. Here, we leverage a precise mathematical framework for multivariate information decomposition to construct the first comprehensive picture of these processes across five compounds: LSD, psilocybin, ketamine,...
Psychoactive drugs modulate learning and emotional processes in ways that could impact their recreational and medical use. Recent work has revealed how drugs impact different stages of processing emotional episodic memories, including encoding (formation of memory traces), consolidation (stabilization of memory traces), and retrieval (accessing memory traces). Drugs administered before encoding...
The term “psychedelic” lacks a consensus definition, yet a growing body of regulatory and commercial infrastructure—FDA clinical-trial guidance, AMA reimbursement codes, research grants, and insurance coverage decisions—turns on whether a given substance falls within the category. This short essay argues that the boundaries of the “psychedelic” label are doing significant normative work that is...
Psychedelic therapies—ketamine, MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, DMT, and ibogaine—are moving from prohibition to regulated care, but commercialization hinges on FDA approval, DEA scheduling, and payor (insurance) coverage. This Article maps the U.S. regulatory labyrinth and analyzes how business models succeed or fail under these constraints. It explains bifurcated rescheduling (DEA reschedules the...
Abstract Consciousness arises from coordinated neural network activity but is exquisitely sensitive to molecular perturbations, such as those induced by anesthetic agents. Predicting how molecular-level pharmacology propagates through networks to produce EEG-level signatures remains a central challenge in neuroscience. Here, we introduce a fractional-order neural field model that rigorously...