Psilocybin shows therapeutic promise for several psychiatric disorders, but the acute perceptual and cognitive alterations produced by conventional doses (10-25 mg) require in-clinic supervision, which limits scalability. Whether the therapeutically relevant pharmacology of psilocybin can be separated from its hallucinogenic activity remains unresolved. To address this gap, we conducted a Phase...
Background In natural product psilocybin retreats, "dose" is commonly defined by grams of dried mushrooms, despite substantial batch-to-batch variability in psilocybin content. This limits safety predictability and undermines reproducibility and between-study comparability. We report an observational field evaluation of an existing, ICH Q2(R1)-validated rapid colorimetric/photometric assay...
Abstract Psilocybin is a serotonergic psychedelic drug with emerging therapeutic applications, yet its actions under glutamatergic dysfunction, and relevance to schizophrenia and associated psychiatric disorders, remain unclear. We examined the acute and long-lasting effects of psilocybin (1 mg/kg, intraperitoneal) on behavioral and neural outcomes in the metabotropic glutamate receptor 5...
Background: When administered alongside monitoring and support, psilocybin has shown promise in the treatment of multiple psychiatric conditions. However, the contribution and nature of participant support in the context of psychedelic trials are much debated. Aims: We sought to further illustrate the structure and format of the monitoring and support used in Compass Pathfinder Ltd (Compass)...
The question of whether the striking antidepressant effects of psilocybin reported in randomised trials can be reproduced in everyday care remains largely unanswered. This is because those trials enrol highly selected patients, withdraw concomitant medication and deliver treatment under tightly standardised protocols. In this issue, Jungwirth et al. provide one of the first responses from...
Psychedelics such as psilocybin have been linked to enhanced neuroplasticity and symptom relief in affective disorders, but the neurobiological mechanisms and impact of environmental context remain unclear. Here, we tested whether a single dose of psilocybin (0.3 mg/kg) alters synaptic density in healthy individuals and whether setting-dependent subjective experience shapes this effect. Fifteen...
Demoralization, a syndrome of helplessness, hopelessness, and loss of meaning and chronic pain are common sources of distress in early palliative care. Psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) is an emerging intervention with preliminary data suggesting improvements in pain and demoralization. To date, PAT has not been studied among people living with both demoralization and chronic pain nor has it...
Bipolar II disorder (BD-II) is characterised by hypomanic and depressive episodes with the latter tending to dominate the clinical course of the disorder, and they are often associated with suicidality. Despite available guideline-based recommendations for first-line pharmacological treatments, patient outcomes remain suboptimal, especially for those with chronic depression and suicidal...
Abstract Background Research on psilocybin's antidepressant effects has been investigated rigorously over the last 20 years. Psilocybin has been used in both major depressive disorder (MDD) and treatment resistant depression (TRD) cohort with promising results. Aims The aim of this review was to summarize the reporting practices used in psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) trials for MDD and TRD....
Australia became the first country to establish a national regulatory pathway permitting authorised psychiatrists to prescribe 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) through the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) Authorised Prescriber Scheme. Two and a half years after implementation,...