Anesthesiology
May 21, 2014
Rafael G. Dos Santos
1 citation
The article by Icaza and Mashour1 is a very interesting article because it presents a topic of investigation that is currently attracting the attention of pharmacologists, neuroscientists, and biological psychiatrists around the globe: human research with psychedelic compounds. The text brings important information regarding the history and pharmacology of psychedelics but presents important...
American Psychiatric Publishing eBooks
May 5, 2014
Robert N. Pechnick, Kathryn A. Cunningham, Itai Danovitch
The hallucinogens are a class of psychoactive drugs, either synthetic or plant products, that produce auditory and/or visual hallucinations as well as thought, mood, and perceptual changes. Depending on dosage, expectation (set), and environment (setting), they also can induce euphoria and a state similar to a transcendental experience. These hallucinations can be present as part of a delirium...
Molecular & Cellular Proteomics
March 18, 2014
Samah Karaki, Carine Bécamel, Samy Murat et al.
73 citations
The serotonin 5-HT(2A) receptor is a primary target of psychedelic hallucinogens such as lysergic acid diethylamine, mescaline, and psilocybin, which reproduce some of the core symptoms of schizophrenia. An incompletely resolved paradox is that only some 5-HT(2A) receptor agonists exhibit hallucinogenic activity, whereas structurally related agonists with comparable affinity and activity lack...
2014
9 citations
Can drugs be used intelligently and responsibly to expand human consciousness and heighten spirituality? This two-volume work presents objective scientific information and personal stories aiming to answer the question. The first of its kind, this intriguing two-volume set objectively reports on and assesses this modern psycho-social movement in world culture: the constructive medical use of...
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
2014
David E. Nichols
24 citations
This essay describes the founding of the Heffter Research Institute in 1993 and its development up to the present. The Institute is the only scientific research organization dedicated to scientific research into the medical value of psychedelics, and it has particularly focused on the use of psilocybin. The first clinical treatment study was of the value of psilocybin in obsessive-compulsive...
Journal of Psychopharmacology
November 27, 2013
Adam Winstock, Stephen J. Kaar, Rohan Borschmann
101 citations
This paper presents original research on prevalence, user characteristics and effect profile of N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a potent hallucinogenic which acts primarily through the serotonergic system. Data were obtained from the Global Drug Survey (an anonymous online survey of people, many of whom have used drugs) conducted between November and December 2012 with 22,289 responses. Lifetime...
Anesthesiology
September 21, 2013
Eduardo E. Icaza, George A. Mashour
11 citations
Abstract The psychedelic experience has been reported since antiquity, but there is relatively little known about the underlying neural mechanisms. A recent neuroimaging study on psilocybin revealed a pattern of decreased cerebral blood flow and functional disconnections that is surprisingly similar to that caused by various anesthetics. In this article, the authors review historical examples...
Journal of Neuroscience
September 18, 2013
Matthew J. Brookes, David Errtizoe, Ben Sessa et al.
501 citations
Psychedelic drugs produce profound changes in consciousness, but the underlying neurobiological mechanisms for this remain unclear. Spontaneous and induced oscillatory activity was recorded in healthy human participants with magnetoencephalography after intravenous infusion of psilocybin—prodrug of the nonselective serotonin 2A receptor agonist and classic psychedelic psilocin. Psilocybin...
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
September 1, 2013
Robin Lester Carhart-Harris, David John Nutt
55 citations
A web-based survey was used to consult the opinions of experienced drug users on matters related to drug harms. We identified a rare sample of 93 drug users with personal experience with 11 different illicit drugs that are widely used in the UK. Asked to assess the relative harms of these drugs, they ranked alcohol and tobacco as the most harmful, and three "Class A" drugs (MDMA, LSD, and...
The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse
August 22, 2013
Brittany Vasae Burdick, Bryon Adinoff
Current treatments for addiction are frequently ineffective. Hallucinogenic therapy has been indicated as helpful for a range of substance use disorders, yet this approach remains understudied and publicly unavailable. It is nonetheless a promising treatment, which has significant, long-term beneficial effects with single doses and a profile characterized by general safety, low toxicity, and...