Understanding the toxicity of serotonergic tryptamines is becoming increasingly important from both clinical and forensic perspectives, yet experimental data for these compounds remain extremely limited. Despite their growing medical relevance and widespread non-medical use, there is still no systematic evaluation of their toxicological risks. This study presents the first comprehensive in...
Psilocybin-assisted therapy has emerged as a promising intervention for treatment-resistant depression (TRD), yet standardized and transparent therapeutic frameworks remain limited. This therapist manual was developed for the EPIsoDE trial, a phase IIb randomized clinical study investigating the efficacy and safety of psilocybin with adjunct psychotherapy in patients with TRD (NCT04670081). The...
Psychedelics are increasingly described as a new therapeutic approach in a variety of mental disorders including depression. Oral psychedelics such as psilocybin have an acute effect evolving over 6-8 h and are generally given in combination with psychological support. There is debate on the exact role of this support and how and by whom it should be delivered. This has significant implications...
Background: Self-stigma refers to the internalization of negative societal beliefs and has been associated with reduced self-efficacy, self-esteem and treatment avoidance among substance users. However, little research has explored antecedents of self-stigma such as substance use motives. This may be particularly salient for psilocybin which is used both as a therapeutic agent and a...
ElifeMarch 27, 2026Målin Schmidt, Anne Hoffrichter, Mahnaz Davoudi et al.3 citations
Psilocybin is studied as innovative medication in anxiety, substance abuse and treatment-resistant depression. Animal studies show that psychedelics promote neuronal plasticity by strengthening synaptic responses and protein synthesis. However, the exact molecular and cellular changes induced by psilocybin in the human brain are not known. Here, we treated human cortical neurons derived from...
Psilocybin can produce sustained benefits in affective and trauma-related disorders, yet if and how it reshapes sensory representations of learned valence associations remains largely unclear. To address this, we used longitudinal two-photon calcium imaging in awake C57BL/6 mice to examine how psilocybin modulates layer 2/3 auditory cortex activity at single-cell and population levels. Evoked...
Background: Psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) has shown promise for alcohol use disorder (AUD) in randomized controlled trials (RCTs). However, the effects of open-label administration following blinded treatment are unclear. Here, we present safety and efficacy data from an open-label extension of a Phase II RCT (NCT02061293) examining PAT for AUD. Methods: Adults with AUD (N = 59) received a...
Brain SciencesMarch 26, 2026Piotr Skalski, Katarzyna Pękacka-falkowska, Agnieszka Pluto-Prądzyńska et al.
Background/Objectives: Psilocybin has re-emerged as a promising intervention for neuropsychiatric disorders including major depressive disorder, treatment-resistant depression, anxiety associated with life-threatening illness, obsessive compulsive disorder, and substance use disorders. However, conventional randomized controlled trials (RCTs)-the current gold standard in evidence-based...
Uncovering the neural basis of psychedelics’ potent effects on brain activity and conscious experience has great potential for understanding their therapeutic effects. Numerous studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) uncovered a strong effect of psychedelics on global properties of fMRI signal, but how they map to underlying neural phenomena remains to be further explored. In...
Psilocybin, chemically known as (4-phosphoryloxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine, 4-PODMT), is derived from the psychoactive mushroom genus, Psilocybe. Of the four active metabolites, psilocin readily enters systemic circulation. The psychoactive effects of psilocin are thought to arise through partial agonist effects at the 5-HT2A receptor. Psychedelic drugs, including psilocybin, are having a...