Interest in psychoactive ethnobotanicals such as ayahuasca or Psilocybe mushrooms for clinical uses has increased over the last two decades. While clinical and experimental approaches have focused on using isolated compounds of interest (such as psilocybin), an emerging trend in drug discovery involves a more comprehensive approach. The polypharmacology paradigm, as it has been named, suggests...
Several pilot studies have provided evidence supporting the potential of classic psychedelics like psilocybin in the treatment of substance use disorders (SUDs). If larger trials confirm efficacy, classic psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy may eventually be integrated into existing addiction treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy, contingency management, and medication-assisted...
William James proposed in 1902 that states of mystical experience, central to his idea of religious experience, can be identified based on their ineffability and their noetic quality. The epistemological category of the noetic quality, modified by W. T. Stace in 1960, plays a central but somewhat confounding role in today’s biomedical research involving psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and...
Both ethicists and lawyers accept that a provider – be it a researcher or a clinician – should provide sufficient information for a reasonable person to make an informed decision about whether they wish to go ahead with the proposed intervention or treatment.1 They are bound to do so both because they have an ethical responsibility to preserve the individual’s autonomous decision making, and,...
Unlike their European predecessors in the experimentation with hallucinogens and aesthetics who undertook it as an exotic tradition brought from afar, many Latin American and North American authors turned to visionary practices and substances (cannabis, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca, among others) as a main element of their own cultural heritage and territory. Though commonly...
Genre: Documentary Run Time: 1 h 21 min Director Louie Schwartzberg Writer: Mark Monroe Producer: Louie Schwartzberg, Lyn Davis Lear, Elease Lui Stemp I enjoy films that entertain. I relish films that introduce me to a larger world. Above all I prize films that introduce me to the unknown and challenge those powerful interests that evaluate and control the flow of knowledge for their own...
This article proposes alternative understandings of certain structuralist informed (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - DSM-IIIrd to 5th Eds.) configurations of mental disorders. Life’s negative discourses and the mind’s captive responses present a “general theory of mental suffering” which phenomena are classified as modernist, DSM mental disorders, such as addictions,...
Although young countercultural travellers and spiritual seekers have visited Latin American indigenous communities for the purposes of drug-induced consciousness expansion and shamanic-assisted spiritual healing since the 1960s, the Millennial generation is playing a pivotal role in the global revitalization of indigenous spiritual practices by producing and spreading information through...
Classical psychedelics, including psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), are under investigation as potential therapeutic agents in psychiatry. Whereas most studies utilize relatively high doses, there are also reports of beneficial effects of “microdosing,” or repeated use of very low doses of these drugs. The behavioral and neural effects of these low doses are not fully understood....
Funding Information: GC was funded by Funda??o para a Ci?ncia e Tecnologia (FCT; Portugal) through a PhD Scholarship (SFRH/BD/130210/2017). AJO-M was funded by FCT (Portugal) through a Junior Research and Career Development Award from the Harvard Medical School ? Portugal Program (HMSP-ICJ/0020/2011). GC and AJO-M were supported by grant PTDC/MED-NEU/31331/2017, and AJO-M by grant...