This project will use a PRISMA-guided systematic review and meta-analysis to examine whether age moderates anxiety and depression outcomes following psychoactive-assisted treatments. In this review, psychoactive-assisted treatments are defined as clinically structured treatments involving classic serotonergic psychedelics, MDMA, ketamine, or esketamine. The term is intentionally broader than...
Contemporary neuroscience and the philosophy of mind have long operated under the implicit assumption that subjective experience—qualia—is generated exclusively by the brain. Despite remarkable progress in identifying the neural correlates of consciousness, this assumption has failed to explain why objective physical processes give rise to subjective, felt experience. We demonstrate that...
Psychedelic MedicineJuly 24, 2026Matthew C. Company, Dylan J. Lifshitz, M. Farris Sawaya et al.
This narrative review traces how the scientific understanding of psychedelics has intersected with “reward processing” from before the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) era to the present, emphasizing how cultural and regulatory climates shaped what was viewed as an acceptable research question. Reward processing is treated as a family of partially overlapping phenomena: (1) reward-linked...
Abstract Adult dentate gyrus neurogenesis and cell proliferation are regulated by multiple physiological inputs, including experience-dependent signals that have been linked to the DNA glycosylase NEIL3. Whether NEIL3 also gates psychedelic-induced proliferation is unknown. Here we tested the effect of a single dose of 5-methoxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT), a serotonergic agonist with...
Introduction: The renewed clinical interest in psychedelics is often framed in ways that blur the distinction between psychotherapy and the psychedelic drug experience itself. Revisiting early research and clinical observations from the first wave of psychedelic science may help clarify how these processes were originally conceptualized. In the mid-20th century, LSD and other serotonergic...
This is the a priori protocol for a scoping review (JBI methodology; PRISMA-ScR reporting) mapping evidence on (1) the measurement of psychedelic-occasioned mystical/spiritual experience and its association with clinical outcomes, and (2) classic serotonergic psychedelics for body dysmorphic disorder and obsessive-compulsive-spectrum conditions, interpreted through the osteopathic...
Substance use disorders (SUD) involving ketamine, cocaine, and alcohol present significant clinical challenges, often characterized by high relapse rates and limited pharmacological options. This case report details a 30-year-old male with a five-year history of severe polysubstance dependence, including daily intranasal ketamine use (2–3 g/day), cocaine, and alcohol, comorbid with recurrent...
Background. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an important public health challenge typically treated with trauma-focused psychotherapy and Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs). However, high rates of residual symptoms associated with these standard treatments have led to a renewed interest in psychedelic-assisted therapies. Aim. This review attempts to examine emerging...
Serotonergic psychedelics are advancing as psychiatric treatments, yet acute responses vary between individuals and the contribution of sex, a fundamental biological variable, remains largely unexamined. We pooled two double-blind, placebo-controlled studies in healthy volunteers (N = 72; 31 male, 41 female) comparing psilocybin 15 mg, 2C-B 20 mg, and LSD 50 μg. Linear mixed models tested sex...
Medicinal plants have been used in traditional medicine to alleviate a range of neurological and psychological disorders. Numerous plant-derived phytochemicals are known to modulate central nervous system activity by interacting with neurotransmitters, receptors, and neurochemical pathways. This review provides a comprehensive overview of medicinal plants with psychoactive properties, their...