Background Serotonergic psychedelics and MDMA may improve mental health through reductions in neuroticism and changes in personal values. While decreases in neuroticism following serotonergic psychedelics are sometimes observed, it is unclear which facets of neuroticism respond the most, and MDMA remains understudied. People also report value shifts after psychedelic experiences, but...
Serotonergic psychedelics induce profound alterations in consciousness, giving rise to an altered state commonly referred to as the psychedelic state. The entropic brain hypothesis proposes that brain entropy (i.e., the degree of uncertainty in the distribution of brain states) is elevated during the psychedelic state, as well as in other states characterized by an expanded breadth of...
Revista CienciaUANLJuly 1, 2026Armando Ordaz‐hernández, M. Corona-Ramírez, Israel Jesús Orlando Guerrero
La psilocibina, presente en los “hongos mágicos”, y la 5-MeO-DMT, secretada por el sapo Incilius alvarius, fueron empleadas ancestralmente en rituales espirituales en México. Hoy, la ciencia las reconoce como terapias prometedoras contra depresión, ansiedad, estrés postraumático y adicciones resistentes a tratamientos convencionales. Actúan sobre receptores de serotonina y estimulan la...
The fungivore-deterrence hypothesis, that psilocybin evolved as a chemical defence against arthropod fungivores via 5-HT receptor agonism, has become the working consensus in fungal chemical ecology, despite resting on a phylogenomic pattern of horizontal gene transfer among saprotrophs and remarkably little direct experimental evidence. Recent biochemistry shows that the ectomycorrhizal...
NeuropsychiatrieJune 30, 2026Cielo A Estela-Fernandez, Reem Mohamed Yousif Elsheikh, Dal Bianco Beatrice et al.
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a heterogeneous, debilitating disorder. A distinct subgroup within the MDD spectrum is identified to have treatment-resistant depression (TRD). There is an impetus to find alternative treatments for TRD to reduce disease burden and improve quality of life. Psychedelics have been used in the treatment of various psychiatric disorders since the 1950s, with...
Psilocin (4-hydroxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine) is a substituted tryptamine alkaloid and a nonselective serotonergic agonist acting predominantly at 5-HT2A/C receptors, with substantial binding to 5-HT1A and 5-HT2B receptors. Microdosing is the practice of taking a very small, sub-perceptual dose, typically 5% to 10% of a full recreational dose, to improve mood, creativity, and focus without...
Major depressive disorder (MDD) ranks among the foremost contributors to disability worldwide, yet its neurophysiological mechanisms remain poorly understood. Excitation-inhibition (E/I) imbalance has been implicated in MDD pathophysiology, but cortex-wide E/I ratio and its molecular substrates in MDD remain unknown. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from 254 MDD patients...
Background: Psychedelic microdosing—repeated sub-perceptual doses of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or psilocybin—has attracted scientific interest as a potential mood and cognitive intervention. The evidence base remains methodologically heterogeneous and vulnerable to expectancy bias. Methods: We conducted an umbrella review with narrative synthesis following Joanna Briggs Institute...
Abstract Background The Pivotal Mental States (PiMS) construct posits that psychedelics and other stress-inducing practices, such as fasting and hypoxia, can evoke transformative mental states through increased serotonin receptor activation in the brain. These states are associated with enhanced cognitive flexibility, accelerated associative learning, and psychological insights that may...
In the past decade, interest in studying psychedelic compounds as potential therapeutic agents has resurged. These studies carefully exclude individuals at risk for developing psychotic symptoms in response to psychedelic use. Given the potential for psychedelics to be established as treatments in psychiatry, it is important to more robustly understand their link with psychosis and...