Psychedelic Drugs

Patients who received a single dose of mebufotenin improved more on a standard depression scale than those who received a low comparator dose, with most assessed as ready to leave the clinic within two hours.

Telling Americans how harmful alcohol and tobacco really are reduced their support for keeping those substances legal. But giving similar expert ratings for less harmful illegal drugs, such as LSD and MDMA, barely changed opinions.

People treated with ketamine or MDMA showed changes in chemical tags on genes related to brain plasticity, a small study found. The two drugs converged on similar biological pathways while affecting largely different genes.

Researchers compared 70 psilocybin trial publications with 172 news articles. Both reported positive results at similar rates, but news coverage tended to present the benefits as established and rarely discussed the small, early-stage nature of the research.

LSD speeds up the brain’s alpha and beta rhythms by about 2 and 5 hertz, respectively, while genuinely weakening them, according to a new brain imaging study. The drug also made brain signals more complex, especially in sensory regions.

Psilocybin is often described as throwing the brain into disorder. A new study in Nature suggests that beneath the apparent chaos, brain activity becomes organized around what a person is doing, especially in those who feel a sense of unity.

A single dose of psilocybin eased depression within days in a small Swedish trial, outperforming an active placebo for more than three months on patients’ self-ratings. By one year, however, the placebo group had largely caught up.

Most psychedelic research has drawn well-off participants. In a first-of-its-kind Oregon study, 19 low-income adults with depression completed group psilocybin therapy, and their average depression scores fell by more than half.

A small pilot study found that a high dose of psilocybin strengthened an illusion in which a striped pattern looks fainter inside a bold ring. Low doses of LSD did not do the same, though participants still reported subtle changes...

Psilocybin, LSD, and 2C-B all act on the same serotonin receptor, so they are often treated as a single drug class. But brain scans in rats suggest each one shifts the brain’s energy use in its own way, both right...

Ketamine and psychedelics relieve severe depression in hours, but their exact mechanisms remain elusive. New research suggests these rapid-acting drugs share a biological pathway, fighting depression by rebalancing specific immune system signals in the brain and body.

The more disordered a person’s brain activity became during their first psilocybin trip, the more their well-being tended to improve a month later, according to a small, exploratory study of healthy volunteers.

Taking psychedelics on the Fourth of July is linked to decreased support for partisan violence, while using them during political conventions shows the opposite effect. A new study suggests the broader cultural mood heavily influences a psychedelic experience.

In a small psilocybin trial for alcohol use disorder, people who stayed alcohol-free three months later tended to describe an inner dialogue during their session, while those who returned to drinking talked more about sensations and visions.

Virtual reality headsets might offer a reliable way to induce profound feelings of unity and awe typically associated with deep spiritual practices or psychedelics, providing researchers with a new tool to study human consciousness.