Psychedelics as a Treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease Dementia
Frontiers in Synaptic Neuroscience – August 21, 2020
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
A compelling new frontier in Medicine suggests psychedelics like psilocybin, a potent hallucinogen, could revolutionize Dementia treatment. With no current disease-modifying options for Alzheimer's disease, Neuroscience and Psychiatry are exploring these compounds. Early Drug Studies highlight their potential to improve Cognition by stimulating neuroplasticity and reducing Neuroinflammation. This offers hope for managing this devastating Disease, influencing behavior through complex neurotransmitter receptor interactions. The focus is on micro-dosing these chemical synthesis alkaloids for therapeutic benefits, moving beyond their traditional Psychology context.
Abstract
Currently, there are no disease-modifying treatments for Alzheimer's disease (AD) or any other dementia subtype. The renaissance in psychedelic research in recent years, in particular studies involving psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), coupled with anecdotal reports of cognitive benefits from micro-dosing, suggests that they may have a therapeutic role in a range of psychiatric and neurological conditions due to their potential to stimulate neurogenesis, provoke neuroplastic changes and reduce neuroinflammation. This inevitably makes them interesting candidates for therapeutics in dementia. This mini-review will look at the basic science and current clinical evidence for the role of psychedelics in treating dementia, especially early AD, with a particular focus on micro-dosing of the classical psychedelics LSD and psilocybin.