Psychedelic Medicine
March 28, 2026
Levi Neal, Hannah E. Shaw, Brenda M. Gannon et al.
A single dose of the psychedelics LSD or DOI did not reduce opioid consumption or withdrawal signs in mice that had become dependent on fentanyl analogs. Mice drinking water avoided the bitter taste of quinine, but mice consuming fentanyl solutions continued drinking despite the adulteration, a behavior unchanged by psychedelic treatment. Fifteen days later, neither LSD nor DOI altered naloxone-precipitated jumping or restlessness, but both drugs lessened withdrawal-associated heightened sensitivity to heat. These results do not support a single psychedelic exposure as a treatment for opioid use disorder, though they suggest possible persistent effects on pain perception during withdrawal.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
March 26, 2026
Aly Shah Aziz
Adolescent treatment-resistant mental health disorders are increasing worldwide, and standard medications and therapy often fail. Classic psychedelics like psilocybin, LSD-25, and DMT, given within psychedelic-assisted therapy, have shown strong effectiveness in adults with refractory conditions, but adolescents have been excluded from trials. Safety concerns in adolescents are justified but must be weighed against limitations in current evidence, which is observational and underpowered for long-term outcomes. Adult studies indicate low physiological toxicity, minimal dependence risk, and a wide therapeutic index, but these findings cannot be directly applied to developing adolescents. This commentary advocates for cautious, ethically grounded research with these compounds in adolescents who have not responded to other treatments.
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health
March 13, 2026
Marc-Antoine Crocq, Philippe Auby
The recent approval of esketamine for adults has renewed interest in psychedelic compounds for psychiatric use, but their relevance for children and adolescents is unclear. This review examines the rationale for investigating classic serotonergic psychedelics (e.g., psilocybin, LSD), the entactogen MDMA, and dissociative compounds like ketamine and esketamine in young populations. Ongoing and planned trials primarily involve adolescents aged 16 years and older, driven by unmet needs in child and adolescent psychiatry, where few medications are approved and therapeutic response is often unsatisfactory. Potential targets include anorexia nervosa, autism spectrum disorder symptoms, obsessive-compulsive disorder, resistant depression, and severe PTSD. Translation to pediatric populations requires caution due to developmental vulnerabilities and limited long-term safety data.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
March 5, 2026
Venkatesh Subramani, Annalisa Pascarella, Jérémy Brunel et al.
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) loosens the brain's usual alignment between anatomical structure and neural activity in a frequency-dependent way. Low-frequency brain waves (theta, alpha, beta) become less constrained by the structural connectome, indicating a global relaxation of large-scale dynamics. High-frequency gamma activity shows selective reorganization rather than uniform disruption. Greater gamma-band decoupling within core default-mode network regions predicts the intensity of ego dissolution across individuals. LSD does not cause indiscriminate disintegration but drives system-specific rebalancing: visual and attentional systems decouple while auditory networks strengthen coupling. These findings suggest psychedelic states emerge from frequency-dependent relaxation of structural constraints, with default-mode reorganization as a neural correlate of ego dissolution.
Journal of pain and symptom management
March 1, 2026
William B Alexander, Eric D Hansen, Brian T Anderson et al.
1 citation
Loss of meaning is a hallmark of demoralization syndrome, a prevalent condition in palliative care linked to diminished quality of life, increased symptom burden, and higher suicide risk. Existential psychological interventions improve psychosocial outcomes, but evidence for their effect on demoralization is limited. Psychedelic therapies, which enhance meaning-making and integrate existential approaches, show promise for existential distress and demoralization in early clinical trials. Novel combined pharmacological and psychological interventions like psychedelic therapy warrant further investigation.
Drug and alcohol dependence reports
March 1, 2026
Jing-Jer Chen, Carla J Berg, Y Tony Yang
1 citation
From 2021 to 2023, overall hallucinogen use among Americans aged 12 and older remained stable at about 2.8%, but trends for individual substances diverged. LSD use declined from 0.88% to 0.58%, while ketamine use increased from 1.61% to 1.91%. Use of ecstasy/MDMA and tryptamines (including DMT) stayed steady, and PCP and Salvia divinorum remained rare. Hallucinogen use was concentrated among young adults and males, with higher odds among uninsured individuals and those below the federal poverty level. Substance-specific monitoring may better inform screening, prevention, and harm-reduction efforts than aggregate hallucinogen indicators.
Psychedelic medicine (New Rochelle, N.Y.)
March 1, 2026
Jonah Griffin-Stolbach, Hanna Molla, Donald Hedeker et al.
Questionnaires designed for high-dose psychedelic experiences fail to capture the subtle subjective effects of very low doses of LSD. Using data from 199 healthy volunteers given 6.5, 13, and 26 µg doses, a new 31-item questionnaire—the micro-dimensional Altered States of Consciousness (m-DASC)—was developed. It identifies four components: Transcendent Experience, Auditory Somatic Disturbance, Animated Intoxication, and Synesthesia, accounting for 44% of the variance. The m-DASC detected significant effects at 13 and 26 µg and correlated highly with longer questionnaires, offering a more sensitive tool for future low-dose psychedelic research.