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Balazs Szigeti

University of California, San Francisco

2 papers in the library · publishing 2025

Papers

An open-label, dose-escalation trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy for bipolar 2 depression

July 7, 2025 Balazs Szigeti preprint

Psilocybin therapy under controlled conditions appears safe and potentially effective for reducing depressive symptoms and improving quality of life in individuals with bipolar II disorder experiencing moderate-to-severe depression. In an open-label pilot trial, 14 participants received 10 mg of psilocybin, followed by 25 mg if symptoms persisted, alongside psychotherapy. No serious adverse events occurred; common effects included mild-to-moderate anxiety, nausea, and headache. Three participants experienced suicidal ideation or hypomania, which resolved with support. Depression scores improved at all timepoints, with a 21-day reduction of 12.7 points after 10 mg and 18.6 after 25 mg. Quality of life also improved at 90 days. Feared outcomes like mania, psychosis, and suicidality were not elevated relative to other clinical populations treated with psilocybin.

DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/97cqx_v1 Psychedelic-assisted therapy Psilocybin therapy Psilocybin treatment Mushroom therapy +15

Too big to fail? Comparing effect sizes of MDMA assisted therapy to unmasking bias

Balazs Szigeti, Ellen Bradley, Joshua Woolley preprint

Unmasking bias—where participants or researchers can guess who received a treatment due to its noticeable effects—may account for the reported benefits of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD. Analyzing data from trials of ketamine and escitalopram, the authors found that the magnitude of unmasking bias is larger than the treatment-versus-control effect size observed for MDMA. This indicates that MDMA-AT's effect sizes are not too large to be explained by unmasking alone, though the findings do not prove that the effects are entirely or partially due to this bias.

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/ujtpf