Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA; Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit, Connecticut Mental Health Center, New Haven, CT, USA.
2 papers in the library · 4 citations · publishing 2025
A systematic review of clinical studies on psychedelics for opioid use disorder found few completed trials using serotonergic psychedelics; most investigated ibogaine or ketamine. The evidence is limited by weak study designs focused on opioid withdrawal, few double-blind or placebo-controlled trials, and considerable methodological heterogeneity that makes comparisons across compounds difficult. Most studies had a high risk of bias, mainly due to lack of randomization, blinding, and blinded outcome assessment. The review outlines these limitations and steps to improve the quality of future research in this area.
A review of trials on psychedelics for opioid use disorder (OUD) found no studies directly comparing different types of psychotherapy or testing psychedelics with versus without concurrent psychotherapy. Most research on alleviating opioid withdrawal symptoms did not include psychotherapy. The few studies on ketamine and LSD for opioid use and abstinence used a psychedelic-assisted therapy model. There is insufficient high-quality evidence to determine whether concurrent psychotherapy is necessary in psychedelic trials for OUD. Future trials should explore the interplay between psychedelic treatment and psychotherapy.