EClinicalMedicine
March 14, 2025
Raoul Bitar, Simon Halm, Christina Rossgoderer et al.
42 citations
A randomized controlled trial investigated whether psilocybin-assisted therapy could reduce relapse in patients with alcohol use disorder. The study compared psilocybin therapy against a control condition, finding that the psilocybin group showed a significantly lower rate of heavy drinking days over the follow-up period. The results suggest that psilocybin, when combined with psychotherapy, may be a promising intervention for relapse prevention in alcohol dependence, though further research is needed to confirm these findings.
eLife
April 17, 2024
Flora Moujaes, Jie Lisa Ji, Masih Rahmati et al.
23 citations
Ketamine is a promising treatment for treatment-resistant depression, but why people respond differently is poorly understood. In a single-blind placebo-controlled study, 40 healthy participants received acute ketamine. Using data-driven global brain connectivity, the neural and behavioral effects of ketamine were found to be multi-dimensional, reflecting robust inter-individual variability. Ketamine's principal neural gradient matched somatostatin and parvalbumin cortical gene expression patterns, while the mean effect did not. Behavioral symptom variation mapped onto distinct neural gradients resolvable at the single-subject level. These results highlight the importance of individual variation for developing precise pharmacological biomarkers in psychiatry.
Biological Psychiatry Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging
July 17, 2023
Flora Moujaes, Nathalie M. Rieser, Christophe Phillips et al.
19 citations
Four methods of inducing altered states of consciousness—psilocybin, LSD, hypnosis, and meditation—produce distinct patterns of brain connectivity, not a single shared neural signature. Pharmacological and nonpharmacological interventions showed connectivity patterns that could predict which method a person had used. Hypnosis and meditation differed from each other and from the drugs. Psilocybin and LSD did not differ in brain connectivity but showed different relationships between brain activity and behavior. The findings clarify how each method works in the brain and suggest they may offer different therapeutic avenues for psychiatric disorders.
Scientific reports
October 14, 2023
Nathalie M Rieser, Ladina P Gubser, Flora Moujaes et al.
14 citations
Psilocybin alters cerebral blood flow in the brain, and the magnitude of these changes depends on individual baseline psychological and neurobiological characteristics. In a placebo-controlled study of 70 healthy participants given one of three oral doses of psilocybin, reductions in relative cerebral blood flow correlated with both baseline traits and the intensity of the subjective psychedelic experience. The findings demonstrate that inter-individual heterogeneity in the neural response to psilocybin is linked to pre-existing differences, helping to identify biomarkers for a personalized medicine approach in psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
August 18, 2025
Flora Moujaes, Nathalie M. Rieser, L. Belinger et al.
5 citations
Serotonergic psychedelics are being investigated as treatments for psychiatric conditions, with promising results in mood disorders suggesting their effects on emotional processing may be central to therapeutic potential. However, mechanistic and clinical studies reveal a complex picture of how psychedelics impact emotions and mood. This review covers recent findings on psychedelics' effects on emotion, emotional empathy, and mood, discussing their influence on long-term emotion management strategies, the role of challenging experiences, and neuroplastic changes. The authors argue that more precise characterization of emotional states and attention to temporal dynamics of psychedelic-induced effects are critical for clarifying mechanisms and optimizing therapeutic impact.
bioRxiv Preprint Server
November 1, 2022
Flora Moujaes, Jie Lisa Ji, Masih Rahmati et al.
4 citations
preprint
Ketamine is a promising therapy for treatment-resistant depression, but why some people respond better than others remains unclear. The molecular mechanisms of ketamine are not yet connected to its effects on brain activity and behavior.
bioRxiv Preprint Server
February 10, 2025
Masih Rahmati, Flora Moujaes, Nina Purg Suljič et al.
1 citation
preprint
Working memory deficits in disorders like schizophrenia may stem from disrupted brain cell tuning. Using fMRI, researchers found that ketamine, which blocks NMDA receptors, broadens neural spatial tuning in healthy people, reducing the precision of brain responses across visual, parietal, and frontal areas and worsening spatial working memory accuracy. These tuning changes were more consistent across individuals and brain regions than overall activation changes and correlated with memory performance. The results link NMDA receptor disruption to altered brain circuit dynamics and memory impairment, offering a target for developing treatments.