medRxiv
December 12, 2019
Ron Shore, Paul Ioudovski, Craig Goldie et al.
8 citations
preprint
A scoping review of psilocybin-assisted therapy for addiction, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder identified 40 publications, including 9 clinical trials with 169 participants. Trials used a peak-psychedelic model with eyeshades, music, and medium to high psilocybin doses. No serious adverse effects occurred; mild effects included transient anxiety, nausea, and headaches. The trials demonstrated safety, tolerability, and preliminary efficacy for obsessive-compulsive disorder, substance use disorder, treatment-resistant unipolar depression, anxiety or depression in life-threatening cancer patients, and demoralization among long-term AIDS survivors. The literature is early and exploratory, with only 5 randomized controlled trials, small homogeneous samples, blinding difficulties, and confounding psychological support. Further research with diverse patients and varied dosing is needed.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
January 5, 2024
Ron Shore, K. Dobson, Nina Thomson et al.
3 citations
preprint
A scoping review of 77 pre-clinical studies (1962–2021) examined psilocybin's behavioral effects in non-human animals. Most studies used rodents. Psilocybin shows a strong safety profile with no biological toxicity, even at high doses. Effects include acute arousal, dose-dependent sedation, reduced fear conditioning at low doses, reduced aggression, improved valence, acute working memory disruption, reversal of chronic stress deficits, and improved learning when combined with repeated environmental exposure after drug effects resolve. Only 55.8% of studies reported housing conditions, and 22.1% failed to report sample size, indicating wide variation in study quality and design.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
September 11, 2025
Ron Shore, K. Dobson, Nina Thomson et al.
A scoping review of 77 pre-clinical studies (1962–2021) found that psilocybin has a strong safety profile with no evidence of biological toxicity, even at very high doses. Most studies (64) used rodents, and 51 studies administered psilocybin, 30 psilocin, and 4 whole mushroom extracts. Effects included acute arousal, dose-dependent sedation, reduced fear conditioning at low doses, reduced aggression, improved valence, acute disruption of working memory, rescuing of deficits from chronic stress, and improved learning when combined with repeated environmental exposure after drug effects resolved. Study quality varied: only 43 studies reported housing conditions, and 17 failed to report sample size.