Psychiatry Research
July 16, 2022
Thomas D. Meyer, Priel Meir, Claudia Lex et al.
23 citations
Psilocybin, a hallucinogen derived from certain mushrooms, shows promise for enhancing mental health. In a clinical trial involving 216 participants, 54% reported significant reductions in depression symptoms after treatment. Additionally, 67% experienced improved anxiety levels. This exploratory research highlights psilocybin's potential as a transformative tool in psychiatry and clinical psychology. With its chemical synthesis focusing on alkaloids, the findings suggest that psychedelics like psilocybin could revolutionize medicine, offering new avenues for those struggling with mental health challenges.
Psychedelic Medicine
August 18, 2023
Claudia Lex, Antonio F. Pagán, Jair C. Soares et al.
9 citations
Medical students hold generally positive attitudes toward psychedelic-assisted therapy, but their attitudes are significantly more favorable when the term "psilocybin" is used instead of "magic mushrooms." Personal experience with psychedelics is linked to more positive attitudes, beliefs, and higher self-rated knowledge. Attitudes and beliefs are stronger predictors of willingness to recommend psychedelic-assisted therapy, if FDA approved, than personal experience alone. The findings suggest that using the term "psilocybin" may be preferable in research and educational contexts.
Current Treatment Options in Psychiatry
November 11, 2025
Dan Petrovitch, Sarah E. Victor, A. Schmidt et al.
2 citations
The intense and distinctive subjective effects of psychedelics complicate tests of the efficacy and mechanisms of action of psychedelic-assisted treatments for mental-health conditions. Estimates of treatment efficacy are confounded under functional unblinding, and uncertainty surrounds whether subjective or neurobiological effects are causal mechanisms. Methodological solutions include improved active placebo conditions, expectancy-focused recruitment and consent procedures, better measurement of expectancies and blinding, and rigorous statistical modeling. Strategies to disentangle subjective and neurobiological effects include administering psychedelics under general anesthesia, developing non-psychoactive analogues, leveraging Mendelian randomization, and studying microdosing. Combining multiple innovative methods may offer the most robust insights.