Frontiers in Psychiatry
September 19, 2023
Nicolas Garel, Jessica Drury, Julien Thibault Lévesque et al.
32 citations
A biopsychosocial approach to ketamine for treatment-resistant depression, called the Montreal model, pairs ketamine infusions with structured psychiatric care and psychotherapy. Developed over six years in public healthcare settings, the model conceptualizes ketamine as a brief intervention that creates windows of opportunity for enhanced care and psychological growth. It combines six ketamine infusions with psychedelic-inspired nonpharmacological adjuncts, including preparative and integrative psychological support. The model aims to bridge biomedical and psychedelic perspectives, offering a standardized yet flexible approach for severe, real-world patients. Further research is needed to assess its effectiveness and hypothesized psychological mechanisms.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
May 15, 2025
Sara G. Gloeckler, Julien Thibault Lévesque, Alexandre Lehmann et al.
3 citations
Music is a standard part of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy, but the role of silence is not well understood. In a compassionate-access program in Canada, two breast cancer patients undergoing psilocybin therapy experienced a 30-minute silent period that included mindfulness exercises and therapist discussion. One patient initially found the absence of music difficult but later found the mindfulness exercises highly meaningful. The other patient reported that music had evoked challenging memories early in the session, which were then productively explored during the silent period. The findings suggest that integrating silent intervals may enhance mindfulness and therapist-patient interactions, offering distinct therapeutic benefits. The authors call for more detailed reporting on session components in psychedelic research.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
September 30, 2024
Conor P. Lane, Veronica Tarka, Olivier Valentin et al.
1 citation
preprint
Psilocybin, a psychoactive substance from fungi, prevents the normal habituation of sound-evoked responses in the primary auditory cortex of mice. After administration of 1 mg/kg psilocybin, neurons maintained their responsiveness, bandwidth, and sound-level response thresholds to repeated stimuli, whereas control mice showed marked habituation and narrowing of tuning. Psilocybin did not alter the overall distribution of best frequencies, indicating it disrupts normal sensory gating rather than tonotopic organization. This supports models where psychedelics cause perceptual disturbances by disrupting hierarchical sensory gating. These findings may inform future treatments for conditions involving maladaptive sensory processing, such as tinnitus.
Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews
July 1, 2026
Athanasia Kontouli, Michael J Hove, Alexandre Lehmann et al.
Trance states induced by music, from shamanic rituals to electronic dance music raves, share common musical features and cultural narratives. Anthropological and neuroscientific evidence suggests that different forms of trance engage partially overlapping neural dynamics, including increased low-frequency brain wave synchronization and a shift from executive control networks to limbic and default mode networks. These patterns reflect the interplay of cognitive, emotional, and sensory systems, though current empirical evidence remains fragmented and methodologically heterogeneous. The review emphasizes trance as both a cultural and biological phenomenon and calls for integrating phenomenological and neurophysiological data to build comprehensive models of music-induced non-ordinary states of consciousness.