Clinical trials of psychedelics for neurological and psychiatric disorders have systematically excluded people with past or current seizures, despite a lack of evidence that supervised psychedelic use causes or worsens seizures. No clinical trial or preclinical seizure model has shown that psychedelics induce seizures. This review presents cases where individuals experienced either seizures or seizure remission after psychedelic use, with the overall trend indicating safety in controlled clinical settings. The authors propose future research directions to include this population.
A 51-year-old woman with daily functional seizures, major depressive disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder who had not responded to prior treatments underwent a novel protocol of ketamine-assisted therapy. After 3 weeks of therapy followed by 20 weeks of intermittent ketamine treatment and ongoing psychotherapy, her seizures were significantly reduced in frequency and severity, and she showed substantial improvements in depressive symptoms and functional ability. This first reported case suggests that ketamine-assisted therapy may help treat functional seizures, but rigorous studies are needed to confirm the findings.