Neuron
January 20, 2023
Ceyda Sayalı, Frederick S. Barrett
40 citations
Psychedelic substances may acutely enhance creative task performance according to anecdotal reports, but empirical support is mixed. Clinical research suggests psychedelics can have lasting effects on mood and well-being, yet no neurocognitive framework connects acute cognitive changes to long-term mood improvements. This review operationalizes creativity within a cognitive control framework, evaluates existing evidence on psychedelics and creativity, and draws insights from how other psychoactive drugs acting on catecholamines enhance or impair cognition. The same framework links suggested psychedelic-induced improvements in creativity with enduring improvements in mood.
Psychedelic Medicine
June 1, 2023
Praachi Tiwari, Andrea Berghella, Ceyda Sayalı et al.
9 citations
Classic psychedelics may treat mood and substance use disorders by reversing learned helplessness, a well-studied phenomenon across mammals. The neural circuits underlying resilience to learned helplessness, including the dorsal raphe nucleus, overlap with those activated by psychedelics. Preclinical data show psychedelics improve performance in rodent behavioral despair tasks, supporting this hypothesis. The learned helplessness paradigm offers a robust model for investigating psychedelic mechanisms across behavioral, neurobiological, and clinical levels, potentially explaining transdiagnostic therapeutic effects.
Psychopharmacology
May 28, 2026
Mazen A Atiq, Eli Weisman, Rodrigo B Guerra et al.
A healthy 35-year-old man experienced a rare hypotensive adverse event—neurocardiogenic syncope (fainting)—about 60 minutes after taking 25 mg of oral psilocybin in a clinical trial. His blood pressure dropped to 93/51 mmHg, with rapid heart rate and sweating, but he stabilized quickly with leg elevation and oral hydration. The episode may have been triggered by upright seated posture, restrictive EEG equipment, and anxiety about upcoming transcranial magnetic stimulation. Fewer than one-quarter of contemporary psychedelic trials report systematic adverse event assessment, highlighting the need for transparent documentation of both hypertensive and hypotensive events as psilocybin moves toward potential FDA approval.
medRxiv Preprint Server
April 28, 2026
Sandeep M. Nayak, Nathan D. Sepeda, Matthew Nielsen Dick et al.
preprint
Psilocybin is being studied as a treatment for psychiatric and neurologic conditions, but there is limited comprehensive data on its cardiovascular safety. Current clinical trials typically exclude people with blood pressure of 140/90 mmHg or higher, a cutoff set conservatively without strong empirical evidence.