Palliative care: is it time for health professionals to talk openly about psychedelic therapy?
British Journal of General Practice June 24, 2021 Emma Presern 1 citation
Existential distress at the end of life, termed 'total pain,' involves psychological and spiritual suffering that often does not respond to strong opioid medications. This distress resembles mental health conditions linked to an overactive default mode network (DMN), which includes the medial prefrontal cortex, medial temporal lobe, and posterior cingulate cortex—brain regions associated with the ego and more developed in humans. Patients facing early mortality may experience a crisis of meaning, leading to uncontrolled pain that opioids fail to alleviate. The text suggests that understanding the neural basis of existential distress could inform more holistic approaches in palliative care.