A Brief Review on the Potential of Psychedelics for Treating Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Depression

Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of senile dementia, will impose a growing societal and healthcare burden as the population ages. With few treatments for symptomatic relief and unknown causes, more research is urgently needed. Psychedelic drugs target AD-related psychological pathology and symptoms such as depression. Through microdosing, they may help combat the disease by eliciting psychiatric benefits via serotonin and dopamine pathways. This review examines studied benefits of a few psychedelic compounds that may show promise in treating AD and attenuating its depressive symptoms. The putative mechanism of action is that psychedelics act mainly as serotonin receptor agonists and induce potential beneficial effects for treating AD and related depression.

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Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common form of senile dementia, is poised to place an even greater societal and healthcare burden as the population ages. With few treatment options for the symptomatic relief of the disease and its unknown etiopathology, more research into AD is urgently needed. Psychedelic drugs target AD-related psychological pathology and symptoms such as depression. Using microdosing, psychedelic drugs may prove to help combat this devastating disease by eliciting psychiatric benefits via acting through various mechanisms of action such as serotonin and dopamine pathways. Herein, we review the studied benefits of a few psychedelic compounds that may show promise in treating AD and attenuating its related depressive symptoms. We used the listed keywords to search through PubMed for relevant preclinical, clinical research, and review articles. The putative mechanism of action (MOA) for psychedelics is that they act mainly as serotonin receptor agonists and induce potential beneficial effects for treating AD and related depression.