Who are you after psychedelics? A systematic review and a meta-analysis of the magnitude of long-term effects of serotonergic psychedelics on cognition/creativity, emotional processing and personality
Ivana Solaja, Kate Haldane, Natasha L. Mason, Brandon Weiss, Xiaomin Xu, Mei Xu, Stevan Nikolin, Tharusha Jayasena, Michael Millard, Jonathan Brett, Adam Bayes, Colleen Loo, Donel Martin
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews February 3, 2024 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105570 via OpenAlex
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractA systematic review and meta-analysis of ten controlled studies involving 304 participants found no lasting changes in cognition, creativity, emotional processing, or personality from serotonergic psychedelics for most measures. However, faster reaction times were observed for recognizing disgust and sadness in active treatment groups. The authors call for larger samples and standardized methods to confirm these preliminary findings.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Systematic review and meta-analysis Randomized Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 304 |
| Population | Participants in randomized and non-randomized controlled studies of serotonergic psychedelics |
| Intervention | serotonergic psychedelics |
| Duration | One week minimum follow-up |
| Topics | Serotonin |
| Keywords | Meta-analysis Psycinfo Disgust Cognition Clinical psychology |
| Citations | 17 |
| Key finding | No statistically significant effects were found for most outcomes, but faster reaction times for recognizing disgust and sadness were observed in active treatment groups. |
Abstract
This systematic review and a meta-analysis synthesised the results from contemporary, randomized and non-randomized controlled studies to assess lasting (one week minimum) changes on cognition/creativity, emotional processing and personality from serotonergic psychedelics. PubMed, Embase and PsycInfo were searched in July 2022. Risk of bias was assessed using Rob 2.0 and ROBINS-I. Ten studies met the eligibility criteria which involved 304 participants. No statistically significant effects were found for the majority outcome measures across the three constructs. A meta-analysis of emotional recognition outcomes found an overall significant effect for faster reaction times in the active treatment groups for disgust (SMD=-0.63, 95% CI=[-1.01 to -0.25], I2 = 65%) and sadness (SMD=-0.45, 95% CI=[-0.85 to -0.06], I2 = 60%). Future research should include larger samples, better control conditions, standardized doses and longer follow-up periods to confirm these preliminary findings.