Psychedelics Research Links January 2021

This is all the other psychedelic research that came out in January 2021. These papers don’t (yet) have their own page in our database.

Find our recap of the most interesting papers this month in our January Recap.

You can find all interesting papers in our Papers Database.

Related papers

Use CTRL/CMD+F to quickly search if anything relevant for you has been published this month.

• A Systematic Review of the MDMA Model to Address Social Impairment in Autism (review, finds trend but limited amount of human studies)

• Ethical Concerns about Psilocybin Intellectual Property (concerns about not including the Mazatec communities in intellectual property filings around psilocybin)

• Lectotypification of Banisteriopsis caapi and B. quitensis (Malpighiaceae), names associated with an important ingredient of Ayahuasca (taxonomy of two ingredients in ayahuasca brew)

• Adverse Effects of Esketamine for the Treatment of Major Depression Disorder: Findings from Randomized Controlled Trials (“The most frequent adverse effects under treatment with esketamine were nausea, dissociation, dizziness, vertigo, hypoesthesia, sedation and paresthesia.”)

• The acute effects of classic psychedelics on memory in humans (review, “Classic psychedelics dose-dependently impair memory task performance but may enhance autobiographical memory. These findings are relevant to the understanding of psychological mechanisms of action of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.“)

• Increased sensitivity to strong perturbations in a whole-brain model of LSD (pre-print, now published, more complex brain dynamics after LSD ingestion, n=12, 75 ug LSD (see line 128 for an interesting typing omission))

• Combining Ketamine, Brain Stimulation (rTMS) and Mindfulness Therapy (TIMBER) for Opioid Addiction (open-label pilot study, n=3)

• Repeated subcutaneous esketamine for treatment-resistant depression: Impact of the degree of treatment resistance and anxiety comorbidity (retrospective, n=70, 35-70mg/70kg esketamine, higher treatment resistance associated with lower response to subcutaneous (under skin) esketamine)

• Ketamine treatment for depression: qualitative study exploring patient views (interview study, n=14, of patients with depression but had never tired ketamine treatment)

• Death due to consumption of ibogaine: case report (n=1, died after underground ibogaine treatment, also still had morphine and codeine in system)

• Increased behavioral and neuronal responses to a hallucinogenic drug after adolescent toluene exposure in mice: Effects of antipsychotic treatment (in mice, “increased functionality of 5-HT2A receptors may play a critical role in solvent-induced psychosis and recommend the antipsychotics with more selective 5-HT2A receptor antagonism as the first-line treatment for solvent-induced psychosis“)

• Narratives of the mystical among users of psychedelics (n=50, interviews, identified three narratives 1) transcendence of time and space, 2) deep euphoria, 3) being at one with ‘larger whole’)

• Literature Review: Dreams, Hallucinations and Real Sensations (review, investigating the similarities and differences between dreams, psychedelics, and schizophrenia)

• Does the posteromedial cortex play a primary role for the capacity for consciousness in rats? (in rats, “findings seem to support the claim that the posteromedial cortex may play a primary role for the capacity for consciousness“)

• Development and validation of an LC-MS/MS method for the bioanalysis of psilocybin’s main metabolites, psilocin and 4-hydroxyindole-3-acetic acid, in human plasma (better measure the levels of psilocin (which psilocybin converts into, what is active) that could help with research, e.g. measure levels in human plasma (blood) during session)

• Ketamine-induced urological toxicity: potential mechanisms and translation for adults with mood disorders receiving ketamine treatment (safety research, “Notwithstanding the evidence of [Ketamine-induced urological toxicity] in ketamine abusers, there is no evidence that ketamine and/or esketamine treatment in adults with mood disorders is associated with KIUT“)

• Safety, Tolerability, and Real-World Effectiveness of Intravenous Ketamine in Older Adults With Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Case Series (found similar outcomes in older adults as earlier studies with younger populations)

• Behavioral arrest and a characteristic slow waveform are hallmark responses to selective 5-HT 2A receptor activation (in mice, using 25I-NBOH – a derivative of the phenethylamine-derived hallucinogen 2C-I)

• A Single Dose of Psilocybin Increases Synaptic Density and Decreases 5-HT2A Receptor Density in the Pig Brain (in pigs, 5mg/70kg dose of psilocybin, “R density. Our findings suggest that psilocybin causes increased persistent synaptogenesis and an acute decrease in 5-HT2AR density, which may play a role in psilocybin’s antidepressive effects“)

• Pharmacological-assisted Psychotherapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis (21 studies, -1 standard deviation reduction in PTSD symptoms)

• Ethical Transgressions and Boundary Violations in Ayahuasca Healing Contexts: A Mixed Methods Study (thesis, ethical transgressions (16%) and boundary violations (14%, 8% sexual) in context of ayahuasca healing)

• Comparative effects of (S)-ketamine and racemic (R/S)-ketamine on psychopathology, state of consciousness and neurocognitive performance in healthy volunteers (finds (R)-ketamine to possibly be preferred to (S)-ketamine)

• Is Ketamine More Effective Than Electroconvulsive Therapy for Treatment-Resistant Depression? (review, finds favorable comparison of ketamine vs ECT for TRD & MDD)

• A qualitative study of patients’ experience of ketamine treatment for depression: The ‘Ketamine and me’ project (n=13, qualitative study that investigates experience of patients)

• Ketamine for acute suicidality in the emergency department: A systematic review (review of three papers, there aren’t many studies directly on ketamine for suicidal ideation (SI) but could be (acutely) effective)

• At baseline patients treated with esketamine have higher burden of disease than other patients with treatment resistant depression: Learnings from a population based study (finds that patients with esketamine had worse baseline characteristics than rest of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) comparison group, could have implications around regression toward the mean)

• Classical Psychedelics as Therapeutics in Psychiatry – Current Clinical Evidence and Potential Therapeutic Mechanisms in Substance Use and Mood Disorders (review, we need more and larger RCT studies)

• Within-treatment changes in a novel addiction treatment program using traditional Amazonian medicine (n=36, open-label, ayahuasca, helped significantly with addiction (substance use disorder, SUD))

• Use of psilocybin (“mushrooms”) among US adults: 2015–2018 (estimated 10% lifetime use of psilocybin)

• Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) promotes social behavior through mTORC1 in the excitatory neurotransmission (in mice, identifies pathways by which LSD promotes social behavior – note: used repeated administration (7 days) as 1x 30μg/kg didn’t produce effects)

• Psychedelic psychiatry and the C-L psychiatrist: A primer (short review for psychiatrists)

• Apnea during slow sub-anaesthetic infusion of intravenous ketamine for treatment-resistant depression (case report of apnea – cessation of breathing – with IV ketamine for TRD)

• Oral S-ketamine effective after deep brain stimulation in severe treatment-resistant depression and extensive comorbidities (case report of effective, repeated dosage, treatment with es-ketamine for TRD)

• Ayahuasca blocks the reinstatement of methylphenidate-induced conditioned place preference in mice: behavioral and brain Fos expression evaluations (in mice, ayahuasca vs ritalin)

• Management of overdoses of salvia, kratom, and psilocybin mushrooms: a literature review (weird combination of drugs, does mention possible ‘trip stoppers’ in the final table of the paper)

• Spontaneous electrical low-frequency oscillations: a possible role in Hydra and all living systems (low-frequency (spontaneous) neural oscillations, same as in DMN, in Hydra and other animals)

• Use and abuse of dissociative and psychedelic drugs in adolescence (review, identifies gaps in literature with regard to adult-vs-adolescent motivations and gender differences)

• Sociological investigations of human enhancement drugs: The case of microdosing psychedelics (commentary, where microdosing (research) may go in the future)

• Designing an LSD Micro-Dose Transdermal Patch for Mental Illness Drug Therapy (pre-print, an interesting paper on the development of LSD-patch)

• Zebrafish and Artemia Salina in Vivo Evaluation of the Recreational 25c-NBOMe Drug Demonstrates Its High Toxicity (give zebrafish a synthetic psychedelic, at very high dosages (compared to human use of 200-500µg) and they die)

• New designer phenethylamines 2C-C and 2C-P have abuse potential and induce neurotoxicity in rodents (in rats, see comments on the zebrafish paper)

• Sociological investigations of human enhancement drugs: The case of microdosing psychedelics (microdosing, commentary)