Psychedelics Research Links May 2021

This is all the other psychedelic research that came out in May 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 May 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.

• An episode of mania following self-reported ingestion of psilocybin mushrooms in a woman previously not diagnosed with bipolar disorder: A case report (n=1, case report, family did have bipolar history)

• Effectiveness of Psilocybin on Depression: A Qualitative Study (n=10, interviews, nothing really new)

• Ketamine, but not fluoxetine, rapidly rescues corticosterone-induced impairments on glucocorticoid receptor and dendritic branching in the hippocampus of mice (Ketamine, but not fluoxetine, reduces impairment of glucocorticoid receptor and dendritic branching)

• Validation of the McIntyre And Rosenblat Rapid Response Scale (MARRRS) in Adults with Treatment-Resistant Depression Receiving Intravenous Ketamine Treatment (validation of depression-scale with IV ketamine)

• Molecular mechanisms underlying the antidepressant actions of arketamine: beyond the NMDA receptor (review, “unlikely that NMDAR plays a major role in the antidepressant action of (R,S)-ketamine and its enantiomers, although the precise molecular mechanisms underlying antidepressant actions of (R,S)-ketamine and its enantiomers remain unclear“)

• Effects of treatment refractoriness and brain-derived neurotrophic factor Val66Met polymorphism on antidepressant response to low-dose ketamine infusion (n=71, 35mg/70kg (or lower) ketamine, significant differences between groups)

• New insights into the clinical and nonclinical effects of psychedelic substances: an integrative review (review, pre-print)

• Surface-Eroding Drug Delivery Films for Sequential and/or Intermittent Release of Psychoactive Drugs (thesis, generating films that slowly release psychedelics – interesting)

• Antidepressant efficacy of oral ketamine treatment (thesis)

• Role of acute social stress in the rewarding effects of MDMA in adolescent mice (in mice, “… findings indicate that social defeat induces an increase in the rewarding effect of MDMA, suggesting that this type of stress is a potential factor in the development of MDMA addiction.”)

• Ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine): cardiovascular effects and mechanisms (review, highlights (cardiovascular) dangers of MDMA)

• Psychedelic Assisted Interventions with Criminal Justice Involved Populations: Food for Thought or a Bad Trip? (overview for criminology audience)

• Scientific Advances Supporting New and Improved Treatment Strategies in Psychiatry (editorial)

• Ketamine Induces Lasting Antidepressant Effects by Modulating the NMDAR/CaMKII-Mediated Synaptic Plasticity of the Hippocampal Dentate Gyrus in Depressive Stroke Model (in rats, works for post-stroke depression)

• Ketamine disrupts naturalistic coding of working memory in primate lateral prefrontal cortex networks (in monkeys, “decrease in neuronal tuning and information encoded by neuronal populations about remembered locations.“)

• Glutamate and GABA Homeostasis and Neurometabolism in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD review, mentions ketamine)

• Trait dissociation as a predictor of induced dissociation by ketamine or esketamine in treatment-resistant depression: Secondary analysis from a randomized controlled trial (risk of dissociation, highest for those with trait dissociation (before (es)ketamine use)

• The Interaction of Organic Cation Transporters 1-3 and PMAT with Psychoactive Substances (review, “Concerning in vivo studies, a veritable research gap concerning OCT1, 2, and PMAT exists.“)

• Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (review for nurse audience)

• Retracing our steps to understand ketamine in depression: A focused review of hypothesized mechanisms of action (review)

• Registered Clinical Studies Investigating Psychedelic Drugs for Psychiatric Disorders (70 trials found at the end of 2020, most with MDMA)

• The need for publicly funded research on therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs (perspective, need for larger trials if we ever want psychedelic medicine as first-line treatments)

• Web scraping of ecstasy user reports as a novel tool for detecting drug market trends (open-source intelligence gathering on MDMA pills in Australia)

• P11 (S100A10) as a potential predictor of ketamine response in patients with SSRI-resistant depression (n=30, 35mg/70kg, “High baseline p11 levels in cytotoxic T cells were associated with a stronger reduction of depressive symptoms in MDD patients after ketamine treatment“)

• Supporting the Patient on LSD Day (early case study, nurse perspective, reprinted)

• Ketamine’s schizophrenia-like effects are prevented by targeting PTP1B (in cells, from mice “Our study suggests that the PTP1B inhibitor Trodusquemine may represent a new class of fast-acting antipsychotic drugs to treat schizophrenia-like symptoms“)

• Will psychedelics be ‘a revolution in psychiatry’? (interview on Nature’s website)

• Chiral Pharmacokinetics and Metabolite Profile of Prolonged-release Ketamine Tablets in Healthy Human Subjects (ketamine could be safer and more efficient if given in slow-release tablets, written for a pain-management audience but should also apply for mental health/depression)

• Ketamine for a Boost of Neural Plasticity: How, but Also When? (commentary)

• Separating the wheat from the chaff: observations on the analysis of lysergamides LSD, MIPLA, and LAMPA (drug testing, LSD and analogs)

• Depression-like state induced by low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation to ventral medial frontal cortex in monkeys (pre-print, causal model to find effect of vMFC area on depression and ketamine’s ability to alleviate it)

• R (-)-methoxetamine exerts rapid and sustained antidepressant effects and fewer behavioral side effects relative to S (+)-methoxetamine (possible alternative to ketamine, R-enantiomer performs better/safer)

• Ketamine Stability Over Six Months of Exposure to Moderate and High Temperature Environments (ketamine stays stable over 6 months of time and different temperatures)

• Interaction between perineuronal nets and ketamine in antidepressant action (in mice, finds synergy between perineuronal nets and ketamine, both apart don’t decrease depression-like behaviour)

• Increasing Prevalence of Ketamine in Drivers in New York City Including the Identification of 2-Fluoro-Deschloroketamine (increased number of drivers of those in accidents had ketamine in their system, still the total number in the study was 47)

• Analgesic and Antidepressant Effects of the Clinical Glutamate Modulators Acetyl-L-Carnitine and Ketamine (in rats and in patients, finds ALCAR and ketamine both to work for depressive symptoms)

• Repeated Dosing of Ketamine in the Forced Swim Test: Are Multiple Shots Better Than One? (in mice, unexpectedly finds worse outcomes on forced swim test after repeated doses of ketamine)

• Central nervous system-related safety and tolerability of add-on ketamine to antidepressant medication in treatment-resistant depression: focus on the unique safety profile of bipolar depression (n=49, open label, no effect found on psychomimetic (mimicking psychosis) symptomatology)

• Tolerance to neurochemical and behavioral effects of the hallucinogen 25I-NBOMe (in rats, fist study to do repeated doses)

• Ketamine Produces a Long-Lasting Enhancement of CA1 Neuron Excitability (pre-print, “This is this first report of a long-lasting increase in excitability following ketamine exposure. These results support a growing literature that increased GABA inhibition contributes to ketamine anaesthesia, while increased excitatory transmission contributes to its antidepressant effects.“)

• A Protecting-Group-Free Synthesis of (-)-Salvinorin A (production of the (-) handedness of salvinorin (salvia))

• Association of plasma VEGF levels and the antidepressant effects of ketamine in patients with depression (no association between VEGF levels and ketamine treatment nor antidepressant effects found)

• Ambient ionization mass spectrometry applied to new psychoactive substance analysis (“This review aims to provide a critique of the suitability of current ambient ionization techniques for the analysis of NPS in the forensic and clinical toxicology fields“)

• Treatment-resistant bipolar depression: concepts and challenges for novel interventions (review, mentions ketamine)

• Amazonian Medicine and the Psychedelic Revival: Considering the “Dieta” (n=8, interviews, “Diets are complex but understudied medical practices that should not be explained by reference to pharmacology or psychology only. Intercultural and interdisciplinary research programmes are called for in order to not only better understand plant diets, but traditional Amazonian medicine on the whole.“)

• Ready for a “breakthrough” with ketamine? A look at recent pharmacological insights! (review, ‘breakthrough’ still has to come argues the paper)

• Fine-tuning neural excitation/inhibition for tailored ketamine use in treatment-resistant depression (“ We show that the shift in neural dynamics required for symptom improvement necessitates an increase in both excitatory and inhibitory coupling.“)

• The Past, Present and Future of Psychedelics (thesis)

• The Therapeutic Potential of Psilocybin (review)