Psychedelics Research Links November 2020

This is all the other psychedelic research that came out in November 2020. These papers don’t (yet) have their own page in our database.

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

• Fast Hollow Fiber Liquid-Phase Microextraction as a Greener Alternative for the Determination of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine and Harmala Alkaloids in Human Urine (“A simple, time-saving and green alternative for the analysis of DMT and harmala alkaloids in human urine samples was developed, optimized using design of experiments, fully validated and applied to authentic samples.”)

• Practical recommendations for the management of treatment-resistant depression with esketamine nasal spray therapy: Basic science, evidence-based knowledge and expert guidance (a ‘how-to-use’ guide from experts with esketamine (the expensive one))

• Transcriptional regulation in the rat prefrontal cortex and hippocampus after a single administration of psilocybin (in rats, more evidence of the promotion of plasticity-promoting effects of psilocybin)

• Is Ketamine a Litmus Test for Capacity in Assisted Dying with Depression? (“Ketamine might serve as a type of litmus test to help clarify the influence of potentially reversible depressive symptoms on the desire for death“)

• Risk assessment of ayahuasca use in a religious context: self-reported risk factors and adverse effects (this survey study (n=614) found relative safe practice standards, nausea and vomiting as most prevalent symptoms, and no drug-drug interactions with psychiatric medication use)

• Uncovering psychological mechanisms mediating the effects of drugs: some issues and comments using the example of psychedelic drugs (commentary on psychological mechanisms of psychedelics, and the difficulty studying this)

• Prescribing meaning: hedonistic perspectives on the therapeutic use of psychedelic-assisted meaning enhancement (student essay, complementary to the article above, argues that if meaning-making is the mechanism at work, then it should/can be ethically justified)

• Improved colour blindness symptoms associated with recreational psychedelic use: Results from the Global Drug Survey 2017 (further analysis of GDS 2017, 23 responses, possible mechanisms explained)

• Neurocognitive effects of six ketamine infusions and the association with antidepressant effects in treatment-resistant bipolar depression: a preliminary study (very specific analysis of ketamine infusions on cognitive functioning in those with TRBD)

• Ketamine: A tale of two enantiomers (review)

• Metabolic Risk Factors and Cardiovascular Safety in Ketamine Use for Treatment Resistant Depression (n=49, finds good safety and tolerability for IV ketamine in MDD and BP population)

• New agents and perspectives in the pharmacological treatment of major depressive disorder (broad review of the treatment of MDD, psychedelics (ketamine) mentioned as possible novel treatments)

• Intermittent repeated stress but not ketamine changes mice response to antidepressants (in mice, “Ketamine does not prevent stress-induced change in antidepressants’ effect.“)

• Anti-inflammatory activity of ayahuasca and its implications for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric diseases (review, not too long or controversial)

• Psilocybin-Assisted Supportive Psychotherapy in the Treatment of Major Depression—Quo Vadis? (editorial about first article of this month)

• A Proof-of-Concept Study of Subanesthetic Intravenous Ketamine Combined With Prolonged Exposure Therapy Among Veterans With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (open-label, n=10, 7x 35mg/70kg IV-ketamine before exposure therapy)

• Happiness During Low-Dose Ketamine Infusion Predicts Treatment Response: Reexploring the Adjunctive Ketamine Study of Taiwanese Patients With Treatment-Resistant Depression (“Subjective happiness during ketamine infusion predicted the antidepressant effect of both 0.5 mg/kg and 0.2 mg/kg ketamine infusion over time.”)

• The time course of psychotic symptom side effects of ketamine in the treatment of depressive disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis (meta-analysis, n=458, side effects (Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale) transient)

• Using classification and regression tree modelling to investigate treatment response to a single low-dose ketamine infusion: Post hoc pooled analyses of randomized placebo-controlled and open-label trials (post-hoc, n=73, younger and obese patients had the highest response rates)

• The potential use of N-methyl-3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDMA) assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of eating disorders comorbid with PTSD (hypothesis paper, still very promising)

• Advancing Elite Athlete Mental Health Treatment with Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy (review, on why psychedelics may be a good treatment for athletes – a population that experiences high levels of mental health disorders)

• DARK Classics in Chemical Neuroscience: Salvinorin A (good overview of Salvinorin A, an understudied psychedelic)

• Biomedical analysis of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) of natural origin (“… a comprehensive method to detect active compounds from different natural specimens both in biological and non-biological matrices is still lacking.“)

• Time is of the essence: Coupling sleep-wake and circadian neurobiology to the antidepressant effects of ketamine (review, interesting line of thought)

• Ketamine in Bipolar Disorder: A Review (comprehensive review, see figure 1 for all the pathways/mechanisms)

• Treatment of depression with ketamine does not change plasma levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor or vascular endothelial growth factor

• Influence of formulation and route of administration on ketamine’s safety and tolerability: systematic review (review, not specifically about psychedelic effect, but more info on safety profile and differences between dosages/formulations/administrations)

• Long-term Amelioration of OCD Symptoms in a Patient with Chronic Consumption of Psilocybin-containing Mushrooms (case study, another data point related to psilocybin for OCD treatment)

• Entity encounters and the therapeutic effect of the psychedelic mystical experience (there may be positive/therapeutic effects resulting from ‘entity encounters’, the article proposes three ways how it mediates therapeutic effects)

• Clinically Meaningful Changes on Depressive Symptom Measures and Patient-Reported Outcomes in Patients with Treatment-Resistant Depression (defining how to measure clinical changes of treatment, esketamine & antidepressants in this case)

• Psychedelics as an emerging novel intervention in the treatment of substance use disorder: a review (review, psychedelics for substance use disorders (SUD))

• Use of subcutaneous ketamine to rapidly improve severe treatment-resistant depression in a patient with Alzheimer’s disease (case report)

• The Effects of Ketamine on Cognition in Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Systematic Review and Priority Avenues for Future Research (review, found some positive effects on cognition after ketamine treatment for TRD, no worsening of cognition)

• Persistent Tinnitus after Inhaled N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) (case study, tinnitus (ringing of ears) after various ‘self-experiments’, DMT being the immediate (suspected) cause)

• Dissemination of Erroneous Research Findings and Subsequent Retraction in High-Circulation Newspapers: A Case Study of Alleged MDMA-Induced Dopaminergic Neurotoxicity in Primates (critique of media coverage and lack of it when a sensational (erroneous) article is retracted, by Brian S. Barnett & Rick Doblin)

• 2019: A year of expansion in psychedelic research, industry, and deregulation (succinct review of what changed in the psychedelic (research) landscape in 2019)

• Effects of ayahuasca on mental health and quality of life in naïve users: A longitudinal and cross-sectional study combination (two studies, first found improvements (at 6 months) for naïve Ayahuasca users after first use (n=40), second found that those who used it often compared favorably (mental health) to the former group)

• Ketamine and Serotonergic Psychedelics: Common Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Rapid-Acting Antidepressants (review, identifies similar downstream/non-acute effects of ketamine and classical psychedelics)

• The pharmacological interaction of compounds in ayahuasca: a systematic review (review of how DMT and MAOIs in ayahuasca, it’s not currently known if the compounds are additive or synergetic)

• The Psychedelic Personality: Personality Structure and Associations in a Sample of Psychedelics Users (psychedelic users are less extraverted and more risk-taking)

• Hallucinogens in Mental Health: Preclinical and Clinical Studies on LSD, Psilocybin, MDMA, and Ketamine (review of psychedelics (including ketamine and MDMA) for mental health)

• Copper and anti-anhedonic effect of ketamine in treatment-resistant depression (medical hypothesis, looking at common denominator of copper and ketamine)

• Is ketamine an appropriate alternative to ECT for patients with treatment resistant depression? A systematic review (review, fewer side-effects but possibly shorter duration of anti-depressant effects)

• Habenula connectivity and intravenous ketamine in treatment-resistant depression (small study (n=35) without control group, found habenula (small brain structure, reward & affective states) to be influenced by ketamine)

• Evaluation of the Cytotoxicity of Ayahuasca Beverages (“Overall, results showed that both [dopminergic neuron] cell viability and protein contents decreased when cells were exposed to the individual compounds, as well as to the teas and to the two mixtures based on the traditional ayahuasca beverages.“)

• Meaningful Change in Depression Symptoms Assessed with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) Among Patients with Treatment Resistant Depression in Two, Randomized, Double-blind, Active-controlled Trials of Esketamine Nasal Spray Combined With a New Oral Antidepressant (assessment of improvements of esketamine + antidepressants vs antidepressants + placebo)

• People of color in North America report improvements in racial trauma and mental health symptoms following psychedelic experiences (prospective survey, n=313, found significant effect on traumatic stress after psychedelic (LSD, MDMA) experience on racial trauma and mental health)