Psychedelics Research Links October 2020

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

• Serotonin research: Crossing scales and boundaries (editorial, mentions psychedelics and gives an overview of what we know about serotonin)

• An Update on the Efficacy and Tolerability of Oral Ketamine for Major Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (“This focused meta-analysis of oral ketamine suggests a marginal efficacy for major depressive disorder without increased risk of adverse events“)

• Neural and Behavioral Correlates of Clinical Improvement to Ketamine in Adolescents With Treatment-Resistant Depression (open-label, n=11, word face stroop (WFS) fMRI task, “These findings suggest that in adolescents with TRD, clinical improvement may require an attenuation of the negativity bias and re-tuning of these three critical neural networks to attenuate DMN and limbic regions activation and allow more efficient recruitment of the reward network.“)

• Comparative effectiveness of esketamine in the treatment of anhedonia in bipolar and unipolar depression (open-label, n=70, significant effects on anhedonia – the inability to feel pleasure in normally pleasurable activities)

• Polypharmacology or “Pharmacological Promiscuity” In Psychedelic Research: What Are We Missing? (commentary/critique of using isolated compounds)

• Psychedelics in Times of Pandemic Outbreaks (in publication about COVID)

• Ketamine Alters Electrophysiological Responses to Emotional Faces in Major Depressive Disorder (“Ketamine differentially affected face processing in MDD and healthy participants“)

• Early symptomatic improvements as a predictor of response to repeated-dose intravenous ketamine: Results from the Canadian Rapid Treatment Center of Excellence (“58% of individuals who did not experience early improvement experienced a partial to full response after the fourth infusion.” – open-label posthoc analysis)

• The effectiveness of intravenous ketamine in adults with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder presenting with prominent anxiety: Results from the Canadian Rapid Treatment Center of Excellence (“Patients with TRD and prominent anxiety receiving IV ketamine exhibited a significant reduction in depressive, SI and anxiety symptoms.“)

• Ketamine in a Patient with Comorbid Anorexia and MDD (case study, positive but very limited results)

• Low dose ketamine reduces pain perception and blood pressure, but not muscle sympathetic nerve activity, responses during a cold pressor test (could be interesting when compared to Ramaekers et al (2020) – LSD for pain)

• A quantitative exploration of the relationships between regular yoga practice, microdosing psychedelics, wellbeing and personality variables (microdosing and yoga are both better than control condition on openness, depression, anxiety)

• Unveiling ayahuasca psychopharmacology: the accomplishments of Jordi Riba (1968-2020) (editorial)

• Severe Neurological Sequelae after a Recreational Dose of LSD (“A young man with an unremarkable medical history suffered a seizure with subsequent cardiorespiratory arrest and severe neurological sequelae after ingesting a blotter” one in a million or something to worry about?)

• The role of dopamine D1 receptors in MDMA-induced memory impairments (in rats, dopaminergic system vs serotonergic system as proposed mechanism for memory impairment)

• Powerful substances in tiny bits: The microdosing practice among Dutch students (n=20, interviews, also available as 8 minute Youtube presentation by authors)

• Therapeutic Mechanism of Ketamine (“It is assumed that ketamine reverses synaptic chronic stress pathology within one day of administration by postsynaptic glutamate activation, providing synaptic connectivity restoration that last for days or weeks”)

• Designing Consciousness: Psychedelics as Ontological Design Tools for Decolonizing Consciousness (psychedelics as tools for design(ers) to ‘decolonize’ design)

• Psychedelic Psychiatry: Preparing for Novel Treatments Involving Altered States of Consciousness (opinion/introductory article for psychiatric audience)

• Effect of Ketamine on Rumination in Treatment-Resistant Depressive Patients (n=10 open-label, level of rumination did not predict/correlate with antidepressant response)

• The Combination of Propofol and Ketamine Does Not Enhance Clinical Responses to Electroconvulsive Therapy in Major Depression-The Results From the KEOpS Study (randomized, placebo-controlled, n=27)

• Neurotoxicology Syndromes Associated with Drugs of Abuse (review, part about psychedelics, focus on the damage drugs (can) do to the brain)

• Application of Ultraviolet Spectrophotometry with Dual Wavelength Method for the Simultaneous Determination of Ecstasy Tablet Content

• The Use of Ketamine as a Treatment for Depression and Alcohol Use Disorders (overview article)

• Single, Repeated, and Maintenance Ketamine Infusions for Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Randomized Controlled Trial (repeated ketamine infusions had better results than midazolam)

• Serotonin Transporter and Plasma Membrane Monoamine Transporter Are Necessary for the Antidepressant-Like Effects of Ketamine in Mice (in mice, but interesting investigation on how “ketamine robustly inhibited serotonin clearance“)

• A systematic review and meta-analysis of the efficacy of intravenous ketamine infusion for treatment resistant depression: January 2009 – January 2019 (positive on the short-term (24 hours) but not strong evidence for long-term (7 days+) effect)

• After more than sixty years we are still unclear whether LSD has a place in clinical psychiatry (open letter to ‘Research in Psychotherapy’ by Arthur Saniotis)

• Ketamine Administration Leads to Learning-Memory Dysfunction and Decreases Serum Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor in Rats (give rats a lot of ketamine for 20 days and problems arise)

• Serotonin Receptor 2A Activation Promotes Evolutionarily Relevant Basal Progenitor Proliferation in the Developing Neocortex (found promoted as ‘Stoned Ape Theory was right’, probably more nuanced, but possibly relevant)

• Zinc Protects against MDMA-Induced Apoptosis of Sertoli Cells in Mouse via Attenuation of Caspase-3 (in mice, no, in cells, still possibly interesting to see the protective role of zinc here)

• Ketamine treatment for individuals with treatment-resistant depression: a longitudinal qualitative interview study of patient experiences (conclusion worth citing in full “Ketamine treatment was generally experienced as effective in improving mood and reducing suicidal ideation in the short-term, but the lack of longer-term benefit was challenging for participants, as was treatment cost. Informed consent procedures should refer to the possibilities of relapse and of associated increased hopelessness and suicidality.“)

• Ayahuasca Beverages: Phytochemical Analysis and Biological Properties (antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial properties found)

• Toxicokinetics and Toxicodynamics of Ayahuasca Alkaloids N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), Harmine, Harmaline and Tetrahydroharmine: Clinical and Forensic Impact (review, link downloads pdf)

• New Psychoactive Substances- A Review and Updates (review)

• Anxiety-like behavior induced by salicylate depends on age and can be prevented by a single dose of 5-MeO-DMT (in mice, “our results show that hallucinogenic compounds can be effective in treating tinnitus-related anxiety.“)

• Stability of psilocybin and its four analogs in the biomass of the psychotropic mushroom Psilocybe cubensis (best stored dry and dark, highly variable in content of psilocybin and other tryptamines)

• Predicting therapeutic response to oral ketamine for chronic suicidal ideation: a Bayesian network for clinical decision support (adds to the highlighted article on ketamine)

• Population Pharmacokinetics of Esketamine Nasal Spray and its Metabolite Noresketamine in Healthy Subjects and Patients with Treatment-Resistant Depression (“Esketamine and noresketamine pharmacokinetics was successfully characterized in healthy subjects and patients with treatment-resistant depression.”)

• The influence of viewing a headline about ecstasy/Molly adulteration on future intentions to use (give info that MDMA is contaminated, non-previous users will (maybe) not use it, others will (maybe) test more)

• Therapeutic effects of classic serotonergic psychedelics: A systematic review of modern-era clinical studies (systematic review, very similar to other reviews on psychedelic medicine – for a Scandinavian audience)

• The multimodal Ganzfeld-induced altered state of consciousness induces decreased thalamo-cortical coupling (using visual and auditory stimuli to elicit changes in the thalamus – the opposite as observed in psychedelic states)