Exploring the effect of microdosing psychedelics on creativity in an open-label natural setting
This observational study (n=38) explores the cognitive-enhancing potential of microdosing psychedelic truffles in healthy adults. It finds improved convergent and divergent thinking performance after a microdose, though fluid intelligence remains unaffected.
Abstract
Introduction
Taking microdoses (a mere fraction of normal doses) of psychedelic substances, such as truffles, recently gained popularity, as it allegedly has multiple beneficial effects including creativity and problem-solving performance, potentially through targeting serotonergic 5-HT2A receptors and promoting cognitive flexibility, crucial to creative thinking. Nevertheless, enhancing effects of microdosing remain anecdotal, and in the absence of quantitative research on microdosing psychedelics, it is impossible to draw definitive conclusions on that matter. Here, our main aim was to quantitatively explore the cognitive-enhancing potential of microdosing psychedelics in healthy adults.
Methods
During a microdosing event organized by the Dutch Psychedelic Society, we examined the effects of psychedelic truffles (which were later analyzed to quantify active psychedelic alkaloids) on two creativity-related problem-solving tasks: the Picture Concept Task assessing convergent thinking and the Alternative Uses Task assessing divergent thinking. A short version of the Ravens Progressive Matrices task assessed potential changes in fluid intelligence. We tested once before taking a microdose and once while the effects were expected to be manifested.
Results
We found that both convergent and divergent thinking performance was improved after a non-blinded microdose, whereas fluid intelligence was unaffected.
Conclusion
While this study provides quantitative support for the cognitive-enhancing properties of microdosing psychedelics, future research has to confirm these preliminary findings in more rigorous placebo-controlled study designs. Based on these preliminary results, we speculate that psychedelics might affect cognitive metacontrol policies by optimizing the balance between cognitive persistence and flexibility. We hope this study will motivate future microdosing studies with more controlled designs to test this hypothesis.
Research Summary of 'Exploring the effect of microdosing psychedelics on creativity in an open-label natural setting'
Introduction
Microdosing — taking around one tenth of a typical recreational dose of psychedelic substances such as psilocybin-containing truffles or LSD — has recently become popular among professionals who report benefits for productivity, mood, and creativity. Previous controlled research on psychedelics has focused largely on moderate to large doses, which induce pronounced perceptual and cognitive changes and have shown effects on wellbeing, openness and clinical symptoms; however, empirical data on the psychological effects of microdosing are largely anecdotal or qualitative. Classical psychedelics act primarily at serotonin 2A receptors (5-HT2A), and 5-HT2A agonism has been linked in animal and human work to enhanced cognitive flexibility and associative learning, making creativity a plausible behavioural target for microdosing. Prochazkova and colleagues set out to provide a first quantitative investigation of the acute cognitive effects of a microdose of psychedelic truffles in a naturalistic setting. The study specifically tested whether microdosing affects convergent thinking (the ability to find a single correct solution) and divergent thinking (the ability to generate many novel solutions), using the Picture Concept Task (PCT) and the Alternate Uses Task (AUT), respectively, and included a short Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM) as a measure of fluid intelligence to probe specificity. Given prior findings linking psychedelics and cognitive flexibility, the investigators anticipated improvements in divergent thinking but were agnostic about the effect on convergent thinking and general intelligence.
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Study Details
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- APA Citation
Prochazkova, L., Lippelt, D. P., Colzato, L. S., Kuchar, M., Sjoerds, Z., & Hommel, B. (2018). Exploring the effect of microdosing psychedelics on creativity in an open-label natural setting. Psychopharmacology, 235(12), 3401-3413. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-018-5049-7
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