Interrupting the Psychedelic Experience Through Contextual Manipulation to Study Experience Efficacy
Carhart-Harris, R. L., Erritzoe, D., Nutt, D. J., Roseman, L., Timmermann, C.
This secondary analysis from a DMT study explores the impact of intentional cognitive interruptions on psychedelic experiences. The study investigates whether increasing cognitive load during the experience affects subjective ratings, hypothesizing that higher task demands would lower these ratings. Additionally, it examines whether reduced task demands correlate with larger reductions in long-term depressive symptoms.
Abstract
Under the psychedelic therapy paradigm, instead of looking at drug efficacy, researchers look at experience efficacy, defined as how certain experiences can be therapeutic. To test experience efficacy, researchers need to develop new research tools to manipulate the experience without changing the pharmacology. We suggest that intentional cognitive interruptions can help inquire into experience efficacy by experimentally interfering with the experience. To strengthen this suggestion, we present a secondary analysis from our 2023 N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) study, investigating whether it is possible to interrupt the psychedelic experience by increasing cognitive load and whether an interrupted experience is associated with reduced long-term mental health changes. We hypothesized that subjective ratings of the psychedelic experience would be lower when task demands were higher and reductions in long-term depressive symptoms would be larger with fewer task demands during the experience.