Psychedelics Research Links May 2020

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

• Some Comments on Psychedelic Research (good critical questions about blinding (difficult), what to treat, what to study – from psychiatry perspective)

• Psilocybin: from ancient magic to modern medicine (review article by David E. Nichols on the history and current studies on psilocybin)

• Psychedelic treatment of functional neurological disorder: a systematic review (review of 9 studies (n=26) on psychedelics and FND, no solid results)

• Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained: Regulations Cripple Potentially Life-Saving Research of Illicit Substances (critique of current drug classifications and call for reclassification)

• The Trials of Psychedelic Therapy: LSD Psychotherapy in America (review article)

• Compassionate use of psychedelics (discussion of ethics that argues that it’s morally permissible to give psychedelic psychotherapy)

• Integrating psychotherapy and psychopharmacology: psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and other combined treatments (narrative review, authors associated with MAPS)

• Early and Contemporary Human Neuroimaging Studies of Serotonergic Psychedelics (review of neuroimaging techniques on studying psychedelics in humans)

• Microdosing as a response to the meaning crisis: a qualitative analysis (pre-print, survey data shows that microdoses are difficult to fine-tune, and illicit meaning (but still could be placebo))

• Psychedelic research and the need for transparency: Polishing Alice’s Looking Glass (pre-print, critique and call for more transparency, especially with growing for-profit interest)

• Efficacy of psychedelic treatments on depressive symptoms: A meta-analysis (positive analysis that included 8 studies with an average of -1 standardized mean difference score at 6 months)

• A mechanistic model of the neural entropy increase elicited by psychedelic drugs (simulating whole-brain resting state, specific entropy increases, building on Entropic Brain hypothesis)

• A global workspace, evolution-based model of the effect of psychedelics on consciousness (review of biological and mental effects of psychedelics – using a wide definition of psychedelics)

• Chronic pain and psychedelics: a review and proposed mechanism of action (review of interesting area where psychedelics may help, chronic pain)

• The Viability of Microdosing Psychedelics as a Strategy to Enhance Cognition and Well-being – An Early Review (yet another ‘we can’t draw conclusions’ review of microdosing)

• A randomized placebo-controlled PET study of ketamine´s effect on serotonin1B receptor binding in patients with SSRI-resistant depression (study on ketamine’s brain mechanism effects, specifically the 1B serotonin receptor)

• Clinical Utility of Repeated Intravenous Ketamine Treatment for Resistant Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (small study (n=14), repeated doses, improvements for 3 patients)

• What Is the Lived Experience of Fully Integrating the Benefits of MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD? (dissertation, qualitative study of the integration of MDMA therapy for PTSD)

• MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for people diagnosed with treatment-resistant PTSD: what it is and what it isn’t (critical review of MDMA therapy for PTSD, from psychiatry perspective)

• Chronic Stress Pathology and Ketamine-Induced Alterations in Functional Connectivity in Major Depressive Disorder: An Abridged Review of the Clinical Evidence (analysis of ketamine’s effect on the brain)

• Editorial: Hallucinogens and Entactogens: Establishing a New Class of Psychotherapeutic Drugs? (editorial)

• How Does Ayahuasca Work From a Psychiatric Perspective? Pros and Cons of the Entheogenic Therapy (review)

• Development of a Pencil Drawn Paper-based Analytical Device to Detect Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) (detecting LSD and MDMA with a paper-based technique)

• Binding Interactions of Psilocin and Serotonin in the 5-HT2A Receptor (study on how psilocybin and serotonin docked in a crystallized 5-HT2A receptor)