Imperial College London
Alternate

Professor Robin Carhart-Harris

Faculty of Medicine, Department of Brain Sciences

Visiting Professor
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7992r.carhart-harris

 
 
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Assistant

 

Miss Bruna Cunha +44 (0)20 7594 7992

 
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Location

 

Burlington DanesHammersmith Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Gabay:2018:10.1038/s41598-018-26656-2,
author = {Gabay, AS and Carhart-Harris, RL and Mazibuko, N and Kempton, MJ and Morrison, PD and Nutt, DJ and Mehta, MA},
doi = {10.1038/s41598-018-26656-2},
journal = {SCIENTIFIC REPORTS},
title = {Psilocybin and MDMA reduce costly punishment in the Ultimatum Game},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-26656-2},
volume = {8},
year = {2018}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Disruptions in social decision-making are becoming evident in many psychiatric conditions. These are studied using paradigms investigating the psychological mechanisms underlying interpersonal interactions, such as the Ultimatum Game (UG). Rejection behaviour in the UG represents altruistic punishment – the costly punishment of norm violators – but the mechanisms underlying it require clarification. To investigate the psychopharmacology of UG behaviour, we carried out two studies with healthy participants, employing serotonergic agonists: psilocybin (open-label, within-participant design, N = 19) and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA; placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover design, N = 20). We found that both MDMA and psilocybin reduced rejection of unfair offers (odds ratio: 0.57 and 0.42, respectively). The reduction in rejection rate following MDMA was associated with increased prosociality (R2 = 0.26, p = 0.025). In the MDMA study, we investigated third-party decision-making and proposer behaviour. MDMA did not reduce rejection in the third-party condition, but produced an increase in the amount offered to others (Cohen’s d = 0.82). We argue that these compounds altered participants’ conceptualisation of ‘social reward’, placing more emphasis on the direct relationship with interacting partners. With these compounds showing efficacy in drug-assisted psychotherapy, these studies are an important step in the further characterisation of their psychological effects.
AU  - Gabay,AS
AU  - Carhart-Harris,RL
AU  - Mazibuko,N
AU  - Kempton,MJ
AU  - Morrison,PD
AU  - Nutt,DJ
AU  - Mehta,MA
DO  - 10.1038/s41598-018-26656-2
PY  - 2018///
SN  - 2045-2322
TI  - Psilocybin and MDMA reduce costly punishment in the Ultimatum Game
T2  - SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-26656-2
UR  - http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000433290000015&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/61563
VL  - 8
ER  -
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