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Journal articleO'Connor S, Godfrey K, Reed S, et al., 2025,
Study Protocol for 'PsilOCD: A Pharmacological Challenge Study Evaluating the Effects of the 5-HT2A Agonist Psilocybin on the Neurocognitive and Clinical Correlates of Compulsivity'.
, Cureus, Vol: 17, ISSN: 2168-8184BACKGROUND: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a complex condition marked by persistent distressing thoughts and repetitive behaviours. Despite its prevalence, the mechanisms behind OCD remain elusive, and current treatments are limited. This protocol outlines an investigative study for individuals with OCD, exploring the potential of psilocybin to improve key components of cognition implicated in the disorder. The PsilOCD study strives to assess the effects of low-moderate psilocybin treatment (10 mg) alongside non-interventional therapy on several facets of OCD. The main focus points of PsilOCD are cognitive flexibility, measured with cognitive tests, and neuroplasticity, assessed through electroencephalography (EEG). METHODS: 20 blinded participants with OCD will complete two dosing sessions, separated by four weeks, where they will receive 1 mg of psilocybin on the first and 10 mg on the second. The first dose serves as an active placebo, and the latter is a low-moderate dose that induces relatively mild-moderate emotional and perceptual effects. Participants will be supported by trained psychedelic therapists, who will sit with them during each dosing session and provide virtual preparation and integration sessions over the 12-week study period. Therapeutic support will be the same for both the 1 mg and 10 mg sessions. PsilOCD's primary outcomes include scores in the intradimensional-extradimensional (ID-ED) shift task, which is an established measure of cognitive flexibility, and neuroplasticity as quantified by a visual long-term potentiation (vLTP) task. This task is delivered as part of an EEG paradigm and measures acute quantified changes in neuroplasticity in the brain's visual system. The ID-ED task will be conducted twice, two days after each dosing session, and the EEG recordings will also be taken twice, immediately after each session. Secondary outcome assessments will include OCD and affective symptom severity, as well as an array of patien
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Journal articleO'Connor S, Godfrey K, Reed S, et al., 2025,
Correction: Study Protocol for 'PsilOCD: A Pharmacological Challenge Study Evaluating the Effects of the 5-HT2A Agonist Psilocybin on the Neurocognitive and Clinical Correlates of Compulsivity'.
, Cureus, Vol: 17, ISSN: 2168-8184[This corrects the article DOI: 10.7759/cureus.78171.].
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Journal articleKettner H, Roseman L, Gazzaley A, et al., 2025,
Reply to Letter to the Editor: "Psychedelics in Older Adults: Difficulties of a Clear Therapeutic Evidence".
, Am J Geriatr Psychiatry, Vol: 33, Pages: 118-119 -
Journal articleJiwani Z, Goldberg SB, Stroud J, et al., 2025,
Can psychedelic use benefit meditation practice? Examining individual, psychedelic, and meditation-related factors.
, PLoS One, Vol: 20INTRODUCTION: Meditation practice and psychedelic use have attracted increasing attention in the public sphere and scientific research. Both methods induce non-ordinary states of consciousness that may have significant therapeutic benefits. Thus, there is growing scientific interest in potential synergies between psychedelic use and meditation practice with some research suggesting that psychedelics may benefit meditation practice. The present study examined individual, psychedelic-related, and meditation-related factors to determine under what conditions meditators perceive psychedelic use as beneficial for their meditation practice. METHOD: Participants (N = 863) who had reported psychedelic use and a regular meditation practice (at least 3 times per week during the last 12 months) were included in the study. To accommodate a large number of variables, machine learning (i.e., elastic net, random forest) was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: Most participants (n = 634, 73.5%) found psychedelic use to have a positive influence on their quality of meditation. Twenty-eight variables showed significant zero-order associations with perceived benefits even following a correction. Elastic net had the best performance (R2 = .266) and was used to identify the most important features. Across 53 variables, the model found that greater use of psychedelics, intention setting during psychedelic use, agreeableness, and exposure to N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (N,N-DMT) were most likely to be associated with the perception that psychedelics benefit meditation practice. The results were consistent across several different approaches used to identify the most important variables (i.e., Shapley values, feature ablation). DISCUSSION: Results suggest that most meditators found psychedelic use to have a positive influence on their meditation practice, with: 1) regularity of psychedelic use, 2) the setting of intentions for psychedelic use, 3) having an agreeable personality, and 4) reported
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Journal articleRoseman L, 2024,
A reflection on paradigmatic tensions within the FDA advisory committee for MDMA-assisted therapy.
, J PsychopharmacolThe recent rejection of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted therapy by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a dramatic moment in the re-emergence of psychedelic research. In this perspective, I argue that it represents a case study for paradigmatic tensions within psychopharmacology. The regulatory system is still influenced by a paradigm that sees the therapeutic effects of drugs as primarily biological, and context is noise to control for. An emergent paradigm considers the therapeutic effects of drugs as interactive with context. Psychedelics are the anomaly that questions the dominant paradigm, mainly due to the determination of psychedelic researchers that the medicines are drugs with psychotherapy. While some of the critique offered by the FDA towards MAPS/Lykos's studies is crucial, much of it is related to the experiential and psychotherapeutic elements - which the FDA claims not to regulate. This leads to some paradoxes within the regulatory procedure, which hint at a need for a shift in how psychedelic-assisted therapy is regulated and researched. Both regulators and researchers will need to find ways to accommodate each other in service of a successful integration of a new paradigm in which drugs and psychotherapy interact.
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Book chapterCherniak AD, Carhart-Harris R, Gruneau Brulin J, et al., 2024,
Synthesizing Attachment Theory with the REBUS Model
, The Oxford Handbook of Psychedelic, Religious, Spiritual, and Mystical Experiences, Publisher: Oxford University Press, ISBN: 9780192844064<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>In this chapter, the authors synthesize the relational developmental perspective of attachment theory with a neuroscientific model: the RElaxed Beliefs Under pSychedelics (REBUS). This synthesis, the authors argue, can serve as an organizing framework for psychedelic science. Attachment theory posits that people develop internal working models (IWMs) of relational experiences with close others. These IWMs function as predictive models (“priors”) that, for better and for worse, contribute to people’s social and emotional worlds and organize how they navigate them. Effective psychedelic interventions may work by inducing a hyper-plastic neural state that, supported by corrective relational experiences (with therapists, God, or others), facilitates rapid and deep learning. This can include revision of IWMs toward greater security and other psychological transformations. Based on the attachment-REBUS synthesis, the authors describe three main proposals to guide future research. First, individual differences in attachment security predict the phenomenology of psychedelic experiences and processes related to their integration. Second, increasing attachment security may be a clinical outcome of efficacious psychedelic therapy. Third, among other process-level mechanisms, the clinical utility of psychedelic treatment involves attachment-related dynamics (e.g., connectedness to others and God, alleviation of attachment-related worries and defenses). Finally, the authors provide words of caution and future directions.</jats:p>
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Journal articleShinozuka K, Jerotic K, Mediano P, et al., 2024,
Synergistic, multi-level understanding of psychedelics: three systematic reviews and meta-analyses of their pharmacology, neuroimaging and phenomenology
, TRANSLATIONAL PSYCHIATRY, Vol: 14, ISSN: 2158-3188 -
Journal articleMeshkat S, Tello-Gerez TJ, Gholaminezhad F, et al., 2024,
Impact of psilocybin on cognitive function: A systematic review
, PSYCHIATRY AND CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCES, Vol: 78, Pages: 744-764, ISSN: 1323-1316 -
Journal articleQuelch D, Lingford-Hughes A, John B, et al., 2024,
Promising strategies for the prevention of alcohol-related brain damage through optimised management of acute alcohol withdrawal: A focussed literature review
, JOURNAL OF PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY, ISSN: 0269-8811 -
Journal articleMarrinan S, Schlag AK, Lynskey M, et al., 2024,
An early economic analysis of medical cannabis for the treatment of chronic pain
, EXPERT REVIEW OF PHARMACOECONOMICS & OUTCOMES RESEARCH, ISSN: 1473-7167
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