Answer Addiction

Tag: psychedelic drugs

  • Ibogaine: Promising Addiction Treatment or Snake Oil?

    Ibogaine: Promising Addiction Treatment or Snake Oil?

    The induced vivid hallucinations and memories of childhood and formative experiences seem to be the key to ibogaine’s effectiveness in treating addiction, but experts don’t fully understand its mechanisms.

    With the rise in interest of various psychedelic drugs for a range of conditions (MDMA for PTSD, and ketamine and psilocybin mushrooms for treatment-resistant depression, to name a few), it seems only fair that we should pay serious attention to other substances in this family that might treat other conditions.

    Introducing ibogaine. Well, not quite introducing. The fairly-obscure African plant, used traditionally in Gabon, was first patented in the United States for use in treating opioid addiction in 1985. Unlike common street drugs such as MDMA (“ecstasy,” “molly”), ibogaine does not have the reputation of being known as a club drug.

    Like Years of Therapy in One Day

    But Ibogaine is still relatively unknown, despite a guest appearance in an early episode of Homeland. When I have advocated for its use in combating our nation’s opioid crisis, most of the responses range from a confused “What?” to an inquisitive “Oh, yeah. I’ve heard of that.” It isn’t a cheap thrill, something folks are clamoring to ingest. People who have found relief with the African root-bark have compared it to receiving years of therapy in the course of one day. The induced vivid hallucinations and memories of childhood and formative experiences seem to facilitate the process of overcoming addictions, even if it isn’t an automatic or guaranteed cure.

    However, that doesn’t mean it’s free of stigma. The federal government classifies it as schedule one – right up there with heroin, the addiction it is most well-known for treating, despite having “no medical use” according to the law. Statistics vary, with some rates as low as 20 percent. Other data shows  61% abstinence, eight months after treatment.

    So, what’s the issue? If this plant boasts a higher success rate than Suboxone (8.6%, once Suboxone use is discontinued), why is it only available outside the U.S.? Why are we not allowing a treatment method that people with opioid use disorder have touted as the thing that saved their lives?

    Why Is Ibogaine Illegal in the U.S.?

    Some of the fault lies with the media. Much like with LSD, clinical studies are slow and evolution of public consciousness is slower. Most of what we see in the news is negative and exaggerated. As with anything, there are risks. Up to 30 deaths have been documented. When people with other health problems related to addiction are treated by those without medical training, death rates can be as high as three percent. In healthy folks, that same rate is around .3%. 

    But when much of what you see in the news and on television is people panicking, convulsing, or dying, it’s tough to form a well-rounded opinion. We are emotional creatures, and even with positive perspectives from people who swear by their experiences, we can’t get the negative images out of our minds for long enough to consider the benefits of ibogaine treatment. 

    Many of the risks involve heart issues. Most psychedelics function as stimulants, raising the heart rate, but ibogaine can be especially cardiotoxic. Ibogaine affects electricity in the heart and could potentially result in dangerous arrhythmias or bradycardia (low heart rate). Because of this and any other possible risks, legitimate clinics pre-screen patients and offer a small test dose to evaluate the effects. Based on the results, they decide if a full dose will be safely tolerated. 

    Like Other Hallucinogenics, Proven Benefits but Not a Panacea

    The substance seems to work due to the uniqueness of the experience. I’ve read multiple accounts of people having vivid visions of the choices they made, and how they’ve arrived at this particular point in their life. This type of experience seems to be the key to its effectiveness in treating severe opioid and alcohol addictions, but experts don’t fully understand its mechanisms.

    And yet, even with its proven benefits, it’s not a panacea. The person with the addiction cannot just visit a clinic, have an ibogaine experience, and expect to return home without changing anything. There is still a rate of relapse, because they haven’t worked on the external triggers. They must still tackle their disease in a proactive way, which may include altering their life and addressing what led to using in the first place.

    Unlike commonly-used routes of getting off opioids – substitution medications such as methadone and Suboxone – ibogaine doesn’t require a patient to remain on another drug, taking it day in and day out to avoid experiencing cravings or going into withdrawal. Ibogaine seems to work by disrupting the receptors associated with addictive behaviors, as was witnessed in one 2015 study on its efficacy in opioid addiction.

    Scientists found that the substance (which, I learned, doesn’t always produce the talked-about hallucinogenic effects that led to its illegal status) acts on receptors such as dopamine and serotonin, which are linked to addiction and the brain’s reward system. Other psychedelics that are currently being studied for their effects on mental illness and addiction – such as MDMA and psilocybin mushrooms – make use of these same receptors. What makes ibogaine unique is that, rather than attaching to receptors on the outside of a cell membrane, it attaches to the inside. This mechanism seems to be unique to ibogaine; it has not been observed in any other naturally occurring molecule.

    Legal Status of Treatment Creates Financial Barrier and Increased Risk

    A major barrier to receiving an ibogaine treatment is the prohibitive cost. A single week of treatment in Mexico costs $5,000, and that’s after the price of a plane ticket. In Canada, the price for a ten-day round is $8,000. As a result, it’s not an option that’s available to most people in need of addiction treatment.

    We must legalize it here. International travel, necessary funds, time off from your job to recover – all these restrictions make it virtually impossible for the average person with treatment-resistant addiction to crack the barriers of that final, desperate chance at a life beyond drugs or alcohol.

    There is a strong, tight-knit movement of psychedelic therapists, but due to the criminalized status of what should be viewed as medicine, those involved with administering these substances remain underground, increasing risks. Even though many of these practitioners are medical doctors, they work without the support of a hospital or facility. While their willingness to practice this medicine outside of the law is a testament to their belief in its efficacy, it also means they are less able to quickly and safely address problems that may come up.

    Who knows what the genuine death toll of ibogaine is in the U.S.? It’s not likely that underground doctors are reporting these deaths to nurses and other hospital staff. If so, they’d be discovered, in turn ruining their careers and possibly derailing the entire growing movement. At least, that’s what instinct tells me. If nothing else, with the substance legalized, fewer deaths and injuries would occur due to more rigorous testing and administering – and consequently fewer accidents would happen as well.

    Ibogaine has shown lasting benefits in treating addiction, as many people attest. One patient was quoted as saying: “It’s not just [that] it gets you off the heroin, it’s like, it hits the reset button — that’s the only way to really explain it. It’s like a new brain.” Shouldn’t we be listening to the voices of people who have actually been there, rather than tossing their words to the wind and sticking with what hasn’t worked?

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Can VR Mimic A Psychedelic Drug Experience?

    Can VR Mimic A Psychedelic Drug Experience?

    A new psychedelic virtual reality experience has some questioning if VR can provide the same psychedelic experience as the real thing.

    A new feature in the form of a psychedelic virtual reality experience at the Tribeca Film Festival this year has the Pacific Standard wondering if VR technology could create anything close to a replacement for drugs like LSD, psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca.

    Ayahuasca, a substance made from the Banisteriopsis caapi vine found in the Amazon basin, is also the name of the 12-minute “virtual arcade” exhibit offered at the festival.

    “Participants are immersed in visions triggered by a dose of ayahuasca,” the exhibit’s description reads. “The spectator lives this through director Jan Kounen’s eyes as he travels on a spiritual voyage.”

    Perceived Reality

    In some ways, psychedelic drugs and virtual reality do produce similar experiences. Both alter one’s perceived reality, resulting in an emotional experience while the individual is aware (typically) that what they are seeing or hearing isn’t really there.

    Skip Rizzo, director for medical virtual reality at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies, says, “We can create these simulated worlds that fool some of the brain, but not the whole brain.”

    That’s because the amygdala responds to convincing virtual danger as though it’s real, producing a fear response complete with a pounding heart. However, because the frontal lobes know everything is safe, the response is diminished.

    Mental Health Treatment

    Researchers are already looking into how virtual reality could be used to treat mental illness due to the technology’s ability to reproduce this kind of emotion. University of California psychiatry researcher Michelle Craske is currently working on using VR to treat anhedonia, a particularly stubborn symptom of depression and other mental illnesses.

    There are certainly differences between how the brain reacts to a colorful virtual reality experience and how it reacts to a drug like ayahuasca. However, not much is known about how psychedelics affect the human brain due to the fact that they have only been studied since the 1990s.

    “And there hasn’t been a proper perception researcher that’s really studied these drugs. So we really don’t know the actual patterns that people are experiencing when they have these drugs,” said John Hopkins Psychedelic Research Unit neuropsychopharmacologist Manoj Doss. “Is there a predictable change there, do certain colors pop out more, or all the colors pop out more? We don’t know.”

    Once psychedelics are studied more, Doss believes that information could absolutely be used to make better, and more trippy, virtual reality experiences.

    Rizzo, however, does not think that VR could come close to giving users the same experience as an actual psychedelic drug.

    “I hate to say it, and I might sound like an old fart here. But I just don’t see it being capable of inducing that [emotional] state to that level that you can get with a big time acid trip,” he says.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Study: Psychedelics Change The Way People With Depression Read Faces

    Study: Psychedelics Change The Way People With Depression Read Faces

    Researchers believe that even one dose of a psychedelic could change the way that people read facial expressions.

    Psychedelics may help alleviate the symptoms of depression and anxiety by making sufferers more adept at reading other people’s facial expressions, according to a recent review of scientific studies.

    The review, published in the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology, looked at eight previous studies that examined the effects of psychedelics. The authors of the review found that psychedelics changed how people read facial expressions, and that change had an effect on their symptoms of mental illness.

    “Our most consistent finding was that these drugs reduced the recognition of negative emotions and modulated amygdala activity to these stimuli. This effect was correlated with antidepressive effects in depressed patients,” study authors wrote.

    They noted that the pool they reviewed was small, so there is a need for further review. Still, they said the results were promising.

    “Despite the small sample sizes, results suggest that serotonergic hallucinogens show promising beneficial effects on deficits in recognition of emotions in facial expressions,” they wrote.

    People with depression and anxiety often have unusual patterns of social cognition, in particular when it comes to interpreting other people’s facial expressions.

    “Some studies show that people with anxiety and mood disorders have deficits in the recognition of facial expressions,” study authors wrote. “For example, in social anxiety disorder, which is characterized by fear of undergoing criticism or negative judgment in social situations, there is hypervigilance to facial expressions of fear, sadness, and joy, and these expressions act as indicators of threat or social reinforcement according to the phenotype of the disorder.”

    Researchers found that even one dose of a psychedelic could change the way that people read facial expressions, and help alleviate depression symptoms.

    “Indeed, the studies reviewed showed that a single dose or a few doses of LSD or psilocybin was associated with a modified pattern of recognition of negative emotions that could be interpreted as beneficial, since several of these studies showed that these modifications were correlated with increases in positive mood and/or anxiolytic and antidepressant effects,” the study authors wrote.

    Psychedelics weren’t the only drugs that changed emotional facial perceptions. The study authors also found that MDMA (ecstasy) has similar effects.

    “There is also evidence that the serotonergic drug MDMA consistently reduces identification of negative emotions in tasks of face recognition and decreases the activity of the amygdala,” they wrote, adding that this could be similar to the way pharmaceutical antidepressants work.

    ”These mechanisms, associated with the capacity of MDMA to enhance serotonergic tone in the prefrontal cortex, could be shared mechanisms with traditional antidepressants and classic hallucinogens for emotional regulation in subjects with mood and anxiety disorders.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wants To Make It Easier To Research Psychedelic Drugs

    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wants To Make It Easier To Research Psychedelic Drugs

    Ocasio-Cortez’s new legislation is timely, falling in line with the recent decriminalization of psychedelic drugs in Oakland and Denver.

    Some democratic leaders, including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are pushing for amendments that would make it easier to research the medical benefits of certain drugs. 

    On Friday (June 7), Ocasio-Cortez filed legislation that would eliminate an obstacle that often prevents scientists from being able to study any “medical benefits of psychedelic drugs,” including psilocybin and MDMA.

    The obstacle scientists speak of stems from a previous law that doesn’t allow the spending of federal funds for “any activity that promotes the legalization of any drug or other substance in Schedule I” of the Controlled Substances Act, Forbes reports. 

    The possible medical benefits of such drugs stem from psilocybin, also known as “magic mushrooms.” According to a summary of Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal, psilocybin has “shown promise in end of life therapy and treating PTSD.” 

    The summary also states that such provisions that are already in place just perpetuate stigma and block research. 

    “Academics and scientists report that provisions like this create [stigma] and insurmountable logistical hurdles to researching schedule I drugs,” it reads. 

    Marijuana is also a Schedule I drug and often those researching it face the same obstacles which have been in place since 1996. 

    “This language has served as a gag rule on government employees discussing the benefits of legalization,” said Michael Collins, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. “We are moving away from the war on drugs—slowly but surely—and language like this belongs in Nancy Reagan’s journal, not in a Democrat bill.”

    Rep. Lou Correa is also taking action and filed a separate amendment, Forbes reports. His would block the Department of Education from taking action “to deny or limit any funding or assistance to institutions of higher education.” This fear of losing funding, Forbes states, is often the reason that certain educational institutions do not allow students to use medical marijuana on campus.

    These amendments are in line with a recent vote in Denver, Colorado, in which a ballot measure was approved to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms. Additionally, in Oakland, California, the City Council recently voted to decriminalize magic mushrooms, ayahuasca, mescaline and ibogaine.

    Both amendments will be reviewed on Monday (June 10) by the House Rules Committee, which will determine whether they will be voted on at a later time. 

    Though unknown if the amendments will move forward, Rules Committee Chairman, Rep. James McGovern, has spoken candidly about his view on such amendments. 

    “I’m not going to block marijuana amendments like my predecessor has done,” he said last year, according to Forbes. “As chairman of the Rules Committee, I’m not going to block marijuana amendments. People ought to bring them to the floor, they should be debated and people ought to vote the way they feel appropriate.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • 1,000-Year-Old Psychedelic Drug Kit Discovered By Archaeologists

    1,000-Year-Old Psychedelic Drug Kit Discovered By Archaeologists

    The “ritual bundle” contained ayahuasca ingredients and traces of cocaine.

    An ancient ritual bundle recovered in Bolivia shows that people having been using psychoactive drugs for millennia. 

    The bundle contained harmine and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), the two primary ingredients of ayahuasca, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Ayahuasca, which causes people to hallucinate and vomit, has become a popular drug with spiritual adventurers who extol its supposed health benefits. 

    “Our findings support the idea that people have been using these powerful plants for at least 1,000 years, combining them to go on a psychedelic journey, and that ayahuasca use may have roots in antiquity,” said archaeologist Melanie Miller, of the University of California, Berkeley, who led the team of researchers who analyzed the bundle. 

    “This is the first evidence of ancient South Americans potentially combining different medicinal plants to produce a powerful substance like ayahuasca,” Miller said. 

    In addition to the ingredients in ayahuasca, the bundle also contained traces of cocaine. The bundle, which was made from three fox snouts sewn together, contained spatulas and spoons for snorting drugs. Miller said that it was likely used by a shaman or someone who worked with medicinal plants. The team believes the pouch is from the Tiwanaku, a pre-Inca civilization that “dominated the southern Andean highlands from about 550 to 950 A.D.”

    Miller said the pouch was “the most amazing artifact I’ve had the privilege to work with.”

    She said, “A lot of these plants, if consumed in the wrong dosage, could be very poisonous, so, whoever owned this bundle would need to have had great knowledge and skills about how to use these plants, and how and where to procure them.”

    Miller said that the properties that make ayahuasca popular today likely made it important to the ancients. 

    “The tryptamine DMT produces strong, vivid hallucinations that can last from minutes to an hour, but combined with harmine, you can have prolonged out-of-body altered states of consciousness with altered perceptions of time and of the self,” she said.

    The bundle was initially found in a cave site by archeologists from Bolivia and Pennsylvania State University. Those archeologists contacted Miller to help identify the contents of the bundle and to assist with the final excavation. Because of the altitude where the bundle was found it was in good condition. 

    “We were amazed to see the incredible preservation of these compounds in this ritual bundle,” said Miller. “I feel very lucky to have been a part of this research.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Activists Want Legalization For Psychedelics

    Activists Want Legalization For Psychedelics

    Oakland activists are holding a rally to push for the legalization of psychedelic drugs. 

    As legalized marijuana creeps into the mainstream, advocates for drug policy reform are setting their sights on a new goal—legalizing psychedelics. 

    Organizers in Oakland, California are the latest to push for legalizing psychedelic drugs including mushrooms, according to Marijuana Moment. 

    A Meetup post advertising efforts to “decriminalize nature” invites people to participate in a rally on March 22 in the city. 

    “With your help we can make this happen, but we need everybody’s support. Join the movement to restore our relationship to nature and advocate for our inalienable right to cognitive liberty and the freedom to explore our own consciousness,” the post reads.

    It continues, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have the freedom to work with these ancient sacred medicines that offer direct knowledge without the fear of persecution? Wouldn’t it be nice to address the set and setting elephant in the room—to reduce the immediate fear of persecution involved while engaging our right to access natural healing and insight—by decriminalizing entheogenic plants and fungi?”

    A representative of the meetup told Marijuana Moment that more details would be shared at the rally. 

    The event in Oakland isn’t entirely unusual. In Denver, an area that helped lead the movement to legalize marijuana, voters will consider a ballot measure to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms in May. The effort is lead by Decriminalize Denver, and director Kevin Matthews said that just getting the measure on the ballot is significant. 

    “This has never been done before in the history of the U.S., so the fact that we were able to turn out the signatures and make the ballot is a strong statement that there are a lot of people who support this,” Matthews told Marijuana Moment. “We’ve created a platform where we can spread the right information about psilocybin as opposed to the misinformation and, really just downright propaganda from the government, and the war on drugs for the last almost 50 years now.”

    Matthews said that if decriminalization passes in Denver, the group may focus on more widespread change to laws regulating psychedelics. 

    He said, “We are confident that when this passes in May that it’ll open some doors to further conversation. Our big mission here is to work on reintegrating psilocybin back into society.”

    In Iowa, a new Republican lawmaker, Rep. Jeff Shipley, submitted legislation that would allow psilocybin, MDMA and ibogaine to be used in medical treatments by removing a ban on them. 

    “Exploring these issues are paramount to solving the healthcare crisis,” Shipley said in an email to Marijuana Moment. “There’s so much potential for research and clinical applications. I hope we can empower and trust patients to make their own best decisions.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Gwyneth Paltrow Thinks Psychedelic Drugs May Be Next Wellness Trend

    Gwyneth Paltrow Thinks Psychedelic Drugs May Be Next Wellness Trend

    Paltrow believes that ibogaine—a psychoactive substance made from a West African plant—has the potential to help the culture “evolve,”

    No one really knows what’s next in the wellness world — but according to Gwyneth Paltrow, it may be psychedelic drugs.

    In a recent interview with the New York Times, the actress and founder of the wellness brand goop was asked about what may be the next big thing. 

    “I think how psychedelics affect health and mental health and addiction will come more into the mainstream,” she told the Times. “I mean there’s undeniably some link between being in that state and being connected to some other universal cosmic something.”

    Paltrow tells the Times that she has never tried any type of psychoactive drug herself, though she said she believes that ibogaine — a psychoactive substance made from a West African plant —  has the potential to help the culture “evolve,” according to Page Six. 

    Paltrow told the Times that she and goop have been ahead of the curve with other trends. 

    “When we talk about something that is incendiary, I always see in six months other people starting to write about it, and 18 months later, businesses popping up around it,” she said. “It’s always confirmation to me that we’re on the right track. I mean, when I did my gluten-free cookbook in 2015, the press was super negative and there were personal attacks about what I was feeding my children and what kind of mother I am. Now the gluten-free market is huge.”

    Paltrow began goop about 10 years ago as a newsletter of sorts, and in the time since it has grown into a “modern lifestyle brand,” according to the website. 

    “We believe that the little things count, that good food is the foundation of love and wellness, that the mind/body/spirit is inextricably linked, and we have more control over how we express our health than we currently understand,” goop’s website reads.  

    In the past, according to Page Six, goop has faced some backlash for its “misleading” claims and it even paid $145,000 in civil penalties in September of last year in a case involving a vaginal egg. 

    Paltrow acknowledges the company’s mistakes, but says it never has claimed to be “prescriptive” with its recommendations. 

    “When we were young and not even monetizing the business and just sort of creating content, we didn’t necessarily understand anything about claims. We just thought, ‘Oh, this is a cool alternative modality, let’s write about it,’” she told the Times. “Of course we’ve made some mistakes along the way, but we’ve never been prescriptive. We’ve never said, ‘You should try this,’ or ‘This works.’ We’re just saying, ‘Wow, this is interesting, let’s have a Q and A with this person who practices this.’ And then that somehow gets translated into, ‘Gwyneth says you should do this.’”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Could Microdosing Psychedelics Treat Mood Disorders?

    Could Microdosing Psychedelics Treat Mood Disorders?

    A new study investigated whether low doses of psychedelic drugs could have an antidepressant effect. 

    Individuals in and out of the medical community have long been fascinated with psychedelic drugs and their short- and long-term mind-altering effects.

    Some people with depression believe the drugs have the ability to treat mental health disorders, and new research indicates they may be right.

    A study published in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience found that rats who received tiny doses of the psychedelic N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) experienced an antidepressant effect, but no negative effects on their memories. 

    “Taken together, the data presented here suggest that subhallucinogenic doses of psychedelic compounds might possess value for treating and/or preventing mood and anxiety disorders,” study authors wrote. However, they warned that more research is needed into the safety and effectiveness of microdosing in humans.  

    “Despite the therapeutic potential of psychedelic microdosing, this practice is not without risks, and future studies need to better define the potential for negative neurobiological or metabolic repercussions,” they wrote. 

    The data suggests that people who extol the virtues of using psychedelics to treat depression and trauma may be on to something. 

    “These antidepressant-like and anxiolytic-like effects are consistent with the anecdotal human reports regarding psychedelic microdosing providing strong supporting evidence that psychedelic microdosing might actually have therapeutic potential,” study authors wrote. “Compounds capable of enhancing fear extinction learning in rodents, such as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) are excellent candidates for treating PTSD symptoms in humans.”

    With microdosing, an individual would receive enough of a drug to stimulate brain changes, but not enough to induce hallucinations. Finding the most effective amount may be time consuming, but researchers expressed “cautious optimism” that it could be done effectively.

    “The overall psychedelic microdosing load, which includes the amount of drug in each dose, the frequency of administration, and the length of treatment, is likely to be critical for achieving the beneficial effects of psychedelic microdosing without negative repercussions,” they wrote. 

    Proponents of psychedelics say that the drugs—even taken at high doses—can help alleviate symptoms of depression, addiction and other mental health conditions. In fact, during the 1950s and ’60s, psychedelics were a mainstream treatment option in Canada. Today, many people with addiction turn to ibogaine treatment, which is illegal in the United States, to help them heal from addiction and trauma. 

    Kevin Franciotti wrote for The Fix about his experience using ibogaine to treat his addiction: 

    “Each month throughout the year following my single dose treatment, an investigator called me to administer an outcomes interview measuring my addiction severity, and mailed me additional scales to fill out myself. At the end of my participation in the trial, ratings for depression, anxiety, and addiction severity had plummeted, reflecting the new lease on life ibogaine had brought me.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Microdosing Study Yields Mixed Results

    Microdosing Study Yields Mixed Results

    Researchers explored the physical and mental effects of microdosing in a new study.

    The practice of microdosing—consuming very small amounts of psychedelic substances like psilocybin, allegedly to increase mental capacities—has gained popularity among individuals who have reported greater focus, happiness and creativity from the practice.

    To determine whether these claims had any validity, researchers conducted a study that posed a daily series of questions to regular microdosing proponents about their mental and emotional responses to their chosen substances.

    Their responses—which highlighted mostly positive but also negative reactions—underscored both the researchers’ and High Times‘ assessments that the subject was worthy of further study.

    The study, conducted by researchers from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia and published in the journal PLOS One, recruited 98 participants to conduct its research. And to circumvent any legal issues involved the study of psychedelics, all of the subjects were already involved in microdosing.

    Over the course of a six-week period, the participants were tasked with answering sets of questions on a daily basis, as well as a separate and more intensive set at the beginning and end of the six-week timeframe.

    Upon reviewing the results, the researchers found that the majority of the participants reported that their experiences were largely positive. They claimed to experience an increase in a number of areas, including creativity, focus, happiness and productivity, on days when they microdosed. Such reactions were reported less on days when doses were not taken.

    Participants also claimed that they experienced lower levels of depression and stress, though study author Vince Polito also noted that none of the 98 participants reported problems with either condition prior to the launch of the study.

    While most of the responses skewed positive, some participants also reported a slight increase in neurotic feelings at the conclusion of the six-week test. Additionally, some reported such a negative response to their first experience with the psychedelic substances that they stopped their involvement after that initial experiment. 

    Noting that the participants’ previous and/or regular experiences might cause a degree of bias in their responses, the researchers also queried a group of 263 microdosers with varying degrees of experience about pre-existing beliefs and expectations about microdosing.

    The researchers found that while all participants believed that microdosing would produce considerable and extensive benefits, what they believed would happen was markedly different than what was reported by the actual group undergoing the microdosing. 

    As High Times noted, Polito and his co-author, Richard J. Stevenson, observed that their study was based on very broad and general information, and was drawn from personal questionnaires and not scientific experiments.

    Still, Polito noted that their findings showed “promising indications of possible benefits of microdosing, [as well as] indications of some potential negative impacts, which should be taken seriously.”

    The study authors concluded that research on microdosing is in its early stages, and requires more comprehensive studies to make more specific determinations.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Can Psychedelics Really Help Fight Addiction And Depression?

    Can Psychedelics Really Help Fight Addiction And Depression?

    New research explored whether psychedelics can “rewire the brain” and potentially cure a number of ailments.

    New research reinforces the idea of psychedelics’ potential to treat depression, substance use disorder and more, according to Science Daily.

    “People have long assumed that psychedelics are capable of altering neuronal structure, but this is the first study that clearly and unambiguously supports that hypothesis,” said lead author David Olson of the University of California, Davis.

    When a person is experiencing depression, anxiety, substance use disorder or post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), their neurites are affected. Neurites facilitate communication between neurons by bridging the gap between two neurons at the synapse, the point of communication. (Neurites become axons and dendrites.)

    However, when a person is suffering from any of the above, their neurites are not as active. “One of the hallmarks of depression is that the neurites in the prefrontal cortex—a key brain region that regulates emotion, mood, and anxiety—those neurites tend to shrivel up,” said Olson.

    But the research, published in the journal Cell Reports, observed that the psychedelics tested—LSD, DMT, MDMA, DOI (an amphetamine)— had the opposite effect.

    Instead, they promoted neurite growth, increasing both the density of dendritic spines and the density of synapses. In other words, the psychedelics had a positive effect on the brain’s neural plasticity, by making neurons more likely to branch out and connect with one another, according to Science Daily.

    The research observed these effects in rats and flies, but Olson and his team predict that the psychedelics will have the same effects in humans.

    “These are some of the most powerful compounds known to affect brain function, it’s very obvious to me that we should understand how they work,” said Olson.

    The findings offer a greater variety of potential antidepressant therapies. Previously, ketamine has shown promise in treating depression and suicidal ideation.

    According to Science Daily, some of the psychedelics tested in Olson’s research, including LSD, were even more effective than ketamine in promoting neural plasticity.

    “Ketamine is no longer our only option. Our work demonstrates that there are a number of distinct chemical scaffolds capable of promoting plasticity like ketamine, providing additional opportunities for medicinal chemists to develop safer and more effective alternatives,” said Olson.

    View the original article at thefix.com