Last month, the Oregon Health Authority issued its first set of draft regulations around training programs for facilitators, setting standards, for example, for the content and hours of training. In the months leading up to these decisions, discussions from advisory board members kept bumping into medical issues, including if it’s possible for licensed mental health professionals to work as practitioners, and to what extent facilitators should ask about a patient’s medical history. National and international psychedelic companies have participated in these conversations.
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This psychoactive plant could save lives—and everyone wants to cash in
Iboga plants smuggled out of Gabon provide most of the world’s ibogaine, a drug that can help heal trauma and addiction. As the plant enters fair trade, officials hope regulation ensures equity and sustainability.
Do Psychedelics Demand an Innovative Approach to Patents?
In a recent episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver turned his sardonic attention to patents in the for-profit psychedelic business world. He referenced a Compass Pathways patent application that included claims describing the basic setting of psychedelic therapy, saying, “It’d be like me patenting the concept of wearing a suit while sitting at a desk.”
Great apes reach momentary altered mental states by spinning
Among animals, humans stand out in their consummate propensity to self-induce altered states of mind. Archaeology, history and ethnography show these activities have taken place since the beginnings of civilization, yet their role in the emergence and evolution of the human mind itself remains debatable. The means through which modern humans actively alter their experience of self and reality frequently depend on psychoactive substances, but it is uncertain whether psychedelics or other drugs were part of the ecology or culture of pre-human ancestors. Moreover, (nonhuman) great apes in captivity are currently being retired from medical research, rendering comparative approaches thus far impracticable. Here, we circumvent this limitation by harnessing the breadth of publicly available YouTube data to show that apes engage in rope spinning during solitary play. When spinning, the apes achieved speeds sufficient to alter self-perception and situational awareness that were comparable to those tapped for transcendent experiences in humans (e.g. Sufi whirling), and the number of revolutions spun predicted behavioural evidence for dizziness. Thus, spinning serves as a self-sufficient means of changing body-mind responsiveness in hominids. A proclivity for such experiences is shared between humans and great apes, and provides an entry point for the comparative study of the mechanisms, functions, and adaptive value of altered states of mind in human evolution.
I Got a Tour of the First Psychedelic Therapy Clinic in Britain
The CIPPres Clinic in London is all Scandi chic, leafy houseplants and psilocybin trials.
Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial
Cancer patients often develop chronic, clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety. Previous studies suggest that psilocybin may decrease depression and anxiety in cancer patients. The effects of psilocybin were studied in 51 cancer patients with life-threatening diagnoses and symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. This randomized, double-blind, cross-over trial investigated the effects of a very low (placebo-like) dose (1 or 3 mg/70 kg) vs. a high dose (22 or 30 mg/70 kg) of psilocybin administered in counterbalanced sequence with 5 weeks between sessions and a 6-month follow-up. Instructions to participants and staff minimized expectancy effects. Participants, staff, and community observers rated participant moods, attitudes, and behaviors throughout the study. High-dose psilocybin produced large decreases in clinician- and self-rated measures of depressed mood and anxiety, along with increases in quality of life, life meaning, and optimism, and decreases in death anxiety. At 6-month follow-up, these changes were sustained, with about 80% of participants continuing to show clinically significant decreases in depressed mood and anxiety. Participants attributed improvements in attitudes about life/self, mood, relationships, and spirituality to the high-dose experience, with >80% endorsing moderately or greater increased well-being/life satisfaction. Community observer ratings showed corresponding changes. Mystical-type psilocybin experience on session day mediated the effect of psilocybin dose on therapeutic outcomes.
Low dose ketamine infusion for comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder and chronic pain: a randomized double-blind clinical trial
Objective: To date, treatment options (i.e. psychotherapy, antidepressant medications) for patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), are relatively few, and considering their limited efficacy, novel therapies have gained interest among researchers and treatment providers alike. Among patients with chronic pain (CP) about one third experience comorbid PTSD, which further complicates their already challenging pharmacological regimens. Low dose ketamine infusion has shown promise in PTSD, and in treatment of CP, however they have not been studied in comorbid population and under rigorous control conditions.
Methods: We compared the effects of a single dose of either ketamine (0.5 mg/kg) or ketorolac (15 mg) over a 40-minute of IV infusion in CP patients with and without PTSD, in double blind, randomized study. Measures were collected before, during, one day and seven days after the infusion. A planned sample size of 40 patients randomly assigned to treatment order was estimated to provide 80% power to detect a hypothesized treatment difference after the infusion.Main Outcome and Measures: The primary outcome measures were change in PTSD symptom severity assessed with the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for pain administered by a study clinician 24 hours post infusion. Secondary outcome measures included Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), VAS and Brief Pain Inventory (Short Form) for pain 1 week after the infusion.
Results: Both treatments offered comparable improvement of PTSD and CP symptoms that persisted for 7 days after the infusion. Patients with comorbid PTSD and CP experienced less dissociative side effects compared to the CP group. Surprisingly, ketorolac infusion resulted in dissociative symptoms in CP patients only.
Conclusions: This first prospective study comparing effects of subanesthetic ketamine versus ketorolac infusions for comorbid PTSD and CP, suggests that both ketamine and ketorolac might offer meaningful and durable response for both PTSD and CP symptoms.
Salvia divinorum and salvinorin A: an update on pharmacology and analytical methodology
Salvia divinorum L. (Lamiaceae) has been used for centuries by the Mazatecan culture and has gained popularity as a recreational drug in recent years. Its potent hallucinogenic effects seen in case reports has triggered research and led to the discovery of the first highly selective non-nitrogenous κ opioid receptor agonist salvinorin A. This review critically evaluates the reported pharmacological and toxicological properties of S. divinorum and one of its major compounds salvinorin A, its pharmacokinetic profile, and the analytical methods developed so far for its detection and quantification. Recent research puts a strong emphasis on salvinorin A, which has been shown to be a selective opioid antagonist and is believed to have further beneficial properties, rather than the leaf extract of S. divinorum. Currently animal studies show a rapid onset of action and short distribution and elimination half-lives as well as a lack of evidence of short- or long-term toxicity. Salvinorin A seems to be the most promising approach to new treatment options for a variety of CNS illnesses. However, many further investigations are necessary to fully understand and elucidate the various medicinal properties of the plant itself and to provide the legislative authorities with enough information to cast judgement on S. divinorum.
Psychedelics and the Default Mode Network
Modern neuroscience has demonstrated that psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, as well as ayahuasca operate to significantly reduce activity in the brain’s default mode network (DMN). This reduction in DMN activity functions as a kind of ‘rebooting’ of the brain, and is thought to be linked to one of the most enduring therapeutic effects of psychedelic substances.
Psychedelics and the Entropic Brain Beyond the Self
A increasing number of studies points toward beneficial effects of psychedelic experiences if administered in the right setting. A smaller number of studies present explanations for why psychedelics have these therapeutic effects. Of these most argue that psychedelic experiences increase neuroplasticity, allowing subjects to let go of unhelpful entrenched beliefs. I argue that (1) psychedelics are likely therapeutic because they help subjects align their beliefs with their respective contexts; (2) relaxation of entrenched beliefs need not occur at higher cognitive levels concerned with the self or ego to be therapeutic; and (3) the proneness toward having supernatural entity experiences can be explained using this contextual approach. I conclude that therapeutic effects of psychedelics are not necessarily tied to beliefs about the self.