Compilation of existing research on psychedelics’ effects on social behavior, social anxiety, or other behaviors related to autism spectrum disorder.
Background: Growing numbers of people are using psychedelics for personal psychotherapy outside clinical settings, but research on such use is scarce.
Aims: This study investigated the patterns of use, self-reported outcomes and outcome predictors of psychedelic ‘self-treatment’ of mental health conditions or specific worries/concerns in life.
Methods: We use data from the Global Drug Survey 2020, a large online survey on drug use collected between November 2019 and February 2020. In all, 3364 respondents reported their self-treatment experiences with lysergic acid diethylamide (N = 1996) or psilocybin mushrooms (N = 1368). The primary outcome of interest was the 17-item self-treatment outcome scale, items reflecting aspects of well-being, psychiatric symptoms, social-emotional skills, and health behaviours.
Results: Positive changes were observed across all 17 outcome items, with the strongest benefits on items related to insight and mood. Negative effects were reported by 22.5% of respondents. High intensity of psychedelic experience, seeking advice before treatment, treating with psilocybin mushrooms and treating post-traumatic stress disorder were associated with higher scores on the self-treatment outcome scale after averaging values across all 17 items. Younger age, high intensity of experience and treating with LSD were associated with increased number of negative outcomes.
Conclusions: This study brings important insights into self-treatment practices with psychedelics in a large international sample. Outcomes were generally favourable, but negative effects appeared more frequent than in clinical settings. Our findings can help inform safe practices of psychedelic use in the community, and inspire clinical research. Future research can be improved with utilisation of prospective designs and additional predictive variables.
Recent clinical and preclinical evidence points towards empathogenic and prosocial effects elicited by psychedelic compounds, notably the serotonin 5-HT2A agonists lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin, N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), and their derivatives. These findings suggest a therapeutic potential of psychedelic compounds for some of the behavioural traits associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by atypical social behaviour. In this review, we highlight evidence suggesting that psychedelics may potentially ameliorate some of the behavioural atypicalities of ASD, including reduced social behaviour and highly co-occurring anxiety and depression. Next, we discuss dysregulated neurobiological systems in ASD and how they may underlie or potentially limit the therapeutic effects of psychedelics. These phenomena include: 1) synaptic function, 2) serotonergic signaling, 3) prefrontal cortex activity, and 4) thalamocortical signaling. Lastly, we discuss clinical studies from the 1960s and 70s that assessed the use of psychedelics in the treatment of children with ASD. We highlight the positive behavioural outcomes of these studies, including enhanced mood and social behaviour, as well as the adverse effects of these trials, including increases in aggressive behaviour and dissociative and psychotic states. Despite preliminary evidence, further studies are needed to determine whether the benefits of psychedelic treatment in ASD outweigh the risks associated with the use of these compounds in this population, and if the 5-HT2A receptor may represent a target for social-behavioural disorders.
The Organizer’s Handbook is a living, evolving collection of organizing principles, guides, tools, and research. These documents have been created by the Decriminalize Nature National Board and local DN organizations, and act as a starting point for those who seek to organize their own communities, and contribute to and become part of the movement to re-establish our direct relationship to consciousness-healing plants and fungi.
For Navajo spiritual leader Steven Benally, saving a Native American religion from extinction means preserving those diminishing lands where hallucinogenic peyote grows wild.
Right to Try Psilocybin (RTTP) is community group that was created by a wide-array of concerned patients and advocates in the Spring of 2022. After months of stonewalling and inaction by the Drug Enforcement Administration concerning patient access to psilocybin, RTTP organized a massive direct action at the DEA HQ in Arlington, Virginia, which resulted in the arrests of 17 advocates. RTTP believes that the Right to Try Act of 2018 covers all investigational drugs, including those listed in on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act and supports any new legislation that ensures those with life-threatening conditions access to psilocybin (and any other investigational psychedelic drug which meets the requirements of RTT law).
He made a new life for himself in California. After surviving the Holocaust and growing up under Hungarian fascism and Russia’s communist regime, George Sarlo arrived in the United States as an 18-year-old refugee. Over the decades, he became a wealthy venture capitalist and philanthropist, and from the outside, looked like someone who’d overcome the horrors of history to achieve success.
Last week, the fight against depression received a welcome boost. According to a new study published in Nature, psilocybin, a naturally occurring compound found in over 200 species of fungi, physiologically “rewires” patterns of negative thinking in the brain to alleviate depression.
Psychedelics are not risk-free. Read TripSafe’s psychedelic education resources.
TripSafe is an educational website about psychedelics – including LSD, Shrooms (Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms), and others.
We do not endorse the acquisition and use of psychedelics outside of legally-sanctioned clinical trials. If you’re going to use psychedelics anyway, please do your research.