Psychological effects of psychedelics in adolescents.

This study aimed to investigate differences in long-term psychological effects, acute subjective effects, and side effects associated with psychedelic use in adolescents (aged 16-24), compared with adults (aged 25+). Data from two observational online survey cohorts was pooled, involving adolescents (average age 20.4 ± 2.

Antidepressant effects of a psychedelic experience in a large prospective naturalistic sample.

Background: Over the last two decades, a number of studies have highlighted the potential of psychedelic therapy. However, questions remain to what extend these results translate to naturalistic samples, and how contextual factors and the acute psychedelic experience relate to improvements in affective symptoms following psychedelic experiences outside labs/clinics. The present study sought to address this knowledge gap.

Psychedelic resting-state neuroimaging: A review and perspective on balancing replication and novel analyses.

Clinical research into serotonergic psychedelics is expanding rapidly, showing promising efficacy across myriad disorders. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) is a commonly used strategy to identify psychedelic-induced changes in neural pathways in clinical and healthy populations. Here we, a large group of psychedelic imaging researchers, review the 42 research articles published to date, based on the 17 unique studies evaluating psychedelic effects on rs-fMRI, focusing on methodological variation.

Turn on, Tune in, and Drop out: Predictors of Attrition in a Prospective Observational Cohort Study on Psychedelic Use.

Background: The resurgence of research and public interest in the positive psychological effects of psychedelics, together with advancements in digital data collection techniques, have brought forth a new type of research design, which involves prospectively gathering large-scale naturalistic data from psychedelic users; that is, before and after the use of a psychedelic compound. A methodological limitation of such studies is their high attrition rate, particularly owing to participants who stop responding after initial study enrollment. Importantly, study dropout can introduce systematic biases that may affect the interpretability of results.

The potential synergistic effects between psychedelic administration and nature contact for the improvement of mental health.

Therapeutic psychedelic administration and contact with nature have been associated with the same psychological mechanisms: decreased rumination and negative affect, enhanced psychological connectedness and mindfulness-related capacities, and heightened states of awe and transcendent experiences, all processes linked to improvements in mental health amongst clinical and healthy populations. Nature-based settings can have inherently psychologically soothing properties which may complement all stages of psychedelic therapy (mainly preparation and integration) whilst potentiating increases in nature relatedness, with associated psychological benefits. Maximising enhancement of nature relatedness through therapeutic psychedelic administration may constitute an independent and complementary pathway towards improvements in mental health that can be elicited by psychedelics.

Pivotal mental states.

This paper introduces a new construct, the 'pivotal mental state', which is defined as a hyper-plastic state aiding rapid and deep learning that can mediate psychological transformation. We believe this new construct bears relevance to a broad range of psychological and psychiatric phenomena. We argue that pivotal mental states serve an important evolutionary function, that is, to aid psychological transformation when actual or perceived environmental pressures demand this.

More Realistic Forecasting of Future Life Events After Psilocybin for Treatment-Resistant Depression.

Evidence suggests that classical psychedelics can promote enduring changes in personality, attitudes and optimism, as well as improvements in mental health outcomes. To investigate the effects of a composite intervention, involving psilocybin, on pessimism biases in patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Patients with TRD ( = 15) and matched, untreated non-depressed controls ( = 15) performed the Prediction Of Future Life Events (POFLE) task.

Experienced drug users assess the relative harms and benefits of drugs: a web-based survey.

A web-based survey was used to consult the opinions of experienced drug users on matters related to drug harms. We identified a rare sample of 93 drug users with personal experience with 11 different illicit drugs that are widely used in the UK. Asked to assess the relative harms of these drugs, they ranked alcohol and tobacco as the most harmful, and three "Class A" drugs (MDMA, LSD, and psilocybin) and one class B (cannabis) were ranked as the four least harmful drugs.