Psychedelic Research Links January 2023

This is all the other psychedelic research that came out in January 2023. These papers don’t (yet) have their own page in our database.

You can find all interesting papers in our Papers Database.

Related Papers

In Rodents

• Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Interaction of the Ayahuasca Constituents Harmine and Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) in the Rat Brain (in rats, pre-print, “Results confirmed that co-administration of harmine inhibited the formation of the DMT metabolite indole-3-acetic acid (3-IAA) in the brain, while increasing the cerebral availability of DMT. However, we were unable to detect any significant occupancy by DMT at 5-HT2A receptors measured ex vivo, despite brain DMT concentrations as high as 11.3 µM at moderate doses.“)
• Psilocybin sex-dependently reduces alcohol consumption in C57BL/6J mice (in mice, “The effect of psilocybin on ethanol consumption was dose-related and was consistent across the 3-day interval at dosages of 0.5 mg/kg or greater. Psilocybin had no effect on consumption or preference when ethanol was subsequently reintroduced after 2 days of withdrawal. In contrast to males, psilocybin had no significant effect on ethanol consumption or preference in female mice at any dosage or time point.“)
• Transcriptomic Analysis of Glycosylation and Neuroregulatory Pathways in Rodent Models in Response to Psychedelic Molecules (in rodents, review/commentary)
• Indolethylamine N-methyltransferase (INMT) is not essential for endogenous tryptamine-dependent methylation activity in rats (in rats, “We report that brain and lung tissues from both wild type and INMT-knockout rats show equal levels of tryptamine-dependent activity, but that the enzymatic products are neither NMT nor DMT. In addition, rat INMT was not sufficient for NMT or DMT biosynthesis. These results suggest an alternative enzymatic pathway for DMT biosynthesis in rats.“)
• Microdosing of psilocybin reduces compulsive actions and increases thalamic connections (in mice!, pre-print)
• Acute psilocybin enhances cognitive flexibility in rats (in rats, preprint “[W]e find that acute psilocybin robustly improves cognitive flexibility in male and female rats using a task where animals switched between previously learned strategies in response to uncued changes in the environment. Psilocybin did not influence Pavlovian reversal learning, suggesting that its cognitive effects are selective to enhanced switching between previously learned behavioral strategies.”)
• Shared and Distinct Brain Regions Targeted for Immediate Early Gene Expression by Ketamine and Psilocybin (“Collectively, the systematic mapping approach produced an unbiased list of brain regions impacted by psilocybin and ketamine.”)
• Psilocin suppresses methamphetamine-induced hyperlocomotion and acquisition of conditioned place preference via D2R-mediated ERK signaling (in mice!, “Psilocin has regulatory effects on METH-induced alterations of behavior in mice via D2R-mediated signal regulation of ERK phosphorylation.“)
• A Pre-Clinical Study of Sub-Anesthetic Ketamine as Remedy in 5-Fluorouracil-Induced Cachexia Model (in mice, Ketamine administration at the high dose of 30 mg/kg BW demonstrated effectively diminished weight loss due to cachexia, and also successfully improved overall survival.“)
• Dantrolene sodium fails to reverse robust brain hyperthermia induced by MDMA and methamphetamine in rats (in rats, “Dantrolene failed to attenuate MDMA- and METH-induced hyperthermia, though locomotor activity was significantly reduced.“)
• Metabolic study of new psychoactive substance Methoxpropamine (MXPr) in mice by UHPLC-QTOF-HRMS (in mice, NPS)
• The high frequency oscillation in orbitofrontal cortex is susceptible to phenethylamine psychedelic 25C–NBOMe in male rats (in rats, “5-HTergic psychedelics 25C–-NBOMe potentiated high frequency oscillation in the OFC.”)
• Antidepressant Response and Stress Resilience Are Promoted by CART Peptides in GABAergic Neurons of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (in mice, ketamine)

Chemistry

• Six-Step Synthesis of (±)-Lysergic Acid (“This article describes a concise synthesis of lysergic acid from simple aromatic precursors.”)
• Interaction of Psychedelic Tryptamine Derivatives with a Lipid Bilayer (in cells, “Neutral tryptamines partition into the bilayer almost completely. Dimethyltryptamine and 5-MeO-DMT cross the membrane spontaneously during the simulation time, but bufotenine does not, although it has the maximum effect on the structural properties of the membrane.”)
• Biomarkers of 4-Hydroxy-N,N-methylpropyltryptamine (4-OH-MPT) intake identified from human hepatocyte incubations (identification)
• Two New Records of Agaricales (Psilocybe papuana and Cystoagaricus populinus) from China (new psilocybin mushrooms identified)
• Interval delivery of 5HT2A agonists using multilayered polymer films (delivery, “Our results demonstrate, for the first time, the interval delivery of psychedelics from an implantable drug delivery system and open the door to future studies into the therapeutic potential of psychedelic delivery.“)
• Solving an Old Puzzle: Elucidation and Evaluation of the Binding Mode of Salvinorin A at the Kappa Opioid Receptor (“[T]his is the first comprehensive evaluation of SalA’s binding mode since the determination of the active state KOR crystal structure.“)
• Derivation of the multiply-branched ergot alkaloid pathway of fungi (“Fungi from several lineages and diverse ecological niches produce ergot alkaloids from at least one of several branches of the ergot alkaloid pathway. The biochemical and genetic bases for the different branches have been established and are summarized briefly herein.“)
• Transcriptomic Analysis of Glycosylation and Neuroregulatory Pathways in Rodent Models in Response to Psychedelic Molecules (in cells)
• Pharmacologic activity of substituted tryptamines at 5-HT2AR, 5-HT2CR, 5-HT1AR, and SERT (“Several compounds were highly selective for and coupled very efficiently downstream of 5-HT_2A versus 5-HT_1A and 5-HT_2C receptors, and some bound SERT. This basic pharmacology of substituted tryptamines aids our understanding of the pharmacologic basis for their potential for harm and as therapeutic agents.“)
• A Ground Truth Data Set of Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GCMS) Analysed Synthesised Methylenedioxymethylamphetamine (MDMA) (“This article uses the template for publishing GCMS data … The template provides a robust and systematic approach to organise GCMS data that is both useful for practitioners and amenable for automated data manipulation by data scientists.“)
• Understanding ayahuasca effects in major depressive disorder treatment through in vitro metabolomics and bioinformatics (in cells. “Building reaction networks containing significant and differential metabolites, such as nicotinamide, L-DOPA, and L-leucine, is a useful approach to guide on dose decision and pathway selection in further analytical and molecular studies.“)

Perspectives/Opinions

• Psychedelic drug abuse potential assessment for new drug applications and controlled substance scheduling: A United States perspective (“Abuse-related studies for psychedelics requiring approval by Food and Drug Administration and other agencies should take into consideration existing knowledge that will vary from extensive, for example, psilocybin, to zero for novel hallucinogens and entactogens.“)
• Old and new psychoactive substances: Pharmacology and potential applications (editorial)
• SnapShot: Psychedelics and serotonin receptor signaling (snapshot)
• Cyberdelics in context: On the prospects and challenges of mind-manifesting technologies (perspective)
• On blinding and suicide risk in a recent trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy for treatment-resistant depression (viewpoint)
• Is psilocybin an effective antidepressant and what is its Mechanism of action? (perspective)
• What good are psychedelic humanities? (perspective)
• Expanding Perspectives on the Potential for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies to Improve the Experience of Aging (editorial)
• Dämpfer für die Psilocybintherapie (German, commentary)
• Psychedelics: Science Sabotaged by social media (perspective, argues for microdosing over macro-dosing)
• Psilocybin for Depression: From Credibility to Feasibility, What’s Missing? (opinion)
• The psychotherapeutic framing of psychedelic drug administration (editorial, highlights different therapeutic models for PAT)
• Drug scheduling limits access to essential medicines and should be reformed (commentary)

Reviews

• Down but not out: drugs that enhance delta oscillations but preserve consciousness (review/perspective; pre-print)
• Are psychedelics the answer to chronic pain: a review of current literature (review)
• NMDA Receptor Activation-dependent Antidepressant-relevant Behavioral and Synaptic Actions of Ketamine (review)
• An Integrative Review of Measures of Spirituality in Experimental Studies of Psilocybin in Serious Illness Populations (review, notes MEQ as most frequently used)
• The Therapeutic Potential of Psilocybin in Alcohol Use Disorder Recovery: A Literature Review (review)
• Psychedelics in Psychiatry – Development and Current State in Germany (review, German)
• The Bright Side of Psychedelics: Latest Advances and Challenges in Neuropharmacology (review)
• Alleviating anxiety and taming trauma: Novel pharmacotherapeutics for anxiety disorders and posttraumatic stress disorder (review, PTSD, covers psychedelics)
• Hallucinations and Hallucinogens: Psychopathology or Wisdom? (review, “We propose that, in light of historical, epidemiological, and scientific research, hallucinations can be better characterized as a common phenomenon associated sometimes with psychopathology but also with functional and even beneficial outcomes. In the last sections of the manuscript, we extend our argument, suggesting that hallucinations can offer a via regia to knowledge of the mind and the world.“)
• Psychedelics for Patients With Cancer: A Comprehensive Literature Review (review)
• Ketamine and serotonergic psychedelics: An update on the mechanisms and biosignatures underlying rapid-acting antidepressant treatment (review, covers both ketamine and classical psychedelics, “While their main mechanisms of action differ—SPs increase serotonergic signaling while ketamine is a glutamatergic modulator—evidence suggests that the downstream mechanisms of action of both ketamine and SPs include mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) signaling and downstream GABA_A receptor activity.“)
• Utility of preclinical models in the study of psilocybin – a comprehensive review (review of animal studies of psilocybin)
• The Bright Side of Psychedelics: Latest Advances and Challenges in Neuropharmacology (review)
• Psychedelics for Patients With Cancer: A Comprehensive Literature Review (review)
• Novel and emerging treatments for major depression (review, covers psychedelics)
• The costs and benefits of psychedelics on cognition and mood (review, covers creativity)
• A Review of Synthetic Access to Therapeutic Compounds Extracted from Psilocybe (review, “We review here the various syntheses used to obtain these molecules, focusing first on the classic historical syntheses, then the use of more recent metallo-catalyzed couplings and finally the known biocatalytic methods for obtaining these molecules.”)
• Articulating acceptance and commitment therapy to psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in addictology (review, ACT therapy and PAT, French)
• mGlu2/3 receptor antagonists for depression: overview of underlying mechanisms and clinical development (review, ketamine pathways)

Other

• Et psykoanalytisk og et postmoderne perspektiv på selv/egoopløsning i en psykedelisk kontekst (thesis, ego dissolution, Danish)
• Consciousness alterations in a cohort of young Swiss men: Associations with substance use and personality traits (n=2769, survey, Switzerland, “This study supports the potential for psychedelics to induce CAs perceived as beneficial to life among people using street drugs, possibly reflecting the mechanism underlying the therapeutic potential of psychedelics.“)
• Opening Death’s Door: Psilocybin and Existential Suffering in Palliative Care (academic book chapter)
• Healing at death’s door: one patient’s mystical experience with psilocybin (case study, n=1, experience)
• Successful use of ketamine to treat severe depression with suicidality post-COVID-19 – A case report (case study, n=1, ketamine for depression after COVID)
• Case report: Medical student types journals during ketamine infusions for suicidal ideation, treatment-resistant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder (case study, n=1, “To our knowledge, these journals represent the first independently typed, first-person, real-time narratives of ketamine-induced non ordinary states of consciousness.“)
• Dermatologic features of chronic intramuscular use of ketamine: a case report (case study, n=1, effect of drug use (including ketamine) on skin)
• Clinical experiences with intranasal esketamine for major depressive disorder resistant to treatment and with a psychiatric emergency: case presentations (case reports, n=3, “Our preliminary experience proved esketamine’s effectiveness on TRD symptoms and successful outcomes in psychiatric emergencies such as suicide risk.“)
• MDMA, Internal Family Systems therapy, and the Minnesota model in the resolution of C-PTSD-induced alcohol and diazepam addiction—A retrospective case study (n=1, case study, MDMA for C-PTSD)
• Treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) in Post-SARS-CoV-2 Infection through combined outpatient Neuromodulation Therapy with Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) and Ketamine IV Therapy – A Case Series (case reports, n=4, pre-print, combined rTMS and ketamine)
• A randomized pilot study of the prophylactic effect of ketamine on laboratory-induced stress in healthy adults (n=24, RCT, “Compared to the midazolam group (n = 12), the ketamine group (n = 12) showed a moderate to large (Cohen’s d = 0.7) reduction in levels of anxiety immediately following stress, although this was not significant (p = 0.06)“.)
• The Relationship between Plasticity in the Primary Visual Cortex and the HallucinatoryPersisting Perception Disorder (review, HPPD and development of visual system)
• Antidepressant and anti-suicidal effects of ketamine in treatment-resistant depression associated with psychiatric and personality comorbidities: A double-blind randomized trial (n=36, ketamine for TRD, no effect of/from comorbidities)
• When art therapy went chemical: Alfred Bader, pharmacology, and art brut, c.1950-1970s (art therapy x psychedelics)
• Slow Panic? The Regulation of Salvia Divinorum in Canada, 1991-2019 (regulation of salvia in Canada)
• Psychedelic-assisted therapy: Support for the REBUS hypothesis and its application to specific psychiatric illnesses (thesis)
• Relationship Between Dissolution Rate in Vitro and Absorption Rate in Vivo of Ketamine Prolonged-Release Tablets (absorption rate of ketamine slow-release tables)
• Long-Term Effects of Ketamine Infusions in Comparison to Combination Therapy involving additional rTMS, Neurofeedback and Psychotherapy – A Retrospective Survey Study of Subjective Effects (n=25, pre-print, retrospective, better improvements after combined treatment, commercial study)
• Recruitment discrimination of lifetime classic psychedelic users is unjustified: Evidence from employees’ motivation-based workplace absenteeism (survey data, “This study builds on classic psychedelic research that is just beginning to take work-specific outcomes into account and offers empirical justification for the elimination of arbitrary drug-based recruitment policies in the workplace.“)
• Psychedelic discourses: A qualitative study of discussions in a Danish online forum (analysis of online fora posts, “Five dominant discourses were identified: the recreational, the therapeutic, the spiritual, the scientific and the performance discourse“)
• Acquiring Knowledge of Ultimate Reality Through Psychedelic Experience (thesis)
• Indigenous-Amazonian Traditional Medicine’s Usage of the Tobacco Plant: A Transdisciplinary Ethnopsychological Mixed-Methods Case Study (n=1, case study, tobacco traditional use for healing)
• Impact of Repeated Doses of Subcutaneous Esketamine on Acute Dissociative Symptoms in Treatment-Resistant Depression (n=70, retrospective analysis, “Our results suggest that repeated subcutaneous esketamine doses are safe and well-tolerated regarding their acute dissociative and psychotomimetic symptoms. Symptoms usually peak at 30 min and decrease at 60 min post-injection, returning to their pretreatment levels at 120 min. Dissociative symptoms do not correlate with antidepressant response.“)
• Educational Materials and Image Induction Increase Treatment Credibility (research on how to best present info on PAT)
• Ecstasy löst Arzneimittelexanthem aus (case study, German, skin reactions to ecstasy)
• Encounters with police drug detection dogs at music festivals amongst people who regularly use ecstasy and/or other illicit stimulants in Australia (n=797, survey, drug use at festivals)
• Neural Correlates of the DEEPP (Anti-suicidal Response to Ketamine in Treatment-Resistant Bipolar Depression) Study: Protocol for a Pilot, Open-Label Clinical Trial (study protocol)
• Intoxication of dogs and cats with common stimulating, hallucinogenic and dissociative recreational drugs (identifying and treating accidental drug intoxication in dogs and cats)
• Changes in white matter microstructure following serial ketamine infusions in treatment resistant depression (n=57, ketamine changes in white matter microstructure)