Psychedelics Research Links February 2021

This is all the other psychedelic research that came out in February 2021. These papers don’t (yet) have their own page in our database.

Find our recap of the most interesting papers this month in our February Recap.

You can find all interesting papers in our Papers Database.

Related papers

Use CTRL/CMD+F to quickly search if anything relevant for you has been published this month.

• Cannabinoids is a “No-Go” While a Cancer Patient is on Immunotherapy; but is It Safe to Use Psychedelics During Cancer Immunotherapy? (in cells/mice, also probably much higher dose than you would experience for (one time) therapeutic dosage)
• The DARK Side of Total Synthesis: Strategies and Tactics in Psychoactive Drug Production (“.. we provide brief historical accounts of the main classes of psychoactive drugs and discuss several foundational total syntheses that ultimately provide the groundwork for producing these molecules in academic, industrial, and clandestine settings.“)
• Psychedelic philanthropy: The nonprofit sector and Timothy Leary’s 1960s psychedelic movement (Argues for the role of philanthropy in funding early psychedelic research by Leary and colleagues)
• Role of nitric oxide signaling in the antidepressant mechanism of action of ketamine: A randomized controlled trial (“suggesting that the nitric oxide pathway may not play a primary role in ketamine’s antidepressant or dissociative effects.”)
• Ketamine for PTSD: Well, Isn’t That Special (editorial/commentary, remarks on Feder et al., 2021, who used repeated ketamine iv administration)
• Development and Evaluation of a Therapist Training Program for Psilocybin Therapy for Treatment-Resistant Depression in Clinical Research (therapist training program by COMPASS)
• Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD Related to Racial Discrimination (case study, partial success with ketamine for PTSD)
• Effects of LSD are differentially modulated in arrestin knockout mice (in mice, “ LSD produces diverse behavioral effects through Arr1 and Arr2, and that the psychedelic drug-like actions of LSD appear to require Arr2 [arrestin].“)
• Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of Salvinorin A and Salvia divinorum: Clinical and Forensic Aspects (review)
• Ketamine and the Future of Rapid-Acting Antidepressants (review, history and brain mechanisms of how ketamine works)
• Treatment with psilocybin: applications for patients with psychiatric disorders (Dutch, review)
• Fine-tuning neural excitation/inhibition for tailored ketamine use in treatment-resistant depression (pre-print)
• Psychedelic drugs and perception: a narrative review of the first era of research (review, argues that no complete review has been done, but maybe that is missing some of the many (specific) reviews of the literature and many books written about research pre-2000)
• The rebirth of psychedelic psychiatry: Recent research suggests psychedelic agents might help treat anxiety, depression, other disorders (review)
• An experimental study targeting N-methylD-aspartate receptor in depression; beyond ketamine (in mice, with ketamine, citalopram, glycine, and glycine & ketamine)
• New psychoactive substances (NPS) and serotonin syndrome onset: A systematic review (review of 10 studies)
• Antidepressant Actions of Ketamine: Potential Role of L-Type Calcium Channels (review, “Voltage-gated L-type calcium channels have been shown to mediate the rapid-acting antidepressant effects of ketamine, especially involving induction of BDNF synthesis downstream, while BDNF deficiency decreases the expression of L-type calcium channels.”)
• Errors in a Response Rate and in Effect Sizes in Study of Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy for Major Depressive Disorder (small correction to Davis et al., 2020)
• Cost-per-remitter with esketamine nasal spray versus standard of care for treatment-resistant depression (favorable cost-effectiveness analysis of the very expensive esketamine vs oral antidepressants alone)
• What is the clinical evidence on psilocybin for the treatment of psychiatric disorders? A systematic review (review, 9 papers included)
• Rapid tolerance to behavioral effects of ethanol in rats: prevention by R-(-)-ketamine (in rats, mixed findings on preventing tolerance to alcohol (ethanol))
• Ketamine and the Future of Rapid-Acting Antidepressants (review)
• Antidepressant Actions of Ketamine: Potential Role of L-Type Calcium Channels (review, specifically on modulation of intracellular calcium)
• Do NMDA-R Antagonists Re-Create Patterns of Spontaneous Gamma-Band Activity in Schizophrenia? A Systematic Review and Perspective (review, finds different activation of gamma oscillations after ketamine (+) than in schizophrenia (+/-/=)
• Update on GPCR-based targets for the development of novel antidepressants (expert review, depression (MDD), and g coupled proteins, few mentions of psychedelics)
• Predictive performance of parent-metabolite population pharmacokinetic models of (S)-ketamine in healthy volunteers (better modeling of ketamine concentrations on healthy people)
• Hazy memories in the courtroom: a review of alcohol and other drug effects on false memory and suggestibility (false memories and suggestibility after psychedelics, alcohol, etc – not much research on psychedelics and memory yet)
• Psilocin acutely disrupts sleep and affects local but not global sleep homeostasis in laboratory mice (in mice, affects sleep, but not long-term)
• Improving Suicide Prevention Through Evidence-Based Strategies: A Systematic Review (review, mentions ketamine for suicidal ideation but not studied for -behavior prevention)
• Ketamine disrupts gaze patterns during face viewing in the common marmoset (in monkeys, but seems like it could have been done in humans?)
• Acute Psychological Adverse Reactions in First-Time Ritual Ayahuasca Users (n=7, subsample of earlier study, although negative acute experience, remission (2) and improvement (2) in mental health for those suffering from psychiatric disorder)
• Psychedelic harm reduction and integration: A transtheoretical model for clinical practice (harm reduction for those using psychedelics for those working with patients who (will) use psychedelics)
• Cortical spreading depolarization and ketamine: a short systematic review (review, ketamine’s blocking effect on cortical spreading depolarization (loss of ion homeostasis – following stroke/seizure/trauma)
• Antidepressant drugs act by directly binding to TRKB neurotrophin receptors (not on psychedelics specifically, but more evidence on how antidepressants work in the brain by also binding to a specific receptor (TRKB) which facilitates activation of of BDNF, or brain-derived neurotrophic factor receptor, or thus increasing brain plasticity)
• Acute Psychological Adverse Reactions in First-Time Ritual Ayahuasca Users: A Prospective Case Series (case studies, “… it is possible that participating in ayahuasca ceremonies may entail acute psychological negative reactions, those challenging experiences can also have positive long-term effects.“)
• Nitrous oxide as an adjunctive therapy in major depressive disorder: a randomized controlled double-blind pilot trial (RCT, on nitrous oxide, very significant findings)
• Combining ecstasy and ethanol: higher risk for toxicity? A review (drinking and ecstasy, “Increased toxicity is due to an aggravation of MDMA pharmacodynamics, while MDMA pharmacokinetics is largely unaffected“)
• Ketamine-50 years in use: from anesthesia to rapid antidepressant effects and neurobiological mechanisms (review)
• Intranasal Esketamine: from Origins to Future Implications in Treatment-Resistant Depression (review)
• Safety of ibogaine administration in detoxification of opioid dependent individuals: a descriptive open-label observational study (n=14, open-label, safety study, ibogaine for opioid addiction)
• The rebirth of psychedelic psychiatry (review)
• Clinical trials for rapid changes in suicidal ideation: Lessons from ketamine (review/perspective with blueprint going forward)
• Low-dose ketamine as an adjuvant for pain control in a cancer patient: a case report (case study, ketamine for pain control in cancer patient)
• Serotonin 2A Receptor (5-HT_2AR) Activation by 25H-NBOMe Positional Isomers: In Vitro Functional Evaluation and Molecular Docking (“… this is the first comparative evaluation of the functional effects of the positioning of the methoxy groups in the phenethylamine moiety of NBOMes.“)
• Functional connectivity between the amygdala and subgenual cingulate gyrus predicts the antidepressant effects of ketamine in patients with treatment-resistant depression (n=15, proposes that fMRI studies before treatment could identify responders)
• The Evolved Psychology of Psychedelic Set and Setting: Inferences Regarding the Roles of Shamanism and Entheogenic Ecopsychology (review, proposes psychedelics/shamanism as having played a part in human evolution)
• Prolonged epigenetic and synaptic plasticity alterations following single exposure to a psychedelic in mice (in mice, finds that DOI alters the brain both acutely and several days later)
• Neuregulin signaling mediates the acute and sustained antidepressant effects of subanesthetic ketamine (in mice, forced swim test, finds new signalling pathway via neuregulin)
• Psychedelics and the Predictive Mind: A Review of the Potential Mechanisms that Underpin the Efficacy of Psilocybin to Treat Depressive Disorders (thesis, direct download link)
• An apathetic child with hallucinations (case report, child who took LSD)
• Identifying New/Emerging Psychoactive Substances at the Time of COVID-19; A Web-Based Approach (web scraper, finds 10 new psychoactive substances (NPSs))
• Ketamine specifically reduces cognitive symptoms in depressed patients: An investigation of associated neural activation patterns (n=47, MDD, open-label “… ketamine differentially affects MDD symptoms, with the largest symptom reduction in the cognitive domain.”)