\n<\/p>\n
Recently I was chatting with a friend who is casually interested in psychedelic science. He told me he hadn\u2019t read as much coverage of psychedelics in popular magazines and other mainstream outlets lately, and asked whether research has slowed. My response? Not at all.<\/p>\n
According to Pubmed, the online repository of the National Library of Medicine, last year saw far more papers published on psychedelics than ever before \u2014 about 33% more than in 2021, which itself was a 19% increase over 2020. And this year is well on pace to surpass 2022.<\/p>\n
Every day another email arrives in my inbox with word about the latest papers, many of which address the promise of psychedelic-assisted therapy for depression, addiction, PTSD, and other mental health disorders.<\/p>\n
But dig deep into the scientific literature and you\u2019ll find plenty of outliers and oddities that have nothing to do with therapy per se, covering fascinating subjects like psychedelics for headaches or color-blindness; \u201centity\u201d encounters; and the still-mysterious question of what, exactly, these compounds do to the brain.<\/p>\n
Whether microdosing psychedelics can help people in meaningful ways independent of the placebo effect continues to be a subject of debate. A March 2023 paper in the journal Biological Psychiatry<\/em>1<\/sup> adds to the discourse by reporting that in a placebo-controlled study of 40 healthy male volunteers, microdosing LSD improved self-reported ratings of creativity, connectedness, energy, happiness, irritability, and wellness on dose days relative to non-dose days. However, microdosing was not sufficient to promote enduring changes to overall mood or cognition. Nor was it entirely harmless. Seven of the 40 participants reported treatment-related anxiety, and four dropped out as a result.<\/p>\n On the other end of the psychedelic spectrum are high doses that completely alter one\u2019s perception of self and reality. If the psychedelic state represents a truly different, \u201chigher\u201d level of consciousness \u2014 as implied by the entropic brain theory first posited by Robin Carhart-Harris, David Nutt, and others in an influential 2014 paper2<\/sup> \u2014 could psychedelics then be used to treat disorders of consciousness? More specifically, could they be administered as medicine to a minimally conscious or vegetative patient? And if so, what ethical challenges would be involved in such a treatment? These are some of the thought-provoking questions raised in an April 2023 article in Neuroscience of Consciousness<\/em>.3<\/sup><\/p>\n Two other recent papers further investigate the neurobiology (the biological mechanisms through which nervous systems mediate behavior) and pharmacokinetics (the movement of drugs within the body) of various psychedelics.<\/p>\n On the former front, an article in the journal NeuroImage<\/em>4<\/sup> explores how three very different compounds eliciting psychedelic and psychedelic-like effects \u2014 nitrous oxide, ketamine, and LSD \u2014 induce common brain network changes. Although they act on different receptors (nitrous oxide and ketamine on the NMDA glutamate receptor; LSD on the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor), all three compounds produce consistent changes in specific brain regions involved in sensory integration and consciousness. They also similarly reduce within-network connectivity and increase between-network connectivity in the brain, the authors report.<\/p>\nPsychedelics for Vegetative Patients<\/h2>\n
Methods of Action<\/h2>\n