Therapeutic potential Of psychedelics

Question 1

Psychedelics for mental illness - carhart -Harris

Answer 1

• plant -based used for years for holistic healing
  -observational + population- bused data indicate pos association between psychedelics + mental health
  -79% showed improvement in mood-disorder

Question 2

Psilocybin

Answer 2

-rapid, endured, anti- anxiety + depression effects post psylocibin
- psilocybin + psychedelics share some similarities with antidepressants: altered relationship with env critical for recovery with SSRIs + heightened sensitivity to env
-Differences = antidepressants reduce limbic responsiveness + emotional modulation whereas psychedelics focus or emotional release

Question 3

cancer VS control + psilocybin

Answer 3

• Griffiths et al + RosS et Al
  -Ross et al -> use cancer patients as their domain of distress is relevant to depression
• Griffith et al -> evidence for efficacy of medication or psychotherapy is poor
  -symptoms of depression are common in cancer patients but often not severe
  -29% indicated they’d appreciate psychological help
• compared low/high dose psilocybin + placebo
  -symptoms are a problematic way of assessing outcome

Question 4

GMG views - Goodwin

Answer 4

• views psychedelic experience as irrelevant to clinical dev
• GMG used treatment- resistant depression patients
• Believes psychedelics should stay as a last resort treatment
• Difficulty in finding medical role as its illegal

Question 5

RLCH view- Carhart - Harris

Answer 5

• accepts using treatment- resistant depression can be the first call for dev
  -sees unipolar depression will prove better indication for this treatment
  -psilocybin will be safest, most effective to implement prior to treatment-resistant stage
• questions whether patients must wait until their depression is significant before psilocybin can considered
• potentially a first option treatment

Question 6

Psiloybin for OCD, aIcohol + tobacco addiction

Answer 6

• preliminary report on safety + tolerability of psilocybin for OCD, Alcohol, + tobacco

Question 7

strengths of psilocybin research

Answer 7

• most studies are double-blind randomised controlled study
  -short + long term m effects measured
• lots of strong + pos results

Question 8

limitations of psilocybin research

Answer 8

• small sample sizes
• psychedelic drugs effects are obvious so even double blind trial may know they’ve had the drug > only 1 study used placebo most used low dose as control
  -measures of depression is subjective
• expensive

Question 9

microdosing

Answer 9

• give people very small amounts of the drug regularly
• expensive as you have to get people in lab more regularly