Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine

Psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, an ingredient found in so-called magic mushrooms, have shown promise in treating a range of addictions and mental health disorders. Yet, there’s something mysterious and almost mystical about their effects, and they are commonly believed to provide unique insights into the nature of consciousness.

Now, a new study by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers addresses the question of whether psychedelics might change the attribution of consciousness to a range of living and nonliving things.

The findings, published March 28 in Frontiers in Psychology, reveal that higher ratings of mystical type experiences, which often include a sense that everything is alive, were associated with greater increases in the attribution of consciousness.

“This study demonstrates that when beliefs change following a psychedelic experience, attributions of consciousness to various entities tend to increase,” says Sandeep Nayak, M.D., postdoctoral research fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research and one of the researchers involved in the study.

“It’s not clear why, whether that might be an innate drug effect, cultural factors, or whether psychedelics might somehow expose innate cognitive biases that attribute features of the mind to the world.”

For the study, the researchers analyzed data gathered between August 2020 and January 2021 on 1,606 people who had had a belief-changing psychedelic experience. Participants averaged 35 years of age and were predominately white (89%), male (67%) and from the United States (69%).

Study participants completed an internet-based survey that included questions focused on belief changes attributed to a single psychedelic experience with a classic psychedelic substance (e.g., psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, ayahuasca). The survey also included questions about demographics, psychedelic use, personality, and scientific knowledge and attitudes.

The study found that among people who had had a single psychedelic experience that altered their beliefs in some way, there were large increases in attribution of consciousness to a range of animate and inanimate things.

For example, from before to after the experience, attribution of consciousness to insects grew from 33% to 57%, to fungi from 21% to 56%, to plants from 26% to 61%, to inanimate natural objects from 8% to 26% and to inanimate manmade objects from 3% to 15%.

“On average, participants indicated the belief-changing experience in question occurred eight years prior to taking the survey, so these belief changes may be long-lasting,” says Nayak.

Classic psychedelics—the pharmacological class of compounds that includes psilocybin and LSD—produce visual and auditory illusions and profound changes in consciousness, altering a person’s awareness of their surroundings and of their thoughts and feelings.

These substances produce unusual and compelling changes in conscious experience, which have prompted some to propose that psychedelics may provide unique insights into the nature of consciousness itself.

“The results suggesting that a single psychedelic experience can produce a broad increase in attribution of consciousness to other things, raises intriguing questions about possible innate or experiential mechanisms underlying such belief changes,” says Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., the Oliver Lee McCabe III, Ph.D., Professor in the Neuropsychopharmacology of Consciousness at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research.

“The topic of consciousness is a notoriously difficult scientific problem that has led many to conclude it is not solvable.”

The post The Relationship Between Psychedelics and Consciousness appeared first on FRACTAL FiLL.

“Based on the encouraging results of multiple clinical trials of psychedelic-assisted therapies, it has become a cliche to say that we may be on the ‘cusp of a revolution in psychiatry,’” said Health Strategies International founder Elliot Marseille, the corresponding au

“Our mission is to provide rigorous and policy-relevant economic analyses on these emerging therapies,” Marseille explained. “In part because of its relevance to the decisions of health care payers, and thus to large scale access to the new therapies, cost-effectiveness analysis features importantly among GIPSE’s analytic approaches. Since MDMA is the closest of the psychedelic therapies to receiving FDA approval as a legal medicine, it made sense to devote analytic resources to this therapy.”

The researchers used a Markov model to calculate expected medical costs, mortality, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of MDMA-assisted therapy over 30 years. The data for the model came from a phase 3 clinical trial of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD.

During the trial, treatment was administered to 90 participants over the course of 18 weeks. Patients underwent three 90-minute preparatory psychotherapy sessions, three 8-hour active MDMA or placebo sessions, and nine 90-minute integrative psychotherapy sessions. MDMA was well tolerated in patients with severe PTSD, and there was a robust reduction in symptoms among MDMA patients compared to patients receiving a placebo combined with a similar therapy.

thor of the new study.

“But like many cliches, there is substantial truth in this. About 10 months ago, along with colleagues at UCSF and UC Berkeley, we were inspired by the promise of these novel therapies to launch the Global Initiative for Psychedelic Science Economics (GIPSE).”

The cost of the MDMA-assisted therapy was $11,537 per patient. The researchers estimated that utilizing the treatment would save $132.9 million while averting 61.4 premature deaths over the course of 30 years in a cohort of 1,000 hypothetical patients.

“The results we reported are based on the outcomes of the first phase 3 trial of a psychedelic therapy,” Marseille told PsyPost. “The most important findings are that MDMA-assisted therapy for severe, chronic PTSD can save health care dollars while providing clinical benefits far in excess of continued standard treatment. This should encourage health care payers to include MDMA-assisted therapy as a benefit to its members suffering from severe PTSD who did not benefit from standard first-line treatments.”

The researchers previously examined the cost-effectiveness of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy using data from phase 2 clinical trials. “This regimen featured two 8-hour MDMA sessions,” Marseille explained. “The regimen used in the phase 3 trial portrayed in our just-published 2022 paper features a third 8-hour MDMA session. Naturally, this makes the regimen more expensive. We therefore asked the question, ‘Is the additional benefit afforded by the third MDMA session sufficient to justify its cost?’ The answer is yes. The third session saves additional healthcare dollars over time, while conferring substantial additional clinical benefit.”

But Marseille noted that the phase 3 trial only evaluated the short-term efficacy of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. “There are currently no published data on the long term benefits of MDMA therapy for PTSD, although the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which sponsored the trials, is currently working on such a study,” he explained. “However, one small follow-up study from the phase 2 trials found that over an average follow-up period of 3.54 years, the benefit of MDMA-assisted therapy increased over time. Although the increase was not statistically significant, the sustained benefit was statistically significant. While we await more definitive information, this early finding is encouraging.”

Marseille also said that the costs associated with MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD could change by the time it is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“The final cost may be substantially higher than the figure used in our base-case estimates,” Marseille told PsyPost. “However, the intervention would remain cost-saving over a standard 30-year horizon for any plausible MDMA-assisted therapy cost; but the time to financial ‘break-even’ for payers becomes longer, the higher the cost.”

“So far, the trials for MDMA-assisted therapy are limited almost entirely to people with severe or extreme, chronic and treatment-resistant forms of the disorder,” the researcher added. “It is hugely important that we have an effective new treatment for this group of patients. What is not yet known is how beneficial MDMA-assisted therapy might be for people with less severe and chronic PTSD. Thus, the cost-effectiveness of MDMA treatment for less severely-affected patients is also unknown.”

The study, “Updated cost-effectiveness of MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder in the United States: Findings from a phase 3 trial“, was published by Elliot Marseille, Jennifer M. Mitchell, and James G. Kahn.

The post MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD could save the health care system millions of dollars, study suggests appeared first on FRACTAL FiLL.

Last month, Health Canada’s new Special Access Program (SAP) amendment went into effect, allowing physicians to request access to psilocybin, MDMA, DMT, LSD, and other psychedelic treatments not officially approved for sale in the country. The amendment, which reversed a 2013 policy prohibiting special access to restricted drugs, signifies a positive change in the healthcare industry’s perception of psychedelics.

But while medical professionals and psychedelic advocates responded with enthusiasm, the news also ignited a few misconceptions around program eligibility and psychedelic legality.

“This [amendment] shows that Health Canada is aware of the promise of psychedelic therapy and committed to understanding more through further research,” says Dr. DJ Cook, Head of Neurosurgery at Queen’s University and Chief Medical Officer at Dimensions Healing. “But it won’t be an assured means of acquiring these medicines for therapy — there will be a threshold to gain approval.

To better understand, we dug deeper into how the program will work, who will benefit, and whether there’s potential for full legalization.

How Does the Special Access Program Work?

For several years, Canadian health care providers have relied on Health Canada’s SAP to access otherwise unavailable drugs for “serious or life-threatening conditions” — particularly when traditional paths fail to yield positive outcomes. For example, the SAP might grant access to a not-yet-approved chemotherapy drug for a patient with a rare tumor or a new antiviral for a patient with long-standing, treatment-resistant HIV.

However, requests are decided on a case-by-case basis and don’t automatically guarantee access. When a healthcare professional determines a patient may benefit from a drug that’s not yet available for sale, they must submit a request to Health Canada and wait for a decision. If approved, the manufacturer is cleared to supply the drug to the licensed health care professional to distribute to their patient.|

When it comes to psychedelics, health care providers can only access drugs from a dealer licensed under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). In other words, the SAP doesn’t give carte blanche to all psychedelics from any source.

However, the SAP amendment also doesn’t require psychedelics to be dispensed in a therapy setting — which Dr. Cook says could be an oversight. “There is a key aspect to the environment and setting in which these therapies are undertaken,” he says. “Having therapists and retreat centers and therapeutic settings where patients can [take psychedelics] in a way that respects the cultural and ceremonial aspects of the therapies is critical.”

Kelsey Ramsden, co-founder and CEO of MINDCURE, agrees that integration is essential. “I think people are a bit misguided about this idea that psychedelics without psychotherapy will get the same kind of result,” she says. “Having psychotherapy paired with these drugs allows people to integrate what they learn.”

Of course, patients can choose to seek psychological therapy alongside the medication on their own, and health care professionals may even encourage psychotherapy or include it within their care plan. But, currently, it’s not required.

Who Will Likely Benefit Most from the SAP?

We still don’t know how Health Canada defines “life-threatening” regarding mental health conditions or how many failed conventional treatments are necessary before a patient can access a psychedelic drug. And we likely won’t know more until there have been a significant number of cases authorized or denied. But experts have some ideas about which conditions may be more likely to get approval.

“I think individuals in a palliative state who are experiencing death anxiety, for instance, and where there is reasonable literature supporting the use of psychedelics to treat anxiety, have a clear case,” Dr. Cook says. Additionally, he notes patients with treatment-resistant PTSD and those with a high potential for suicidality also have a strong case. “But again, the threshold and the requirements of proof are unknown.”

Without a concrete list of conditions, we can assume Health Canada will follow the data. And studies on psychedelic use in end-of-life care, Alzheimer’s care, and treatments for people grappling with post-traumatic stress do make compelling arguments.

Kelsey also believes the conditions that fall into the “serious or life-threatening” category will shift as clinical research evolves and the SAP fields more cases. “I believe that, over time, we’re going to see ’emergency’ classified as people who’ve had consistent drug overdoses, for example, and we’re going to see this expand and morph.”

Will Psychedelics Follow the Same Path to Legalization as Cannabis?

One of the biggest questions amidst the amendment’s rollout is whether psychedelics are on the same course to legalization as cannabis. However, it appears, at least in this stage, that Health Canada is treating these drugs more like a controlled medicine and less like a recreational substance.

“What we’re talking about with respect to psychedelic medicine is very different than cannabis,” Kelsey says. “Comparing the two is like comparing a Ferrari to Toyota Tercel. Both will get you places, but one is very powerful and requires a lot of experience to handle properly. Who do you want to put behind the wheel of something that performs this way?”

Dr. Cook echoes this sentiment and says the pathway to legalization for psychedelics should more closely resemble pharmaceutical development than cannabis. “I hope that there is a more metered and regulated approach to accessing the therapies,” he says.

But even with its limitations and ambiguous thresholds for accessibility, the new amendment is an exciting step in a progressive direction. It’s also a clear signal that regulators are interested in seeing psychedelics advance. And as new data moves science forward, patients’ first-hand accounts will likely sway culture toward normalization and acceptance.

“The more we have individuals who can speak to the transformative effects of psychedelics for mental health care, the better we all will be,” Kelsey says. “It’s a testament to the forward-thinking nature of our healthcare system. And for that, I’m grateful.”

The post How Psychedelic Treatment Through Canada’s SAP Works appeared first on FRACTAL FiLL.

Studies of MDMA, ketamine, psilocybin mushrooms and other psychedelics have shown tremendous potential for therapeutic applications

Istudy psychedelics. The organization I work for – the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) – has been researching MDMA since 1992, seven years after the substance was prohibited. Our organization was founded in 1985.The earth’s secret miracle worker is not a plant or an animal: it’s fungiRead more

One of a few treatments designated a breakthrough therapy by the FDA, MDMA-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder is an incredibly promising treatment for this devastating mental injury. Survivors of PTSD may struggle to stay connected in their work, families, and communities. They often live with symptoms like insomnia, hyper-vigilance and isolation; these commonly lead to substance use disorder, depression, chronic pain or heart problems. Yet most of the available treatments provide symptom relief for only about half of the people with the diagnosis, with even fewer people experiencing remission.

In May 2021, Nature Medicine published the results of the most advanced trial of psychedelic therapy to date. In our Phase 3 trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, 88% of participants who received MDMA in conjunction with trauma-focused therapy experienced a clinically significant reduction in symptoms; 67% of participants no longer met criteria for a PTSD diagnosis. Many participants reported MDMA-assisted therapy helped them address the root cause of their trauma for the first time.

An exploratory study suggests a role for MDMA in couples therapy. MAPS has combined its MDMA-assisted therapy protocol with Cognitive Behavioral Conjoint Therapy (CBCT) for PTSD, in which both the person with PTSD and their partner are administered MDMA. Results demonstrated dramatic reductions in PTSD symptoms and partner accommodation, improving the quality of relationships for six couples.

Ketamine studies have shown promise for chronic suicidal tendencies, PTSD symptoms and depression. Legal ketamine clinics which pair therapy with the drug can play a key role in maximizing the benefits and reducing the risks of the psychedelic experience. Psilocybin-assisted therapy is a breakthrough therapy for depression. Ibogaine may be an effective treatment for opioid use disorder.

In fact, four separate systematic reviews have been published this year highlighting the potential of psychedelic-assisted therapies for those conditions and more: end of life care, brain injury, neurodegenerative disorders, mood disorders, smoking cessation and addiction or dependence. Dozens of studies make a compelling case for rapid expansion of research into psychedelic-assisted therapies for serious mental health conditions.

Evidence indicates that psychedelic use is associated with pro-social, personal growth benefits including increased nature relatedness, potentiating conflict resolution and sustaining compassion among first responders. Indigenous communities around the globe have used psychedelics in spiritual ceremony and healing for millennia.

Conversely, the well-documented devastation of the war on drugs has been responsible for untold trauma. But is the legalization and regulation of all substances – reversing the course on the war on drugs – too dangerous? Simply: No. It’s more dangerous not to.

Decades of research – and far more extensive use outside clinical settings – demonstrate that the risks of drugs, for most people, are generally short-term and manageable through compassionate risk-reduction measures. For those who become dependent on drugs, treatment-on-demand is a more effective intervention than criminalization. In lieu of a legal, safe supply of substances, drug checking can identify adulterants like fentanyl. Peer support is so successful in transforming emotionally challenging experiences that Denver’s first responders and police officers will soon be trained in the method as an alternative to criminalization or sedation.

Last year, Oregon became the first US state to decriminalize the possession of most drugs and to create a legal system for supervised psilocybin experiences. California, Vermont and Hawaii are actively considering new legal frameworks for psychedelics; Texas is directing state funding to research. In the face of an epidemic of veteran suicide, the US veterans administration is hosting small psychedelic-assisted therapy trials. Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle support federal funding. Lawmakers, regulators, funders, insurance providers and therapists who take a clear-eyed look at the research may be surprised to find their fears dissolving.

MAPS recognizes that the people who are most marginalized by society are often those who are most traumatized, have least access to a diagnosis and even less access to adequate treatment. MAPS is working with researchers around the world to facilitate studies of psychedelic-assisted therapy with refugees, transgender communities, first responders exhausted by Covid, people of color subjected to racial trauma and more. We envision a day when psychedelics will be more than a last-ditch treatment: they will be a catalyst for mass mental health.

• Rick Doblin, PhD, is the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies and a member of the Board of Directors of its wholly owned drug development subsidiary, MAPS Public Benefit Corporation

… as you’re joining us from Spain, we have a small favour to ask. Tens of millions have placed their trust in the Guardian’s high-impact journalism since we started publishing 200 years ago, turning to us in moments of crisis, uncertainty, solidarity and hope. More than 1.5 million readers, from 180 countries, have recently taken the step to support us financially – keeping us open to all, and fiercely independent.

With no shareholders or billionaire owner, we can set our own agenda and provide trustworthy journalism that’s free from commercial and political influence, offering a counterweight to the spread of misinformation. When it’s never mattered more, we can investigate and challenge without fear or favour.

Unlike many others, Guardian journalism is available for everyone to read, regardless of what they can afford to pay. We do this because we believe in information equality. Greater numbers of people can keep track of global events, understand their impact on people and communities, and become inspired to take meaningful action.

We aim to offer readers a comprehensive, international perspective on critical events shaping our world – from the Black Lives Matter movement, to the new American administration, Brexit, and the world’s slow emergence from a global pandemic. We are committed to upholding our reputation for urgent, powerful reporting on the climate emergency, and made the decision to reject advertising from fossil fuel companies, divest from the oil and gas industries, and set a course to achieve net zero emissions by 2030.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/26/psychedelics-can-change-humanity-for-the-better-its-time-to-unlock-their-power

The post Psychedelics can change humanity for the better. It’s time to unlock their power appeared first on FRACTAL FiLL.

Imagine a medicine that could help people process disturbing memories, sparking behavioural changes rather than merely burying and suppressing symptoms and trauma. For the millions suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, such remedies for their daily struggles could be on the horizon. Psychiatry is rapidly heading towards a new frontier – and it’s all thanks to psychedelics.

In an advanced phase trial published in Nature in May, patients in the US, Israel and Canada who received doses of the psychedelic stimulant MDMA, alongside care from a therapist, were more than twice as likely than the placebo group to no longer have PTSD, for which there is currently no effective medicinal treatment, months later. The researchers concluded that the findings, which reflected those of six earlier-stage trials, cemented the treatment as a startlingly successful potential breakthrough therapy. There are now hopes that MDMA therapy could receive approval for certain treatments from US regulators by 2023, or perhaps even earlier – with psilocybin, the active ingredient of magic mushrooms, not far behind in the process. (A small study at Johns Hopkins University, published last year, suggested it could be four times more effective than traditional antidepressants.)

You could say interest in psychedelics is mushrooming. Last month, in a first for psychedelics since the war on drugs was launched in the 1970s, US federal funding was granted for a psilocybin study, to treat tobacco addiction, following pressure by lawmakers, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This marks a jaw-dropping turnaround for hallucinogenic drugs. Even 10 years ago, they were effectively taboo in many academic fields and halls of power. But as the intellectual rationale behind the war on drugs has become increasingly untenable, hundreds of millions of dollars have been pumped into psychedelic pharmaceutical research. “Psychedelics are the most extraordinary tools for studying the mind and brain,” says Dr David Luke, co-founding director of the psychedelic consciousness conference, Breaking Convention. “It’s a hot-button topic with around a dozen dedicated research centres at top-level universities around the world.”

Academic and scientific enthusiasm around psychedelics has been increasing amid exasperation over the lack of advancement in psychiatry. “It has not progressed as a field of medicine relative to others for decades, and many psychiatrists have been deeply frustrated,” Luke claims. Yet there appears to be a set of long-ignored tools to treat causes rather than simply addressing symptoms, and psychedelics could do for psychiatry what the microscope did for biology, he says. “They work to treat the underlying commonalities of a range of mental illnesses and potentially prevent their occurrence, too.”Advertisement

Unfounded claims that psychedelic drugs have no medical uses, as the US Congress once declared, and are fundamentally dangerous, kept research endeavours in a straitjacket. Possibly more accurately, there were concerns that the drugs prod people into becoming more rebellious. “It’s not that psychedelics are dangerous, it’s that they give you dangerous ideas,” says Dennis McKenna, ethnopharmacologist and author. “That was the basic reason why there was such an overreaction and clampdown, because it was such a turbulent time with the Vietnam war.” Politicians rather than scientists or clinicians were in the driving seat behind systematically suppressing research, and usage.

This was all part of psychedelics’ mind-bending ride. Their use has increased under the radar, spurred on by cultural shifts in the west. Over the past decade, the recreational and spiritual use of hallucinogens has shed its taboos, following thousands of years of continued use in the Amazon, Mexico, Siberia and elsewhere.

“I realise for the first time this is the only genuine, religious experience I’ve ever had,” pop icon Sting recently said. “For me, the meaning of the universe cracked open.” He was followed more recently by Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan, who have both told of their experiences attending plant medicine ceremonies. Not long ago, UK fitness icon Joe Wicks outlined his plans to visit the Amazon to drink the hallucinogenic healing medicine ayahuasca, after his lockdown workout sessions went viral. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin has told of his “really wonderful” experience with magic mushrooms, which provided “the confirmation I needed about how I feel about the universe”. It increasingly seems that public declarations of psychedelic use are in vogue.

Former Texas governor Rick Perry, a self-described “historically very anti-drug person”, is convinced psychedelics can transform the lives of war veterans suffering from severe PTSD, who are always on guard for danger, unable to sleep and behave self-destructively. “All of that properly done in the right type of clinical setting will save a multitude of lives,” he told local media earlier this year, referring to people he knows who have been abroad from the US for psychedelic treatment. With his public support, a state bill to expedite the study of psychedelics was passed in May.

“Psychedelic medicine has the potential to completely change society’s approach to mental health treatment, and research is the first step to realising that transformation,” said representative Alex Dominguez, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, in a statement at the time. “It’s said that ‘As goes Texas, so goes the nation.’ While states across the country consider how best to address the mental health crisis facing our nation, I hope they once again look to Texas for leadership.”

Psychedelics will change society’s approach to mental health

How did the mood music change so quickly for hallucinogens? Researchers were steadily unshackled – after groundbreaking research into the so-called “God molecule” DMT forced the door open – and promising data emerged as paradigm shifts solidified.

Ceremonies with ayahuasca are known to increasingly take place from London to Sydney. In the US, the União de Vegetal church and some Santo Daime congregations have in the past 15 years gained the legal right to use the DMT-containing brew for religious purposes because it is central to their beliefs. The Native American Church, which has some 250,000 members, gained the right to use mescaline-containing cactus peyote as a sacrament in the US – where it grows naturally in the southwestern desert – back in 1994. Meanwhile, Decriminalize Nature, which argues humans have an unalienable right to develop their own relationship with natural plants, persuaded US authorities in half a dozen municipalities, including Washington DC, to decriminalise all plant medicines, also in May. Earlier this year, the Californian senate passed a bill to legalise the possession and social sharing of psychedelics. Oregon has already voted to decriminalise the possession of personal amounts of all drugs, while psilocybin therapy has been licensed and the state’s health department has been tasked with licensing magic-mushroom growers and training people to administer them.Denver is even training emergency first responders in psychedelic harm reduction, a US first.

Increasing numbers of trials have reported steady doses of dazzlingly promising results for people with a risk of psychological issues. A study in the Lancet last year found that a high dose of psilocybin significantly reduces depressive syndromes and markedly improves anxiety for sustained periods. This appears to be due to the fostering of stronger communication between usually disconnected parts of the brain, engendering a higher state of consciousness as people are less constrained and more able to process emotions.

“The fact that a drug given once can have such an effect for so long is an unprecedented finding,” New York University psychiatrist Stephen Ross told the New Yorker of a 2016 study that laid the groundwork for further research. “We have never had anything like it in the psychiatric field.” One of the key mooted advantages of psychedelics over existing drugs is that they work holistically to make the neuroplastic brain more malleable, therefore freeing people from long-held beliefs and memories – opening them evermore to new concepts and states of mind. Thus, they allow the brain to reset and rewire itself, rather than simply dampening down symptoms and even causing serious side-effects. This positions psychedelic therapies as revolutionary for addiction and OCD treatment, and a host of other treatment-resistant conditions, too. A large trial by scientists at the University of São Paulo also shows ayahuasca – a mixture of Amazonian shrubs – significantly reduces the severity of patients’ depression.

Extinction Rebellion co-founder Gail Bradbrook credited her use of ayahuasca and iboga, the psychedelic African shrub used in coming-of-age ceremonies and to combat addiction, with inspiring her campaign strategy, which has helped force environmental issues to the forefront of the debate in the UK.

“There’s a growing body of research indicating that psychedelics tend to greatly increase our connection to nature, even if you take them in a sterile research environment,” says Luke. Attitudes and ecological behaviours also change positively. In one survey, he found that the majority of people who used psychedelics stated that taking them had made them more concerned for the natural environment, had changed their diet and increased the amount of gardening they did. Users were also found to become more involved in environmental activism as feelings of compassion deepened. “Given that we are in the grip of an extremely fast, manmade, mass extinction event, the largest in millions of years, then we need every tool at our disposal, including psychedelics, or we might not even make it as a species ourselves,” he says.

As with renewable energies, markets are responding to the gargantuan potential profits to be made amid the new consciousness and the wheels of capitalism are now in full motion. The multi-billion-pound alcohol, pharmaceutical and wellness markets are facing serious disruption thanks to the ascendance of psychedelics. Magic mushrooms are even being legally imported into the US for the first time, for research, after a maiden delivery earlier this year. On the recreational side, high-street psychedelic dispensaries have been popping up in Canada despite their sale remaining illegal. Brazen vendors say there is already enough research to prove the drugs are safe.Naturally, there is a clamour among the disrupters to consolidate their companies’ positions at the forefront of the pharmaceutical psychedelics market.

Mental health company Compass was the first to be granted a patent for synthetic psilocybin in early 2020. It was subsequently granted another two in March for an oral psilocybin depression treatment, but faces criticism for an alleged intellectual property land grab that may hinder scientific research by limiting competition. Another 37 patents are being considered by US authorities, with 66 already granted, according to a patent tracker. One company even patented LSD for eating disorders before they had begun investigating whether it was effective.

Françoise Bourzat, a trainer of psychedelic guides in the Mazatec tradition and co-author of Consciousness Medicine, takes a dim view of how big capital is attempting to monopolise treatments rooted in thousands of years of wisdom traditions and discovered by indigenous people. “Money talks. We can’t stop this tsunami. But we need to emphasise the importance of reciprocity, social justice, accessibility and the sacredness of the work,” she implores. Companies should support education and healthcare provision in indigenous communities, given the profit they stand to make, she argues, since the medicines more belong to them – “they just didn’t patent”.

She also has concerns over the manner in which treatment with psilocybin, and other psychedelics, could be delivered. “This work is rooted not in medical treatment but in the sacred practice of connecting with traditions that are both indigenous in nature and spiritual in practice,” says Bourzat, who is advising in Oregon on the state’s development of facilitator training. “The Mazatec community in Mexico use the mushroom for connection with the divine and curing tensions and physical ailments that for them are connected to a spiritual blockage or absence of energy circulating in the body and the heart. They connect sickness with unprocessed emotion, which is probably a sound conclusion.”

Many of the medicines (though not magic mushrooms, which are simple to grow and relatively ubiquitous) are finite resources, and already face serious pressure.

The manner of patenting and overharvesting carries a dark paradox given that psychedelics are supposed to engender more enlightened and selfless states. “The purpose of medicine is to create a bigger, deeper, more thorough experience of our inner functioning, our physical functioning, our emotional functioning, our energetic functioning, our spiritual functioning, our relational functioning, how we are with the land,” Bourzat told podcast Berkeley Talks. “Mushrooms bring it to your face, like, ‘This is your illness.’ By knowing your illness, you resolve your illness, you deal with it, you treat it from within yourself. The mushroom helps you see the truth.”

The fear among psychedelic advocates is that a potential deprioritisation of the human aspect of care – whether through sterile environments or through prescriptions where patients chart their development through apps without human contact – could be detrimental to the benefits of the treatment. “The mainstream medicalised approach that is emerging is minimising the value of human support. This work is supposed to be done within relationships,” Bourzat says.

McKenna agrees that it would be foolish for the pharmaceutical industry to ignore the culture and historical context of psychedelic usage, particularly if only those who are ill are allowed access. He believes everyone should have access to them, and not just in private clinical settings as appears the case with recently approved ketamine. The icon among psychonauts declares: “Any future regulatory frameworks should not set up situations where you have to be sick in order to take a psychedelic legally.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/nov/07/will-the-magic-of-psychadelics-transform-psychiatry

The post Will the magic of psychedelics transform psychiatry? appeared first on FRACTAL FiLL.

“People with PTSD have disrupted sleep, and we were interested in seeing whether MDMA-assisted therapy could reduce sleep difficulties. Intrusive thoughts and being at high alert (hypervigilant) likely make it hard to get to sleep, and slumber may be interrupted by trauma-related nightmares,” said study author L. (Ilsa) Jerome of the MAPS Public Benefit Corporation, a subsidiary of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.

“My colleague Linnae Ponte has been interested in sleep research. Her interest led MAPS to add a measure of self-reported sleep quality, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index – the PSQI – to MAPS’ Phase 2 studies that were investigating the safety and efficacy of this treatment. Reduction in PTSD symptoms was the primary outcome in these studies, but we wanted to see if sleep would improve as well. We could then pool, or combine, data from these studies, once they were done, to learn whether MDMA-assisted therapy could resolve poor sleep in people with PTSD.”

So far, researchers have published six Phase 2 clinical trials, with 103 participants, examining the impact of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy on chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD. The previous studies found that participants who received MDMA-assisted psychotherapy reported improved PTSD symptoms compared to control participants.

The new analysis, based on data from 63 participants who completed the PSQI, found that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy was also associated with improvements in sleep quality, sleep latency, and daytime dysfunction.

“People in randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind studies who had MDMA-assisted therapy with 75 to 125 mg MDMA reported having better sleep than people who given zero to 40 mg. Over half of the participants given an initial dose of 75 mg MDMA showed clinically significant improvement in sleep,” Jerome told PsyPost.

“In the PSQI, lower scores are a sign of better sleep overall, and a drop of 3 points is ‘clinically significant’. Improved sleep included falling asleep faster and less daytime drowsiness. These positive changes in sleep remained 12 months later, alongside improvements in PTSD. Improved sleep is one way in which MDMA-assisted therapy improves the lives of people with PTSD.”

As with any study, the new research includes a few limitations, which could be addressed in future studies.

“The PSQI is a measure of self-reported sleep, which means people are doing their best to tell you about their sleep quality. It would be helpful to measure sleep in other ways. The easiest and cheapest might be through an app or device (like a FitBit) that records motion; a more accurate but also more burdensome and expensive way to measure sleep is through electroencephalography (EEG), which measures brain waves through electrodes on your skull,” Jerome said.

“The sample we examined is still relatively small and homogenous in terms of race or ethnicity, with most participants indicating they were White.”

MDMA is believed to be an important catalyst for psychological change (when used in a controlled psychotherapeutic setting) because it helps patients to experience pro-social feelings, such as compassion and a sense of connection with others. These pro-social feelings can also be directed at oneself.

But the short-term effects of the drug are generally not good for sleep.

“MDMA acutely disrupts sleep, making it harder to fall asleep and changing the type of sleep immediately after taking it, reducing REM sleep. However, sleep should return to ‘normal’ after drug effects are gone, and this seems to be the case. Yet afterward, people with PTSD who received an active dose of MDMA reported better sleep,” Jerome explained.

“This is not surprising, since we expect sleep to fully return to normal, but it is an important reminder that not all changes seen after a treatment are directly due to drug effects on brain chemistry. Rather, these changes in sleep are a sign that other effects of MDMA-assisted therapy, such as coming to terms with emotionally charged memories or thoughts, or feeling more compassionate toward yourself, can and will change processes such as sleep.”

The study, “Sleep Quality Improvements After MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy for the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder“, was authored by Linnae Ponte, Lisa Jerome, Scott Hamilton, Michael C. Mithoefer, Berra B. Yazar-Klosinski, Eric Vermetten, and Allison A. Feduccia.

The post MDMA-assisted psychotherapy associated with sleep improvements among PTSD patients appeared first on FRACTAL FiLL.