Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
In a small, controlled study of 18 people with treatment-resistant major depression, a single intravenous dose of the NMDA receptor antagonist ketamine (0.5 mg/kg) produced rapid drops in depression scores. Improvement began within about 2 hours and remained statistically significant compared with placebo for up to 1 week. The study…
Researchers collected and read 15 studies where patients described their own experiences with psychedelic treatments for mental disorders. These studies looked at about 180 patient accounts across different drugs and different illnesses. Even though the drugs and treatment settings were very different, many patients described similar helpful processes, such as…
This report describes 33 open-label treatments with the alkaloid ibogaine given for acute heroin withdrawal in non-medical settings. In 25 of the 33 people, visible signs of opioid withdrawal stopped within 24 hours and stayed absent during 72 hours of observation. The authors note the results are from uncontrolled, non-clinical…
Ibogaine is a psychoactive chemical from a West African shrub that some clinics use to help people stop using opioids or stimulants. Small studies, animal research, and many personal reports say a single high dose can cut opioid withdrawal and reduce cravings. For example, one study found 50% of participants…
In this small, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study, 10 healthy male, infrequent cannabis users took 10 mg oral THCV daily for five days and then received 1 mg IV THC on day five. THCV was safe and felt like placebo. Compared with placebo, THCV reduced some effects of THC (for example…
This paper looked across existing studies of psilocybin and found that, when it is given along with psychotherapy or therapy-style support, it looks promising as a treatment for several mental health problems, including cases that did not get better with other treatments. But the authors say the current studies are…
This small, exploratory study gave people with moderate to severe major depressive disorder placebo first (19 people) and then a single dose of psilocybin (0.3 mg/kg) to 15 people four weeks later, with all dosing embedded in therapy based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). After the psilocybin session, measures…
This review describes a rapid rise in medical research on psychedelic drugs over the past five years. Several later-stage clinical trials have been published, and many different drugs — including psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, LSD, ayahuasca, and ibogaine — are being tested for conditions such as depression, post‑traumatic stress, addiction, obsessive‑compulsive…
This was a 6-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that tested low-dose LSD (20 μg) given twice weekly in 53 adults with moderate to severe ADHD. Both the LSD group and the placebo group showed similar symptom reductions by week 6 (LSD mean change on the ADHD rating scale −7.1 points; placebo…
