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.
This systematic review searched for clinical trials of psilocybin for substance use problems up to September 2, 2022. The authors found four trials with 151 patients that tested psilocybin combined with psychotherapy for alcohol or tobacco use. These small trials, including one randomized placebo-controlled trial, reported reductions in heavy drinking…
This paper reviews research on using psychedelic drugs to treat addiction. The authors say scientific and medical interest has grown a lot in the last ten years and that early evidence is starting to show these treatments can be safe and may help with psychiatric problems including addiction. The review…
This review looked at animal and human studies of cannabidiol (CBD) for anxiety. In animals, CBD often reduced anxiety-like behaviors at low or medium doses but sometimes increased anxiety at high doses. Small human studies and public-speaking tests suggest CBD might reduce anxiety in healthy people and in social anxiety…
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 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 systematic review looked at clinical studies of psilocybin for adults with major depressive disorder. It combined 6 studies with 319 participants, found that every study reported that psilocybin reduced depressive symptoms, and noted few side effects. Each study included psychological support, and the authors say more and better studies…
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…
