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Summary & key facts

Researchers tested people at a microdosing event to see if small doses of psychedelic truffles changed creativity. They measured convergent thinking, divergent thinking, and a short fluid-intelligence test before and while the microdose was expected to work. After a non-blinded microdose, both types of creative thinking improved, but fluid intelligence did not change; the authors call these results preliminary and say placebo-controlled studies are needed.

Key facts:

• The study was done in a natural, open-label setting at a microdosing event organized by the Dutch Psychedelic Society.
• Participants were tested once before taking a microdose and once while the effects were expected to appear.
• Both convergent thinking (measured with the Picture Concept Task) and divergent thinking (measured with the Alternative Uses Task) showed improved performance after the non-blinded microdose.
• A short version of Raven’s Progressive Matrices showed no change in fluid intelligence after microdosing.
• The psychedelic truffles used in the event were later analyzed to quantify their active psychedelic alkaloids.
• The study was not blinded and had no placebo control; the authors describe the findings as preliminary and call for more rigorous placebo-controlled research.
• The paper notes that microdoses are commonly around one tenth of recreational doses, and that a previous controlled study found even very low psilocybin doses (45 µg/kg body weight) were rated psychoactive by most volunteers.

Topics

Chemical synthesis and alkaloids Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior Psychedelics and Drug Studies

Categories

Clinical Psychology Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Cognition Cognitive flexibility Cognitive psychology Creativity Divergent thinking Economics Flexibility (engineering) Management Mathematics Medicine MicroDose Neuroscience Pharmacology Psychology Social psychology Statistics Task (project management)