Psilocybin Mushrooms and Bipolar Disorder

February 4, 2023 Lynne Nardizzi

A new study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology is the first to characterize the psychological impacts of psilocybin among people with bipolar disorder.

The findings indicate that many people with bipolar disorder who consume psilocybin, the primary psychoactive component of psychedelic “magic mushrooms,” believe that the experience is helpful. However, many also report adverse outcomes, such as manic symptoms.

A Bad Trip

January 24, 2023 Lynne Nardizzi

Jules Evans of The Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project discusses the project and what he and his co-researchers hope to learn from the data they collect.

The Key to Happiness

January 23, 2023 Lynne Nardizzi

Researchers have followed over 700 people since 1938 to find the keys to happiness.

Here’s what they discovered: strong relationships most accurately predicted people’s happiness throughout their lives. They are “intrinsic to everything we do and everything we are,” the authors write.

Psychedelics and Traumatic Brain Injury

January 15, 2023 Lynne Nardizzi

Psychedelic therapy for traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) is under research to see if these compounds can promote healing in the brain.

DMT and a Shared Alien Universe?

January 14, 2023 Lynne Nardizzi

As The New Republic reports, the Colorado-based psychedelics startup Medicinal Mindfulness is currently seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration to study what it's calling DMTx, an extended-state, intravenous drip version of DMT that will induce in users trips far longer than the roughly five-to-ten minute experiences the drug typically provides.

DMT carries with it a ton of intriguing qualities, including that studies suggest our brains produce the drug naturally and that those who have taken it often experience variations on the same theme: entering what seems to be another plane or dimension replete with its own ethereal beings, sometimes referred to as "machine elves," who are there to welcome them.

Psilocybin and Bipolar Disorder

January 11, 2023 Lynne Nardizzi

Researchers collected survey data from over 500 people with bipolar disorder about their experiences using psilocybin, the results of which were published in a previous paper.

One third of those participants said they experienced “new or increasing symptoms” following psilocybin use, but overall, participants indicated that they believed psilocybin was not harmful.

Belief Changes with Psychedelics

December 13, 2022 Lynne Nardizzi

Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers continue their exploration into psychedelics and how these drugs may produce a wide range of profound changes in perception, cognition and mood.

In a recent study, published on Nov. 1 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, experts from the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research explored belief changes related to psychedelic experiences.

They found that a single psychedelic experience increased a range of nonphysicalist beliefs as well as beliefs about consciousness, meaning and purpose.

Psychedelics and the Brain-New Research

November 23, 2022 Lynne Nardizzi

Psychedelic drugs may reopen critical learning periods in the brain.

Recent research shows that in adult mice, psychedelic drugs including LSD, ketamine and psilocybin have been shown to reopen the brain to a critical window for social learning usually only seen in adolescents.