6 Examples Of Backlinks

California could decriminalize psychedelics under new bill Los Angeles Times

This scheduling effectively censored research on psychedelics for over 40 years and only in the past decade have attempts been made to reverse this . Scherf and Angenstein simultaneously measured generated field EPSPs and BOLD response in the CA1 region of the rat hippocampus during electrical stimulation of the contralateral CA3 region. Consecutive stimulations with low-intensity stimulation trains resulted in clear postsynaptic responses of CA1 pyramidal cells, but no significant BOLD response. No positive correlation was found between the electrophysiologic parameters of CA1 pyramidal cell activity and the BOLD response. Consequently, postsynaptic activity of pyramidal cells, the most abundant neurons in the CA1, is not directly linked to the measured BOLD response. Szabo recently proposed that the psychedelic tryptamines N,N-DMT and 5-MeO-DMT may have immunomodulatory effects mediated through the σ-1 receptor.

More specifically, de Quervain et al. examined a polymorphism that predicts an amino acid substitution of His to Tyr at residue 452 of the 5-HT2A receptor. Heterozygous (His/Tyr) carriers show a blunted response when the receptor is pharmacologically stimulated. Memory testing and genotyping was done in a total of 349 subjects composed of two independent populations of either university students or age-matched employees/trainees who were not studying at the university and did not have a university degree.

All of the psilocybin subjects felt that the experience had significantly affected their lives in a positive way and they expressed appreciation for having participated in the experiment. People who take psychedelic drugs have also reported experiencing flashbacks, Psychedelics or feeling as if they are experiencing a trip on a psychedelic drug when they are not. Also, while it has not been shown that psychedelic drugs cause any serious health concerns, there are physical effects of psychedelic drug use that can be dangerous.

Recent work by Kettner et al. lends support to this hypothesis, showing that communitas – an intense sense of togetherness and shared humanity – mediates enduring increases in psychological well-being and social connectedness following psychedelic use in ceremonial retreats. Psychedelics’ imagery-inducing (de Araujo et al., 2012), meaning-enhancing , and contextual effects (Carhart-Harris et al., 2018b) can play an important role in boosting imagination, the placebo effect, and hypnotic suggestibility, thereby favoring salutogenesis through psychoendoneuroimmunological processes . Psychosocial healing is a component of human cooperation that comprises empathy, mirroring, emotional contagion, self-regulation, and mentalizing; it also recruits symbolic processes requiring shared meanings of symbols (Kohrt et al., 2020).

A radical approach being proposed by scientists in this field is psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy . This is the professionally supervised use of psychedelic substances as part of a detailed psychotherapy programme. In this state of emotional expansiveness, patients are sometimes able to revisit traumatic experiences and confront catastrophic memories in a way that would be impossible under normal circumstances. Psychedelic drugs are mostly banned in Europe, but new research suggests they may be beneficial to some when taken in a controlled setting. We’ve come a long way from the counterculture movement of the 1960’s—and, thanks to decades of studies, so has our data.

When mice were treated with a 5-HT2A antagonist, hepatocyte proliferation was reduced compared with vehicle-treated controls. The authors suggest that 5-HT2A and 5-HT2B receptor subtypes mediate serotonin-dependent liver regeneration. Substantial evidence has also accumulated from postmortem human brain studies, clinical pharmacology, animal studies, and PET brain imaging in humans to point to dysfunction of the serotonergic system in Alzheimer’s disease (see review by Meltzer et al., 1998). In particular, a consistent postmortem finding in AD is a marked reduction in the density of 5-HT2A receptors (Reynolds et al., 1984; Bowen et al., 1989; Cheng et al., 1991; Lai et al., 2005). In a subsequent study, Kyzar et al. studied the effect of mescaline (5–20 mg/l) on zebrafish behavior in the novel tank test, open field, and shoaling tests.

The results suggest that the 5-HT2A receptor may be functionally expressed to regulate mechanisms underlying osteoblast cell proliferation, at least in part through activation of ERK/MAPK pathways in these cells. Furrer et al. identified markers of hepatocyte proliferation 48 hours after mouse hepatectomy, as well as the mitotic index at 4 days. Both markers were dramatically decreased in cell proliferation in 2-year-old mice, and the mitotic index also was significantly decreased in old compared with young (7- to 8-week-old) mice. Upregulation of the 5-HT2A receptor was seen after hepatectomy in young mice, whereas this upregulation was absent in old mice, possibly reflecting regenerative impairment.

All of the in vitro electrophysiological studies of cortical slices discussed in this review appear to have employed a “standard” and essentially identical slice bath composition. Sanchez-Vives and McCormick noted that when ferret prefrontal cortical slices are maintained in vitro in the traditional bathing medium, no spontaneous rhythmic activity is observed. By contrast, when these investigators used a bath solution with an ionic composition that closely mimicked brain interstitial fluid, spontaneous rhythmic oscillations appeared that could be continuously maintained and were nearly identical to those observed in vivo.

The presence of mycophagy and self-medication among both primates (Huffman, 1997; Hanson et al., 2003) and Paleolithic humans (Hardy et al., 2013; O’Regan et al., 2016) suggests hominins also incorporated fungi with bioactive properties in their diet. It is likely that psychedelic mushrooms from the genus Psilocybe were ingested by our ancestors since the Pliocene (beginning 5.3 million years ago ), when semi-arboreal hominins intensified foraging activity on the ground (see White et al., 2009). Since 2021, magic mushrooms have been legal for mental health treatment in supervised settings in some parts of the USA, and a bill pending in California would go some way to legalising the use of a medley of psychedelics that includes magic mushrooms, MDMA and LSD. In one 2021 trial, run by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies - an American non-profit to raise awareness and understanding of psychedelics - MDMA-assisted therapy was given to people suffering from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder . After just three sessions, 67% no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD while 88% experienced an improvement in symptoms.

Eligible participants had a primary DSM-IV diagnosis (adjustment disorder with anxiety and depressed mood, chronic; adjustment disorder with anxiety, chronic; and generalized anxiety disorder), with more than one-half of the participants in advanced stages of their illness. Participants were assigned to receive psilocybin (0.3 mg/kg) or niacin administered during two 8-hour treatment sessions. After a long hiatus in clinical research, one of the most exciting and encouraging recent developments in this field has been the reintroduction of human treatment studies with psychedelics. Studies discussed in this section will be seen by the reader to reinforce the early belief that psychedelics might represent an important new treatment modality for variety of disorders.