Category Archives: Psychedelics

Sex workers who use psychedelic drugs such as LSD and magic mushrooms are associated with a markedly reduced risk of suicide, raising the possibility of new and innovative ways to treat a marginalized population.

Thats the conclusion of a study by the Gender and Sexual Health Initiative (GSHI) at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, which investigated whether such drugs could have a protective effect on sex workers, who are at higher risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts than the general population.

It found that, among female sex workers, naturalistic psychedelic drug use was associated with a 60-per-cent reduced risk of suicidal tendencies.

GSHI researcher Elena Argento said the study, and its potential implications, highlight the urgent need to advance research on the therapeutic utility of psychedelics.

Marginalized women, such as sex workers, face significant socio-structural risks for suicidality that come from criminalization and experiences of violence and past trauma, she said. Theres a need to start coming up with more innovative and evidence-based interventions that are tailored to marginalized women.

Researchers gathered longitudinal data from January, 2010, through August, 2014, from female sex workers across Metro Vancouver, recruited through community outreach. The analysis was restricted to only those who had never had suicidal attempts or thoughts before the study a total of 290 sex workers, or roughly half of participants.

The women completed bi-annual, interviewer-administered questionnaires. Researchers controlled for variables such as non-psychedelic drug use, childhood abuse and homelessness.

Other researchers have hypothesized that psychedelics might be protective because they regulate serotonin receptors that have been linked to major depression and suicide.

In more plain language, psychedelics increase the permeability between the conscious and unconscious mind, and help to recall autobiographical memories, Ms. Argento said. So they may facilitate a more positive reprocessing of traumatic experiences.

Ms. Argento presented the study on Tuesday at the Harm Reduction International Conference taking place in Montreal.

There is a growing body of research into the benefits of psychedelic drugs. In 2014, researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore reported that some long-time smokers who had failed many attempts to quit did so successfully while receiving magic mushrooms, in the context of a cognitive behavioural therapy treatment program.

And, in 2015, an analysis published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal highlighted several small studies that found psychedelics may be effective at treating patients struggling with addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, but that popular misconceptions were hampering research efforts.

The B.C. Centre on Substance Use, struck last year as one effort to combat the provinces overdose crisis, is also planning to study the effectiveness of psychedelic-assisted therapy in treating opioid and other substance use disorders. Psychedelic drugs are considered less harmful than opioids.

Thomas Kerr, director of research at the BCCSU, said such therapy has immense potential.

The research that has been done to date using these approaches in tobacco and alcohol addiction treatment has been promising, Dr. Kerr said in a statement issued last month. Given the limited number of tools used to help support addiction treatment, we urgently need to further our understanding of how these substances may help heal underlying trauma that can be such a barrier to recovery.

Follow Andrea Woo on Twitter: @andreawoo

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Sex workers who use psychedelic drugs have lower suicide risk, study finds - The Globe and Mail

Feildings breakthrough study last year gives credence to the idea that, when administered in a safe, controlled environment, drugs previously thought a menace to society could be used for emphatic good.

In fact, she believes things like LSD, magic mushrooms and MDMA may have the power to cause awakenings in the brain that could make, mental illnesses including depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD and even degenerative brain diseases all potentially treatable. Yet while the medical community are now largely on side, and microdosing is becoming more widely known, lawmakers remain steadfast.

The war on drugs is a completely false battle. Sensible drugs policies should help people, not punish them, meaning we should move towards a system of regulation and education rather than outlawing everything, says Feilding, who is not in favour of total decriminalisation but believes many substances need to be downgraded to allow for medical experimentation.

At the moment a psilocybin dose costs 1500 because providers have to clear so many hoops to deliver it. That needs to change.

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Could psychedelics become an accepted treatment for mental health problems? - Telegraph.co.uk

VR is still struggling for mainstream acceptance. While some developers worry about effective marketing, others are using nootropic supplements and psychedelic drugs to delve deeper into immersive VR.

We recently covered Facebook Spaces, a VR experience focused on social interaction. Initially, we thought it might be a great platform to which Facebook could release content and friends all over the world, no matter how far away from each other, could truly enjoy their time together.

After all, as VR attempts to recreate your natural experience of the world, making connections with people and forming memories of direct experiences are some of the tenants of immersion within our shared reality.

Facebook Spaces may hang around, but Facebook also recently announced that they would be shuddering their Oculus Story Studio, their internal VR content production unit.

Given the loosely explored ideas well cover in this article, perhaps Facebook acts too soon.

In the Voices of VR podcast, RoadtoVRs Kent Byeinterviews Eric Metzner of Nootroo, a self-described Techno-optimistic Futurist who uses nootropic supplements and psychedelics in conjunction with VR (an Oculus Rift) to explore the boundaries of mental presence.

Metzner says that VR is now in a state where we can create true immersion for the human mind. Early on in the podcast, he asks, what is it about our brains that is so easily tricked?' or essentially, what needs to be provided to create immersive VR?

In order to answer that, Metzner has used the nootropics and psychedelics we mentioned along with like-minded explorers (psychonauts) from r/RiftIntoTheMind while delving into VR. He looked back into fledgling VR immersion research in the 1970s through the 1990s, as well as biohacking with the Northpaw device, and using EEG sensors while inside VR.

With all of these, Metzner is able to increase sensory awareness and gather neurofeedback from his VR experiences. He has been able to push the limits of his minds capability, too, as hes taught himself to type with one hand and read up to 1000 words per minute using Rapid Visual Presentation.

Metzner says immersion needs to be inclusive. The sensory modality needs to be accommodating, meaning:

Metzner adds that the VR world doesnt necessarily have to mimic ours. That is, lifeforms in VR could be cartoon characters or even ethereal blobs as long as everything fits within the perceived model of the virtual world.

As we covered before, the CIA has experimented with these same psychedelics under the Project MKUltra umbrella.

Instead of trying to immerse subjects in a marketable VR experience, the CIA was trying to mind control methodologies. Compared with what these psychedelics are being used to accomplish today, it certainly seems that the CIAs goals were firmly rooted in a modernist ideologyone that ignores the possibilities for mind enhancement that these drugs offer.

In fact, VR explorers (and I call them that because they are indeed exploring a psychological realm perhaps no one has ventured into before) have used psychedelics to accomplish some mind-bending feats.

Take Logan, for example, who, while on psychedelic mushrooms, felt like a god lookng down on the creatures within Minecraft VR.

Other psychonauts talk of having epiphanies while tripping. What could better describe immersive VR than perhaps learning something about your actual self while living outside your normal reality?

Per Vices coverage: Just like Neo taking the Red Pill so does taking a drug change the way you perceive the world, even if that world is a computer fabricated reality, says @Tardigrade1, moderator of r/RiftIntoTheMind. Psychedelics in particular make the VR experience overwhelmingly real.

Using these drugs hasnt just helped technophiles engage with VR. You have probably heard of the practice of microdosing by business executives.

The Netflix original show Stranger Things is what inspired us to look deeper into Project MKUltra, and surprisingly, we found many similarities between the shows depiction of the character Elevens experiences and to what these VR psychonauts subject themselves.

If we think of VR as a sensory deprivation tank, mind-expanding drugs may help round out certain physical, biological, and hardware aspects to make a truly immersive VR experience.

VR and psychedelic drugs could help blur the lines between human consciousness and technological augmentation.

Despite this use of drugs being an obvious slippery slope and difficult to regulate. We feel its inevitable. Think of a Minority Report type underground sanctuary for this sort of fantastical disassociation (with less Tom Cruise, hopefully).

Technology wont create demand for this, it will just be a different iteration: People will want it because it makes VR better just like some people want drugs because theymake reality better.

Like any technology, its utility depend on its use. VR has the therapeutic capacity to help treat an addicts addiction and it also has the capacity to encourage it.

Eventually, there will be demand for these drugs in conjunction with VR experiences. Perhaps even mixed reality will encourage this sort of relaxed consciousness. The question, for us, is how do we deal with it? How will we regulate it? Or will we treat enhanced VR with the same zero-tolerance War on Drugs stance we have now?

We can imagine a brothel without a single, physical prostitute. Will these sorts of activities be okay because they dont affect the physical world? Or will crimes and nefarious acts in VR eventually be considered a transgression in the physical world?

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What if the Other Part of Immersive VR is Psychedelic Drugs? - Edgy Labs (blog)

Some people claim they reach a higher state of consciousness when they take psychedelics, but is this really what's happening?

To find out, a recent study gave volunteers intravenous doses of either LSD, psilocybin or ketamine. Then they did exactly what you'd think they'd do: lock their tripping volunteers in a loud, claustrophobic machine to scan their brains.

The researchers found their brain activity was more random and less integrated, which could explain the randomness of thought that reportedly happens under the influence of psychedelics. They also found that these compounds affected parts of the brain that deal with perception. Essentially, parts of the brain that didn't normally communicate were saying, "Hey There!," creating what they called a "mixing of the senses" - sort of like a chemically induced synaesthesia.

The researchers called this a "higher state of consciousness," which coincidentally is what hippies or monks might call this state of mind. But the researchers made a point to say that "higher" does not mean "better" or more "desirable." Instead, this is just the first time we've measured brain-signal diversity that's higher than normal. And that more research is likely needed!

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Scientists Are Giving People Psychedelics to Understand Consciousness - Seeker

Many people find their day to day experience of life is filled with anxiety, limiting the activities they do and the enjoyment they have in life. Psychedelics like mushrooms and LSD have been used for decades to treat anxiety disorders and to reduce anxiety levels.

In some cases, these substances seem to directly alleviate feelings of anxiety, even at very small doses (below the level at which they subjectively alter consciousness). For other people, psychedelics help them explore the root causes of their anxieties and fears and find peace with them. And for many people, psychedelics bring them to a place a spiritual peace and openness that can become a new touchstone for letting go of anxiety or learning not to identify with it so strongly.

This description of the process may sound abstract to someone suffering from anxiety day to day, but like talking therapy, the healing process of psychedelics can be a little difficult to convey until youve tried it.

Recent clinical research has shown dramatic reductions in anxiety even after a single psychedelic experience with psilocybin mushrooms. Even for patients facing the extreme anxiety of terminal illness, psilocybin allows them to embrace their fate and find peace with their loved ones.

Heres one womans story of being treated with mushrooms as she was facing death, described in a New York Times article (see below):

Before Pam Sakuda died, she described her psilocybin experience on video: I felt this lump of emotions welling up . . . almost like an entity, Sakuda said, as she spoke straight into the camera. I started to cry. . . . Everything was concentrated and came welling up and then . . . it started to dissipate, and I started to look at it differently. . . . I began to realize that all of this negative fear and guilt was such a hindrance . . . to making the most of and enjoying the healthy time that Im having. Sakuda went on to explain that, under the influence of the psilocybin, she came to a very visceral understanding that there was a present, a now, and that it was hers to have.

Two weeks after Sakudas psilocybin session, Grob (the researcher) readministered the depression and anxiety assessments. Over all among his subjects, he found that their scores on the anxiety scale at one and three months after treatment demonstrated a sustained reduction in anxiety, the researchers wrote in The Archives of General Psychiatry. They also found that their subjects scores on the Beck Depression Inventory dropped significantly at the six-month follow-up.

Whats remarkable about the research results from this and many other studies is that even a single dose of a psychedelic substance can create long lasting changes, reducing anxiety, depression, and creating more emotional openness.

LSD, MDMA, and mushrooms have all been studied for anxiety reduction. Remember that a psychedelic experience can sometimes produce anxiety or can focus the mind on sources of anxiety, as part of the process of addressing the root causes. Starting with small doses and following all the safety guidelines can help reduce anxiety.

Psychedelics have been misunderstood and misrepresented for decades. That's changing. Please help us share safe, responsible information on using psychedelics by sending this page to friends, and posting to Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

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How to Treat Depression with Psychedelics

Nearly 50 years ago, psychiatrists lost access to one of the most promising tools theyd found to study consciousness and treat a range of refractory psychological conditions: psychedelic drugs. Psychedelics were banned in the United States in 1970 and by the United Nations the next year, classified as Schedule I drugs with a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical use. Many scientists blame Timothy Leary, the Harvard psychologist who became one of the most prominent psychedelic proselytizers of the sixties, for fueling both the drugs popularity and the media frenzy that inevitably triggered a legal backlash [1].

These restrictions have severely impeded research into novel therapies to treat brain disorders. As British psychiatrist David Nutt argued in PLOS Biology a few years ago [2], Most researchers do not have the time, money, or energy to work through the regulatory jungle. And with no federal support for this work,scientistsmust rely on private organizations like the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and the Beckley Foundation, which funds Nutts group at the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London. Both organizations are dedicated to breaking the bureaucratic logjam.

Last month, Nutt joined hundreds of other clinicians and researchers whove received private funding to pursue psychedelic medicine and research at the third MAPS-sponsored Psychedelic Science 2017 conference in Oakland, California.

Scientists and clinicians presented evidence from ongoing research suggesting that psychedelics, used in a controlled psychotherapy setting, have the potential to alleviate conditions that dont respond to conventional drugs and therapy, including depression, social anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction. Some are harnessing psychedelics to study the neural basis of consciousness, using advanced imaging techniques to map changes in brain activity and chemistry to altered perception, moods and perspective.

Much of the recent work with psychedelics picks up where early psychiatric pioneers left off, in many cases confirming what researchers hypothesized but lacked the tools to test.

Early evidence of positive results

Clinicians started experimenting with LSD in the late 1940s, soon after Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who first synthesized the drug while studying the ergot fungus as a potential medicine, accidentally dosed himself. Hofmann reported an extraordinary disturbance marked by an uninterrupted stream of fantastic images of extraordinary plasticity and vividness and accompanied by an intense, kaleidoscope-like play of colors.

The potential of this mind-altering drug was not lost on Hofmann, and psychiatrists soon began experimenting with psychedelics to treat addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorders, depression and anxiety. Some used LSD to model the delusions and psychosis seen in schizophrenia, while others explored its mind loosening effects to help patients work through repressed thoughts and feelings. Experimental psychiatrist Joel Elkes took LSD with a small group of volunteers in 1952, the first to do so in England. He noted in a retrospective commentary that observations from these experiments led him to propose that the drug selectively inhibited the organization of sensory information through a serotonin-mediated receptor.

Elkes was remarkably prescient, Nutt says, because thats what we have shown.

Historians of psychedelic science say that by the mid-1960s researchers had published over 1,000 clinical studies involving over 40,000 patients, reporting few side effects, though many of the studies would not meet contemporary research standards. Even so, Learys promotion of LSD as a panacea for the unenlightened masses, many scientists say, led regulators to slam the door on research that held great promise for unlocking the mysteries of the mind.

Despite a lack of accepted safety designation that goes along with a Schedule I classification, most studies have found no evidence that psychedelics produce serious adverse effects when used under controlled conditions. That may hold for recreational use as well, according to a 2012 PLOS ONE study, which found no indication of psychological problems in healthy people who used LSD, psilocybin, peyote or mescaline [3]. Another PLOS ONE study came to the same conclusion about ayahuasca, a psychedelic tea brewed from bark and leaves traditionally used as part of ritual healing ceremonies in the Amazon Basin [4].The research doesnt claim that adverse events cant happen. But they are likely rare and in some cases may be related to pre-existing conditions.

Placebos, probes and treatments

Early studies of psychedelics typically failed to use controls, raising an obvious question: how do you design a placebo-controlled trial when the active drug under study produces profound changes in perception and cognition?

It helps to work with people whove never experienced the drug before so they dont know what to expect, says Fernanda Palhano-Fontes, a PhD student working in Draulio Barros de Araujos lab at the Brain Institute at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil. In a recent study to test ayahuascas potential to alleviate treatment-resistant depression, she and her colleagues used a placebo brew designed to mimic the potent teas color and nasty taste, and even its capacity to cause nausea.

Participants were randomly assigned to receive a placebo or a single dose of ayahuasca and, as often happens in depression trials, both groups improved somewhat the next day. But by the end of the week, people in the ayahuasca group showed much greater gains than the placebo group. The study, which involved just 35 patients, hasnt been published yet (but is available on bioRxiv [5]).

To better understand how ayahuasca affects mood and perception, Palhano-Fontes and Araujo have been studying its effects on the brain in healthy people, using fMRI. They reported in a 2015 PLOS ONE paper [6] that ayahuasca caused reduced activity in whats known as the default mode network, a connector hubof brain regions that tends to be more active when people are resting or daydreaming. Its been associated with sense of self, and emotional and cognitive processing. Studies have associated increased activity in this network with schizophrenia, depression, social phobia and several other psychiatric conditions. This increased activity has also been linked to intense rumination and obsessive thoughts. One theory holds that by suppressing the default mode network, psychedelics may help release the brakes on severely constrained thinking, opening the door to more effective psychotherapy.

For David Nutt, psychedelics hold a unique capacity to probe the neurobiology of mental states, and to reprogram circuits to recover from psychological distress. These drugs can change your attitude to life, Nutt says. In a study of psilocybin-assisted therapy for depression, he found that patients became less pessimistic. My outlook has changed significantly, one patient said. Im more aware now that its pointless to get wrapped up in endless negativity.

Stanislav Grof, a Czech psychiatrist who conducted clinical trials with LSD before it was illegal, once said, Psychedelics, used responsibly and with proper caution, would be for psychiatry what the microscope is for biology and medicine or the telescope is for astronomy.

But that promisewont be realizeduntil regulators change the restrictions on psychedelics and recognize their potential as a medicine. Hofmann immediately recognized that psychedelics release constraints on consciousness to offer a glimpse into a world we otherwise cant perceive. Now scientists have the tools to figure out how psychedelics do that by interrogating the underlying brain mechanisms in a reproducible, scientifically valid way if only we let them.

Credit for featured image: Psilocybe zapotecorum from Michoacan, Mexico, by Alan Rockefeller via Wikimedia Commons.

Further reading

[1] Moreno, J. D. (2016) Acid Brothers: Henry Beecher, Timothy Leary, and the psychedelic of the century. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, vol. 59 no. 1, pp. 107-121. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/pbm.2016.0019

[2] Nutt D (2015) Illegal Drugs Laws: Clearing a 50-Year-Old Obstacle to Research. PLoS Biol 13(1): e1002047. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002047

[3] Krebs TS, Johansen P- (2013) Psychedelics and Mental Health: A Population Study. PLoS ONE 8(8): e63972. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0063972

[4] Bouso JC, Gonzlez D, Fondevila S, Cutchet M, Fernndez X, Ribeiro Barbosa PC, et al. (2012) Personality, Psychopathology, Life Attitudes and Neuropsychological Performance among Ritual Users of Ayahuasca: A Longitudinal Study. PLoS ONE 7(8): e42421. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0042421

[5] Rapid antidepressant effects of the psychedelic ayahuasca in treatment-resistant depression: a randomised placebo-controlled trial (2017) Fernanda Palhano-Fontes, Dayanna Barreto, Heloisa Onias, Katia C Andrade, MorganaNovaes, Jessica Pessoa, Sergio Mota-Rolim, Flavia L Osorio, Rafael Sanches, Rafael dos Santos, Luis Tofoli, Gabriela Silveira, Mauricio Yonamine, Jordi Riba, Francisco RRSantos, Antonio A Silva-Junior, Joao Alchieri, Nicole Galvao-Coelho, Brunoj Lobao-Soares, Jaime Hallak, Emerson Arcoverde, Joao Maia-de-Oliveira, Draulio B de Araujo bioRxiv 103531; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/103531

[6] Palhano-Fontes F, Andrade KC, Tofoli LF, Santos AC, Crippa JAS, Hallak JEC, et al. (2015) The Psychedelic State Induced by Ayahuasca Modulates the Activity and Connectivity of the Default Mode Network. PLoS ONE 10(2): e0118143. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118143

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Slice of PLOS: Psychedelics in the Lab and Clinic: Making Up for Lost Time - PLoS Blogs (blog)

A recent study found that MDMA-assisted therapy could help veterans suffering from PTSD. Another paper from Johns Hopkins presented evidence that therapy in conjunction with psilocybin mushrooms can help ease the mental suffering of terminal cancer patients.

These findings, among others, were presented at the 2017 Psychedelic Science Conference in Oakland, California, where researchers gather every few years to discuss the potential medical applications of psychedelics, including LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, and MDMA. The field has exploded thanks to reforms at the Food and Drug Administration that allow researchers, for the first time in decades, to study the effects of these drugs.

The organizer of the conference was the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which is also funding much of this breakthrough research.

"It's a fundamental right to explore one's own consciousness," says MAPS founder Rick Doblin. "We have the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, and the freedom of religion, and all those are based on the freedom of thought."

At this year's conference, Reason talked to researchers about the past, present, and future of this controversial and promising area of medical research.

Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Shot by Alex Manning and Weissmueller. Music by Kai Engel, Selva de Mar, and Lee Rosevere.

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Psychedelic Drugs: The Future of Mental Health - Reason.com - Reason

To the federal government, psychedelic drugs like LSD, MDMA (also known as Ecstasy or Molly in its street forms), and psilocybin (the psychoactive ingredient in mushrooms) are dangerous Schedule I substances with a high potential for abuse and no medical value.

But leading psychedelic researchers paint a much different picture one of fascinating compounds with the power to rewire the human brain and possibly revolutionize treatment for a number of debilitating mental health issues.

Weve yet to find a conclusive answer that can prove either side right or wrong, though initial indications suggest its fair to be skeptical of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrations view. Early clinical studies have produced promising results, convincing many that psychedelics are at least worthy of further research. But thanks to a grueling approval process and the widespread stigma attached to these drugs, the path to officially recognizing their potential medical benefits has been difficult.

A crowdfunding initiative launched Tuesday gives the public a chance to help accelerate this process by donating directly to psychedelic science.

The Fundamental campaign has partnered with experts in the field of psychedelic research in hopes of raising$2 million over the next four months. Donated money will be split between four areas. Two studies involve psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy, with one focused on the treatment of end-of-life anxiety and the other on alcoholism.A third study is examining the use of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. The fourth is looking at the effects of LSD-microdosing therapies, which have been touted as a way to enhance mood, cognition, productivity and creativity.

Fundamental

New York real estate developer Rodrigo Nio is heading up Fundamental, drawing from his personal experience in the fields of both crowdfunding and psychedelic therapy.

In May 2011, Nio realized he had an unusual skin growth. He saw a doctor, and days later received a devastating diagnosis: At 41, Nio had stage 3 melanoma. His odds of survival were 1 in 3 over the next five years.

Nio underwent a pair of procedures in the following months to remove cancerous growths, but he remained haunted by anxiety that the disease would kill him. In the summer of 2011,Nio traveled to the Peruvian Amazon, where he partook in a number of ayahuasca ceremonies over the next few weeks. He returned home completely changed.

I got completely over my fear of dying, Nio told HuffPost.

Although the ayahuasca felt like a miracle cure for his anxiety, Nio wasnt sure if his newfound sense of calm was a placebo effect, or if the psychedelic jungle vine had actually altered his brain chemistry.

Back in New York,Nio met with Stephen Ross,director of addiction psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center, who explained to him that psilocybin a psychoactive ingredient different from the one found in ayahuasca had begun to show promising results as a treatment for end-of-life anxiety. Over the next few years, Nios interest in the therapeutic applications of psychedelic drugs grew, as did the body of scientific research.

This past December, Ross and researchers at Johns Hopkins Universitypublished the results of two separate clinical trials on the effects of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy on patients with cancer-related anxiety and depression. All told,between 60 and 80 percent of the subjects showed clinically significant reductions in both psychological disorders after treatment. Patients reported that the benefits of a single dose of psilocybin along with therapy lasted up to seven months, with minimal side effects.

Now, Fundamental is hoping to provide Ross with the money to explore this preliminary research in the kind of large-scale trials necessary to better understand the therapeutic value of psilocybin.

The problem with funding for psychedelic research is its incredibly hard to do, Ross explains in a video for Fundamental. The federal government will give approval through the [Food and Drug Administration]and the DEA, but the [National Institutes of Health]agencies dont appear yet ready to fund psychedelic research.

Fundamental is also raising money for research on the effects of psilocybin-assisted treatment on alcoholism, which Michael Bogenschutz at NYU Langone is heading up. Initial studieshave shown promise, building on a rich history of anecdotal evidence that psychedelic drugs could help people battle addiction.

If we had more funding, we could accelerate the rate of the research, we could accelerate potential discoveries and breakthroughs, and we could accelerate the rate at which these medicines may become available to alleviate human suffering, Ross says in the video.

Part of the challenge in financing psychedelic research is that theres no profit motive for large pharmaceutical companies, Nio says. These studies dont focus on treating symptoms. Rather, theyre trying to address the root cause of mental illness by essentially disrupting the default mode network, or ego, of a persons brain. In other words, theyre trying to eliminate the need for treatment, not offer an ongoing one.

The problem is that these natural compounds sometimes require only two sessions to do what a lifetime of treatment wouldnt do with traditional antidepressants, Nio told HuffPost. They dont really make money, because theyre also in the public domain and they cant be patented.

But Nio hopes that Fundamental can help create a movement around the issue of psychedelic research and therapy.

Were trying to inspire people to realize that despite the fact this doesnt make money, its something that must happen for the sake of everybody, he said.

Fundamental

Fundamental has also partnered with Rick Doblin, executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which isbeginning phase three clinical trialson MDMA as a treatment for PTSD. Phase three is the final step before a medication can officially be approved by the FDA as a prescription drug a goal MAPS is hoping to reach by 2021.

Early studies on MDMA and PTSD have produced impressive results, with one trial showing nearly 70 percent effectivenessin reducing symptoms after a handful of sessions of MDMA-assisted therapy.

For Fundamentals fourth initiative, the campaign has joined forces with psychedelic pioneer Amanda Feilding to look into the science of microdosing with LSD a pursuit thats become popular in recent years, especially in the fast-paced world of Silicon Valley.

Feilding is the founder and director of the Beckley Foundation, a think tank that advocates for psychedelic research.Her latest project seeks to gain a better understanding of how small amounts of LSD can affect human performance and brain function. Feildings study involves doing brain imaging on a small number of subjects while they engage in a variety of cognitive tasks. Participants will also play the ancient Chinese board game Go against a computer.Feilding hopes this will allow her to examine how LSD changes brain connectivity and contributes to enhanced creativity or problem-solving skills.

If all of this research seems a bit, well, out there, thats not unreasonable. Nio says its fair to be skeptical and its critical to proceed with caution, which is exactly why rigorous scientific studies like these are needed.

We think that psychedelics dont create addiction based on the evidence, but we need to confirm it, he said. We think that it will help with depression and end-of-life anxiety and so on and so forth, but we need to scientifically confirm it as well.

And though Nio suggested these studies could help break the stigma surrounding psychedelics, perhaps even putting them on the road to legalization, he said that was far beyond the scope of the Fundamental campaign.

This is not an invitation to do illicit drugs of any sort, Nio said. This is an invitation to collectively back up the researchers who are finding out whether this has potential or not, as the evidence is showing it does on a preliminary basis.

Fundamental is collecting money through the website CrowdRise. Donations will be deposited into an account controlled by a third-party group,Charity Aid Foundations of America. When the campaign closes on Sept. 9, the money will be distributed as grants among the different research programs.

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Can Psychedelic Drugs Treat Mental Illness? Scientists Need Your Help To Find Out. - Huffington post (press release) (blog)

The War on Drugs hasn't just destroyed cities and families by imprisoning millions while enriching organized crime syndicates: it's also denied millions more access to promising therapies for crippling psychological and physiological ailments.

As former UK drugs czar David Nutt documented in his landmark book Drugs Without the Hot Air, the early years of psychedelics were a bonanza for psychological research, with paper after paper showing replicable beneficial effects from their use in a variety of contexts. That research -- and those therapies -- were buried for a half-century after the War on Drugs was declared, and they're only now starting to come back to light.

A nonprofit called Fundamental has just launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise the capital for controlled, rigorous trials -- including one by Nutt himself, trying to sort out the real effects of LSD microdosing. You can choose the therapies and experiments you'll fund.

Another beneficiary of the crowdfunded cash will be Rick Doblin, executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Over the last three decades, MAPS has raised some $40 million for research into the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. But its not enoughphase three of Doblins study into using MDMA to treat PTSD will set the group back $25 million ($10 million of which theyve pulled in from two overachieving donors). And theyre not expecting much help from the governmentthough they did once get a $2.1 million grant from the state of Colorado to study PTSD with marijuana.

This isnt MAPSs first tango with crowdfunding, either. It has used Indiegogo to fund a psychedelic harm reduction program at Burning Man, and again for a study that tested MDMA on traumatized veterans. But those campaigns were asking for total commitments of tens of thousands of dollars, not millions.

With its cut of this new, larger round of crowdfunding, MAPS plans to bring sufferers into a clinic for three sessions of supervised dosing, after which the patient stays for the night. This is combined with 12 hour-and-a-half-long psychotherapy sessions. In a similar study published by the group in 2013, researchers found that doses of MDMA helped participants improve their PTSD symptoms long-term.

Scientists Want You to Give Them Money to Study Psychedelics [Matt Simon/Wired]

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These SolarGaps prototypes are interesting ways to harness sunlight as its being blocked. Note: the video is heavy on the promotion and light on the tech specs, but its a neat idea.

While THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, seems to cause memory and learning impairment in young mice, surprising new research suggests that it actually reverses cognitive decline in elderly mice. From Scientific American: Researchers led by Andreas Zimmer of the University of Bonn in Germany gave low doses of delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, marijuanas main []

Wireds Rhett Allain built a rig with a laser and light sensor to study fidget spinner physics and determine how long it will spin based on the starting angular velocity. Allains article will make a great teachable moment for my kids, as in Ill ask them to read it and explain it to me. From []

There still isnt one unified AC power standard. Although USB power is definitely making plug convergence much more likely to happen down the line, plenty of older buildings still have whatever outlet made sense at the time they were wired for electricity. Since international travel will definitely require power adapters for the foreseeable future, anyone []

You probably get too much email. And its not because your spam filter isnt working. Every digital receipt you get, and each online service you use automatically puts you on any number of mailing lists. Throttle Pro lets you avoid hunting around for those minuscule unsubscribe links by preventing services from ever collecting your contact []

You know the feeling. The clock strikes 2:30, and all you have to show for your day is a lingering lunch coma, a growing stack of unread emails, and an empty document taunting you with its endlessly blinking cursor. It kind of feels like a panic attack, but its way more boring and no one []

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Crowdfunding controlled experiments with long-neglected ... - Boing Boing

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