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Drugs that alter the perception of reality and were largely illicit are now being considered as therapies for a range of mental and even physical disorders. But moving from research to the clinic presents massive challenges.
Some researchers are finding clues that MDMA might be able to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. But the science has yet to catch up with the optimism.
Clinical trials suggest that psilocybin — the active ingredient in magic mushrooms — can provide durable remission from an increasingly common mental health condition.
Psychedelics were banned in the United States in 1970. Now, atai Life Sciences, a publicly held clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that is developing therapeutics to treat mental health disorders, is advancing multiple psychedelic compounds through regulatory development. What changed?
New agonists of the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor (5-HT2AR) confer high brain permeability and antidepressant activity and—in contrast to classic 5-HT2AR agonists—lack psychedelic activity.
Results from a phase 3, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial demonstrate that MDMA-assisted therapy is safe and effective in treating severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
Psychedelics have shown great promise in treating mental-health conditions, but their use is severely limited by legal obstacles, which could be overcome.
Psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) have emerging therapeutic potential for neuropsychiatric diseases such as depression and anxiety. In this Perspective, McClure-Begley and Roth discuss the promises and pitfalls of psychedelic pharmacology, including complex activity profiles beyond canonical 5-HT2A receptor activation that continue to be elucidated. They consider progress and challenges for clinical studies, as well as prospects for parsing the therapeutic from psychedelic effects of this class of compounds to develop ‘cleaner’ drugs.
A resurgence in interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs has boosted research into their neurobiological and cognitive effects. Vollenweider and Preller review recent advances in the field and consider the implications of recent discoveries for the therapeutic use of psychedelics.