Hallucinogens (Psychedelics).

Psychedelics and Mental Health: A Population Study

PLoS One. 2013 Aug 19;
Krebs TS, Johansen P.

Psychedelic plants have been used for celebratory, religious or healing purposes for thousands of years . Use of psychedelics increased in the 1960s and has remained widespread in many parts of the world ever since. Over 30 million people living in the US have used lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin (magic mushrooms), and mescaline (peyote and other cacti). Common reasons for using psychedelics include mystical experiences, curiosity, and introspection. The classical serotonergic psychedelics are not known to cause damage to the brain or other organs of the body, or cause withdrawal symptoms, elicit addiction or compulsive use, or cause birth defects or genetic damage [6]. Psychedelics often elicit deeply personally and spiritually meaningful experiences and sustained beneficial effects. Psychedelics can often cause period of confusion and emotional turmoil during the immediate drug effects and infrequently such adverse effects last for a few days after use. Psychedelics are not regarded to elicit violence and dangerous behavior leading to suicide or accidental death under the influence of psychedelics is regarded as extremely rare. LSD and psilocybin are consistently ranked in expert assessments as causing less harm to both individual users and society than alcohol, tobacco, and most other common recreational drugs. Given that millions of doses of psychedelics have been consumed every year for over 40 years, well-documented case reports of long-term mental health problems following use of these substances are rare. Controlled studies have not suggested that use of psychedelics lead to long-term mental health problems. Here we evaluate the association between the use of psychedelics and mental health among US adults.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0063972

Recent advances in the neuropsychopharmacology of serotonergic hallucinogens.

Behav Brain Res. 2015 Jan 15;
Halberstadt AL.

Serotonergic hallucinogens, such as (+)-lysergic acid diethylamide, psilocybin, and mescaline, are somewhat enigmatic substances. Although these drugs are derived from multiple chemical families, they all produce remarkably similar effects in animals and humans, and they show cross-tolerance. This article reviews the evidence demonstrating the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor is the primary site of hallucinogen action. The 5-HT2A receptor is responsible for mediating the effects of hallucinogens in human subjects, as well as in animal behavioral paradigms such as drug discrimination, head twitch response, prepulse inhibition of startle, exploratory behavior, and interval timing. Many recent clinical trials have yielded important new findings regarding the psychopharmacology of these substances. Furthermore, the use of modern imaging and electrophysiological techniques is beginning to help unravel how hallucinogens work in the brain. Evidence is also emerging that hallucinogens may possess therapeutic efficacy.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25036425

[Emergent drugs (III): hallucinogenic plants and mushrooms].

An Sist Sanit Navar. 2013 Sep-Dec;
Burillo-Putze G, López Briz E, Climent Díaz B, Munné Mas P, Nogue Xarau S, Pinillos MA, Hoffman RS.

An increase in the consumption of vegetable substances with a hallucinogenic effect has been observed. Some of these substances are associated with ancestral religious ceremonies, while many of them are legal or are partially regulated. Salvia divinorum is a powerful kappa receptor agonist, with dissociative and hallucinogenic properties, which start quickly and have a short duration. Kratom (Mytragyna speciosa) has mitragynine as its principal alkaloid, with stimulating effects at low doses (coke-like effect), and sedative effects (opiate-like effect) at high doses. Several deaths from its consumption have been detected. The consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms appears in cyclic form, although there has been increase in their online offer. They are consumed in search of their hallucinogenic effects, above all those belonging to the family of psilocybes, which contain tryptamines with a hallucinogenic effect similar to LSD. Peyote (Lophophora psilocybes), a cactus rich in mescaline (trimetoxifeniletilamina), produces hallucinations of the five senses, and forms part of the religious culture of the North American Indians. Daturas, which are ubiquitous, produce anticholinergic symptoms and effects on the central nervous system (delirium, hallucinations, etc.), due to their high atropine and scopolamine content. Other substances used for their hallucinogenic effects include the drink known as ayahuasca, and seeds for preparing infusions like Ololiuqui, Morning Glory (Ipomoea violacea), Hawaian Baby Woodrose (Argyreia nervosa), Syrian Rue (Peganum harmala) and Iboga Rootbark (Tabernanthe iboga).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24406363

Serotonergic hallucinogens as translational models relevant to schizophrenia.

Int J Neuropsychopharmacol. 2013 Nov;
Halberstadt AL, Geyer MA.

One of the oldest models of schizophrenia is based on the effects of serotonergic hallucinogens such as mescaline, psilocybin, and (+)-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), which act through the serotonin 5-HT(2A) receptor. These compounds produce a 'model psychosis' in normal individuals that resembles at least some of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. Based on these similarities, and because evidence has emerged that the serotonergic system plays a role in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia in some patients, animal models relevant to schizophrenia have been developed based on hallucinogen effects. Here we review the behavioural effects of hallucinogens in four of those models, the receptor and neurochemical mechanisms for the effects and their translational relevance. Despite the difficulty of modelling hallucinogen effects in nonverbal species, animal models of schizophrenia based on hallucinogens have yielded important insights into the linkage between 5-HT and schizophrenia and have helped to identify receptor targets and interactions that could be exploited in the development of new therapeutic agents.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23942028

Repression of death consciousness and the psychedelic trip.

J Cancer Res Ther. 2012 Jul-Sep;
Dutta V.

Death is our most repressed consciousness, it inheres our condition as the primordial fear. Perhaps it was necessary that this angst be repressed in man or he would be hurled against the dark forces of nature. Modern ethos was built on this edifice, where the 'denial of death' while 'embracing one's symbolic immortality' would be worshipped, so this ideology simply overturned and repressed looking into the morass of the inevitable when it finally announced itself. Once this slowly pieced its way into all of life, 'Repression of death consciousness and the psychedelic trip.death' would soon become a terminology in medicine too and assert its position, by giving a push to those directly dealing with the dying to shy away from its emotional and spiritual affliction. The need to put off death and prolong one's life would become ever more urgent. Research using psychedelics on the terminally ill which had begun in the 1950s and 1960s would coerce into another realm and alter the face of medicine; but the aggression with which it forced itself in the 1960s would soon be politically maimed, and what remained would be sporadic outpours that trickled its way from European labs and underground boot camps. Now, with the curtain rising, the question has etched itself again, about the use of psychedelic drugs in medicine, particularly psychedelic psychotherapy with the terminally ill. This study is an attempt to philosophically explore death anxiety from its existential context and how something that is innate in our condition cannot be therapeutically cured. Psychedelic use was immutably linked with ancient cultures and only recently has it seen its scientific revival, from which a scientific culture grew around psychedelic therapy. How much of what was threaded in the ritual and spiritual mores can be extricated and be interpreted in our own mechanized language of medicine is the question that nudges many.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23174711