29
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Psychedelic microdosing benefits and challenges: an empirical codebook

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Background

          Microdosing psychedelics is the practice of consuming very low, sub-hallucinogenic doses of a psychedelic substance, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or psilocybin-containing mushrooms. According to media reports, microdosing has grown in popularity, yet the scientific literature contains minimal research on this practice. There has been limited reporting on adverse events associated with microdosing, and the experiences of microdosers in community samples have not been categorized.

          Methods

          In the present study, we develop a codebook of microdosing benefits and challenges (MDBC) based on the qualitative reports of a real-world sample of 278 microdosers.

          Results

          We describe novel findings, both in terms of beneficial outcomes, such as improved mood (26.6%) and focus (14.8%), and in terms of challenging outcomes, such as physiological discomfort (18.0%) and increased anxiety (6.7%). We also show parallels between benefits and drawbacks and discuss the implications of these results. We probe for substance-dependent differences, finding that psilocybin-only users report the benefits of microdosing were more important than other users report.

          Conclusions

          These mixed-methods results help summarize and frame the experiences reported by an active microdosing community as high-potential avenues for future scientific research. The MDBC taxonomy reported here informs future research, leveraging participant reports to distil the highest-potential intervention targets so research funding can be efficiently allocated. Microdosing research complements the full-dose literature as clinical treatments are developed and neuropharmacological mechanisms are sought. This framework aims to inform researchers and clinicians as experimental microdosing research begins in earnest in the years to come.

          Electronic supplementary material

          The online version of this article (10.1186/s12954-019-0308-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

          Related collections

          Most cited references27

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          Beyond the Turk: Alternative platforms for crowdsourcing behavioral research

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Psilocybin-assisted treatment for alcohol dependence: a proof-of-concept study.

            Several lines of evidence suggest that classic (5HT2A agonist) hallucinogens have clinically relevant effects in alcohol and drug addiction. Although recent studies have investigated the effects of psilocybin in various populations, there have been no studies on the efficacy of psilocybin for alcohol dependence. We conducted a single-group proof-of-concept study to quantify acute effects of psilocybin in alcohol-dependent participants and to provide preliminary outcome and safety data. Ten volunteers with DSM-IV alcohol dependence received orally administered psilocybin in one or two supervised sessions in addition to Motivational Enhancement Therapy and therapy sessions devoted to preparation for and debriefing from the psilocybin sessions. Participants' responses to psilocybin were qualitatively similar to those described in other populations. Abstinence did not increase significantly in the first 4 weeks of treatment (when participants had not yet received psilocybin), but increased significantly following psilocybin administration (p < 0.05). Gains were largely maintained at follow-up to 36 weeks. The intensity of effects in the first psilocybin session (at week 4) strongly predicted change in drinking during weeks 5-8 (r = 0.76 to r = 0.89) and also predicted decreases in craving and increases in abstinence self-efficacy during week 5. There were no significant treatment-related adverse events. These preliminary findings provide a strong rationale for controlled trials with larger samples to investigate efficacy and mechanisms.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Pilot study of the 5-HT2AR agonist psilocybin in the treatment of tobacco addiction.

              Despite suggestive early findings on the therapeutic use of hallucinogens in the treatment of substance use disorders, rigorous follow-up has not been conducted. To determine the safety and feasibility of psilocybin as an adjunct to tobacco smoking cessation treatment we conducted an open-label pilot study administering moderate (20 mg/70 kg) and high (30 mg/70 kg) doses of psilocybin within a structured 15-week smoking cessation treatment protocol. Participants were 15 psychiatrically healthy nicotine-dependent smokers (10 males; mean age of 51 years), with a mean of six previous lifetime quit attempts, and smoking a mean of 19 cigarettes per day for a mean of 31 years at intake. Biomarkers assessing smoking status, and self-report measures of smoking behavior demonstrated that 12 of 15 participants (80%) showed seven-day point prevalence abstinence at 6-month follow-up. The observed smoking cessation rate substantially exceeds rates commonly reported for other behavioral and/or pharmacological therapies (typically <35%). Although the open-label design does not allow for definitive conclusions regarding the efficacy of psilocybin, these findings suggest psilocybin may be a potentially efficacious adjunct to current smoking cessation treatment models. The present study illustrates a framework for future research on the efficacy and mechanisms of hallucinogen-facilitated treatment of addiction.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                +1 647-303-2468 , metathomas.anderson@mail.utoronto.ca
                +1 647-937-6234 , rotem@boredomlab.org
                adam.christopher@mail.utoronto.ca
                daniel.rosenbaum@mail.utoronto.ca
                cory.weissman@mail.utoronto.ca
                leanh.dinh.williams@mail.utoronto.ca
                katrina.hui@mail.utoronto.ca
                emma.hapke@mail.utoronto.ca
                Journal
                Harm Reduct J
                Harm Reduct J
                Harm Reduction Journal
                BioMed Central (London )
                1477-7517
                10 July 2019
                10 July 2019
                2019
                : 16
                : 43
                Affiliations
                [1 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2157 2938, GRID grid.17063.33, Department of Psychology, , University of Toronto, ; Mississauga, Canada
                [2 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1936 9430, GRID grid.21100.32, Clinical Psychology, , York University, ; Toronto, Canada
                [3 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2157 2938, GRID grid.17063.33, Department of Medicine, , University of Toronto, ; Toronto, Canada
                [4 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2157 2938, GRID grid.17063.33, Department of Psychiatry, , University of Toronto, ; Toronto, Canada
                [5 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2157 2938, GRID grid.17063.33, Department of Psychological Clinical Science, , University of Toronto at Scarborough, ; Toronto, Canada
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2387-5219
                Article
                308
                10.1186/s12954-019-0308-4
                6617883
                31288862
                1c953791-65fa-4c61-a884-e5c46eb1727b
                © The Author(s). 2019

                Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                : 28 February 2019
                : 16 May 2019
                Categories
                Research
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2019

                Health & Social care
                psychedelic,microdosing,lsd,psilocybin,grounded theory,mood,depression,anxiety,self-efficacy,open science

                Comments

                Comment on this article

                scite_
                98
                4
                103
                1
                Smart Citations
                98
                4
                103
                1
                Citing PublicationsSupportingMentioningContrasting
                View Citations

                See how this article has been cited at scite.ai

                scite shows how a scientific paper has been cited by providing the context of the citation, a classification describing whether it supports, mentions, or contrasts the cited claim, and a label indicating in which section the citation was made.

                Similar content886

                Cited by42

                Most referenced authors406