Psychedelic Research

My pace of posting has slowed as I am deep in dissertation writing.  So I have been remiss in failing to celebrate several good new articles, including a study of MDMA-cannabis interactions from Dumont and colleagues and an exciting article that considers one of my favorite topics: hallucinogens from a Bayesian perspective.  However, my primary motivation for this entry is to note the death of psychedelic researcher Abraham Hoffer.
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In a paper in the latest issue of Science, Dominique Fontanilla and colleages have just reported that the psychedelic DMT acts as a regulator at the sigma-1 receptor. (Previously, research on the mechanisms of tryptamine psychedelics has focused primarily on serotonin receptors.) Among other things, they show that mice who have no sigma-1 receptor fail to show increased motor activity after DMT injection. This is fascinating for many reasons. The Sigma-1 receptor does not have a known endogenous neurotransmitter. Because DMT has been detected in human biofluids a couple times, the authors suggest DMT might be an endogenous modulator of the receptor. Whether DMT and related compounds turn out to have a significant biological role in mammals, this finding undeniably opens new vistas for understanding the mechanisms of psychedelics and may ultimately lead to novel treatments for mental illness.
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Here is a list of four human psychedelic studies that are currently recruiting participants. These are all seeking people with specific illnesses. Most of these details were obtained from ClinicalTrials.gov and maps.org
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Here are two human psychedelic studies that are currently recruiting participants healthy psychedelic-experienced volunteers. (Full disclosure: I am involved in conducting both of these studies.) In a separate entry, I list the studies that are seeking people with specific illnesses who can be psychedelic-naive. Most of the details on these other studies were obtained from ClinicalTrials.gov and maps.org
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Here is an interesting qualitative report of MDA effects that was published in the late 1960s.
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Torsten Passie and colleagues have published a nice review paper on the pharmacology of LSD. Click through to the full article. There have also been a couple MDMA papers of interest in the last few weeks. I’ll post something about them in the next day or two.
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Pioneering psychedelic researcher Albert A. Kurland passed away on Sunday from cardiac failure. He was 94.
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“At first there are violet and green spots which are not well defined, then come images of carpet patterns, ribbed vaulting, etc. From time to time single dots with the most brilliant colors float across the field of vision. The phenomena are generally not as clear as those in the two preceding experiments. Later on landscapes, halls, architectural scenes (e.g. pillars decorated with flowers) also appear…” –Arthur Heffter, November 23 1897 (quoted by Holmstedt and Liljestrand 1963 via heffter.org)

On this day in 1897, Arthur Heffter ingested 150 mg mescaline sulfate, proving its psychoactivity. In doing so, he became the first person ever to experience a trip from a purified hallucinogen.

A short biographical sketch and quotes from the relevant pages of his lab notebook can be found at the Heffter Research Institute website.