Written by Panamdeep Thind and Edited by Catherine Zhang
Psychedelic drugs have a very specific effect on one’s mind. For this reason, these drugs have been further researched and explored through placebo experiments in order to find a purpose for them within medicine. Psychedelic drugs, also referred to as hallucinogens, project various changes in mindset by actively stimulating and affecting all of five of our senses– hearing, smell, taste, touch, and sight by things that are not there.
The exact effects are difficult to determine and vary, but the common thread of all psychedelic drugs is to impersonate the function of neurotransmitters (chemical messengers within the brain that signal the body to perform and act), specifically the effects of serotonin. Serotonin is known as the neurotransmitter that controls our happiness and good feelings, and psychedelic drugs mimic this to the best of their ability. As a result of the altered perspective, hallucinations are often mood altering in a positive way, making the recipient feel happier. Many drugs that are classified as psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin mushrooms, DMT, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), etc., are illicit recreational drugs, although they have been discovered to help in certain psychotherapy treatments against alcoholism and mental disorders [1].
Many of the studies involving psychedelics are very recent, starting from 2016, because clearance for testing and researching powerful drugs such as these raise many ethical questions about their risks. As such, how dangerous a drug is can be measured by its therapeutic index, which measures the effective dosage of a drug as compared to its lethal dosage in a subset of experiments [7]. Currently, psychedelics are illegal for recreational use, and so more studies are being conducted to determine their usefulness. A few studies have managed to study the effects of psychedelics without actually using the drugs. One such study was conducted by the Olsen lab, in which the patients were informed prior that they were being given psilocybin when in fact it was a placebo– a type of drug that has no effect but is administered in effort to determine psychological effects of belief rather than physical effects. Therefore, the group of patients were anticipating psychedelic effects under the placebo [2]. This can be used to normalize the individual effects of patients when taking a drug and establish background knowledge on the study group [3]. Along with this misinformation, the setting for the experiment was set up as a “psychedelic party,” with colorful lighting and colorful images. The results showed that 61% of the participants believed they were under the effects of the drug, where they visioned the paintings in the room moving and referred to “gravity [as] having a stronger hold” [2]. In the larger picture, psychological placebos were associated with the same effect as psychedelic drugs, allowing future researchers to explore the drug effects more in-depth while the remaining within the therapeutic index.
Even though studies have revealed that placebos may give some individuals the effect of the drug, the placebo’s effects are correlated with different brain activities. A particular study conducted in the Carhart-Harris and Nutt lab tested the specific differences in the brain scans of a placebo and a LSD treated patient [4]. In the study, the participants were given a dose of injected placebo on the first day and a dose of injected LSD on the second day. The brain scans suggested “increased visual cortex cerebral blood flow (CBF), decreased visual cortex alpha power, and a greatly expanded primary visual cortex (V1) functional connectivity profile” as the reasons behind the hallucinations [4]. These particular functions control the visual performance of the brain, and caused changes in these areas that prompted the formation of visual hallucinations. Similar to the placebo study, the purpose of this study is to expand the research of psychedelic drugs and to successfully determine its therapeutic potential.
If the effects of psychedelic drugs can be monitored through placebos, a wide range of them can be used therapeutically, regardless of the therapeutic index [5]. A set of studies involving psilocybin, a psychedelic found in certain mushrooms, have shown a correlation between improvement in the mental well-being of patients in terms of alleviating their anxiety and depression through use of the drug [5]. One of these studies, conducted in 2016, was focused on the effect of psilocybin mushrooms on long term cancer patients who suffer from depression and anxiety. The study was conducted on 51 patients where neither the conductors of the experiment nor the patients knew whether they were receiving a placebo or psilocybin. After a 6 month period, 80% of the patients administered with the single dose of psilocybin had shown improvement in mood and attitude, as compared to the placebo group [6]. If the examination of studies continues in this manner psychedelics may be further applied in medicine to aid in mental illnesses.
Correction 7/9/2020: Additional edits to this article were made regarding therapeutic indices for psychedelic drugs to give proper nuance in usage.
- Jenkins, John Philip. “Psychedelic Drug.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia B ritannica, Inc., 1 Oct. 2015, www.britannica.com/science/psychedelic-drug.
- Olson, J.A., Suissa-Rocheleau, L., Lifshitz, M., Raz, A., Veissiere, S.P.L (2020) Tripping o n nothing: placebo psychedelics and contextual factors. Psychopharmacology, 237:1371–1382.
- Hartogsohn, I. (2016 ) Set and Setting, Psychedelics and the Placebo Response: An Extra-Pharmacological Perspective on Psychopharmacology. Journal of Psychopharmacology. 30:1259-1267.
- Carhart-Harris, R.L., Muthukumaraswamy, S., Roseman, L., Kaelen, M., Droog, W., Murphy, K., Tagliazucci, E., Schenberg, E.E., Nest, T., Orban, C., Leech, R., Williams, L.T., Williams, T.M., Bolstridge, M., Sessa, B., McGonigle, J., Sereno, M.I., Nichols, D., Hellyer, P.J., Hobden, P., Evans, J., Singh, K.D., Wise, R.G., Curran, H.V., Feilding, A., Nutt, D.J. (2016) Neural Correlates of the LSD Experience Revealed by Multimodal Neuroimaging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113:4853–4858.
- Carhart-Harris, Robin L, Guy M Goodwin. (2017) The Therapeutic Potential of Psychedelic Drugs: Past, Present, and Future Neuropsychopharmacology, 42:2105–2113.
- Griffiths, R.R., Johnson, M.W., Carducci, M.A., Umbricht, A., Richards, W.A., Richards, B.D., Cosimano, M.P., Klinedinst, M.A. (2016) Psilocybin Produces Substantial and Sustained Decreases in Depression and Anxiety in Patients with Life-Threatening Cancer: A RandomizedD ouble-Blind Trial.Journal of Psychopharmacology,30:1181–1197.
- “Therapeutic Index (TI).” AIDS info, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Accessed 9 Jul, 2020.