6 ms·

It’s a neat study. I don’t know how you account for the intense placebo effect of a psychedelic experience for six hours though. We know that traditional anti

It’s a neat study. I don’t know how you account for the intense placebo effect of a psychedelic experience for six hours though. We know that traditional antidepressants may work through this method already where you feel “different” and fix yourself. Trials with an active placebo often have results very similar to antidepressants. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172306/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172306/ I guess maybe it doesn’t even matter in the end as long as people feel better.

delichon 2y ago
> I don’t know how you account for the intense placebo effect of a psychedelic experience for six hours though. If what they discovered is a particularly powerful way of applying a placebo effect, that could be just as clinically useful. Maybe more so since it could apply to more conditions.
strken 2y ago
For obvious reasons you probably can't put a patient under general anaesthetic before giving them either the placebo or the drug, but I wonder what would happen if you did. Does a patient have to be awake to see the antidepressant effect? How do sedation and sleep differ?
- ajb 2y ago
  There has been a study of that on ketamine, where they used patients who needed to be put under anaesthetic for other reasons. I'll try and find it in a bit... Edit: found it https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/does-anaesthesia-prove-ketamine-placebo https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/does-anaesthesia-prove-keta...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
> I don’t know how you account for the intense placebo effect of a psychedelic experience for six hours though. You don't need to. It doesn't really matter whether it's the trip itself that works, the belief that a trip will work, or some other aspect of the molecule. The drug category it's being compared to also has its own placebo effects. It is entirely reasonable to compare the complete holistic experience of taking each.
ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
This might not be ethical, but given a psychedelic naive population, I wonder if the control could be given a non-serotonergic psychedelic such as salvinorin A. There would definitely be a noticeable effect, but for someone who hasn't studied the effects of psilocybin, they may not realize it. The downside is that in order to keep the duration similar, you'd probably have to administer the salvinorin using an IV drip, and a six hour salvia trip could quite possibly be too traumatic.
- parpfish 2y ago
  It might be nice to also have a non-psychedelic non-sari as well. Right now a patient could use whether they tripped or not to determine exactly which treatment they received. But if you had the full 2x2 design of {drug has trip, drug has no trip} x {drug is supposedly therapeutic, drug is non therapeutic} the existence of a trip wouldn’t reveal their exact treatment
chiefalchemist 2y ago
This is true of most if not all drugs / studies. That is, the drug gets "credit" for the placebo effect. Sure they took the meds, but that's correlation in at least some. That is, in some the drug did not actuay work but they still get to benefit from the placebo effect. I rarely see this discussed. I'm not sure why (short of actual cellular test showing it was the drug that did triggered the success some of the success even in the group taking the real meds is still the placebo effect).

delichon 2y ago

> I don’t know how you account for the intense placebo effect of a psychedelic experience for six hours though. If what they discovered is a particularly powerful way of applying a placebo effect, that could be just as clinically useful. Maybe more so since it could apply to more conditions.

strken 2y ago

For obvious reasons you probably can't put a patient under general anaesthetic before giving them either the placebo or the drug, but I wonder what would happen if you did. Does a patient have to be awake to see the antidepressant effect? How do sedation and sleep differ?

ajb 2y ago
There has been a study of that on ketamine, where they used patients who needed to be put under anaesthetic for other reasons. I'll try and find it in a bit... Edit: found it https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/does-anaesthesia-prove-ketamine-placebo https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/does-anaesthesia-prove-keta...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

BugsJustFindMe 2y ago

> I don’t know how you account for the intense placebo effect of a psychedelic experience for six hours though. You don't need to. It doesn't really matter whether it's the trip itself that works, the belief that a trip will work, or some other aspect of the molecule. The drug category it's being compared to also has its own placebo effects. It is entirely reasonable to compare the complete holistic experience of taking each.

ulrikrasmussen 2y ago

This might not be ethical, but given a psychedelic naive population, I wonder if the control could be given a non-serotonergic psychedelic such as salvinorin A. There would definitely be a noticeable effect, but for someone who hasn't studied the effects of psilocybin, they may not realize it. The downside is that in order to keep the duration similar, you'd probably have to administer the salvinorin using an IV drip, and a six hour salvia trip could quite possibly be too traumatic.

parpfish 2y ago
It might be nice to also have a non-psychedelic non-sari as well. Right now a patient could use whether they tripped or not to determine exactly which treatment they received. But if you had the full 2x2 design of {drug has trip, drug has no trip} x {drug is supposedly therapeutic, drug is non therapeutic} the existence of a trip wouldn’t reveal their exact treatment

chiefalchemist 2y ago

This is true of most if not all drugs / studies. That is, the drug gets "credit" for the placebo effect. Sure they took the meds, but that's correlation in at least some. That is, in some the drug did not actuay work but they still get to benefit from the placebo effect. I rarely see this discussed. I'm not sure why (short of actual cellular test showing it was the drug that did triggered the success some of the success even in the group taking the real meds is still the placebo effect).