One treatment each of two psychedelic drugs lowered depression and anxiety and improved cognitive functioning in a sample of U.S. special operations forces veterans who sought care at a clinic in Mexico, according to a new analysis of the participants' charts.
"What sets this group apart from some other veterans and civilians is that often, they are exposed to repeated traumatic events as a routine part of their jobs.
Davis said the improved cognitive functioning warrants more research into whether better thinking results from lowered mental health symptoms or biological changes to signaling in the brain, or a mixture of both types of effects.
Davis and colleagues took a conservative approach to analyzing outcome data, building in an assumption that attendees who didn't complete all of the follow-up surveys may not have gotten the relief they had hoped for from the treatment. But they said finding that a population of veterans with complicated trauma histories can benefit from psychedelic therapy supports the importance of continuing to test psychedelic-assisted therapies in U.S. clinical trials.
Open-label study of consecutive ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT assisted-therapy for trauma-exposed male Special Operations Forces Veterans: prospective data from a clinical program in MexicoNew research in animal models show it's possible to create a compound that hits the same exact target as psychedelic drugs hit -- the 5-HT2A serotonin receptors on the surface of specific ...