Psychedelic microdosing in rats shows beneficial effects

March 4, 2019

Science Daily/University of California - Davis

Microdosing -- taking tiny amounts of psychedelic drugs to boost mood and mental acuity -- is based on anecdotal reports of its benefits. Now, a study in rats suggests microdosing can provide relief for symptoms of depression and anxiety, but also has potential negative effects.

The growing popularity of microdosing -- taking tiny amounts of psychedelic drugs to boost mood and mental acuity -- is based on anecdotal reports of its benefits. Now, a study in rats by researchers at the University of California, Davis suggests microdosing can provide relief for symptoms of depression and anxiety, but also found potential negative effects. The work is published March 4 in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience.

"Prior to our study, essentially nothing was known about the effects of psychedelic microdosing on animal behaviors," said David Olson, assistant professor in the UC Davis departments of Chemistry and of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, who leads the research team. "This is the first time anyone has demonstrated in animals that psychedelic microdosing might actually have some beneficial effects, particularly for depression or anxiety. It's exciting, but the potentially adverse changes in neuronal structure and metabolism that we observe emphasize the need for additional studies."

Testing microdosing claims

Olson's group microdosed male and female rats with DMT, short for N,N-dimethyltryptamine. A psychedelic compound found in ayahuasca tea, DMT's molecular structure is embedded within the structures of popular microdosing drugs such as LSD and psilocybin. The researchers administered one-tenth of the estimated hallucinogenic dose in rats (1 milligram per kilogram of body weight) every third day for two months. Although there is no well-established definition of what constitutes a microdose, people who microdose tend to follow a similar schedule, taking one-tenth of a "trip" dose every three days. The rats were treated for two weeks before beginning behavioral tests relevant to mood, anxiety and cognitive function, and tests were completed during the two-day period between doses.

Olson's group found DMT microdosing helped rats to overcome a "fear response" in a test considered to be a model of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in humans. The researchers also documented reduced immobility in an experiment that measures the effectiveness of antidepressant compounds. Less immobility is associated with antidepressant effects. In tests of cognitive function and sociability, the UC Davis researchers did not find any obvious impairments or improvements, which contrasts with human anecdotal reports.

Microdosing: potential risks

The team documented some potential risks: the dosing regimen significantly increased bodyweight in male rats, for example. It also caused neuronal atrophy in female rats. The latter change was unexpected, as previously Olson's group reported that rats treated with a single high dose of DMT showed increased neuronal growth. The results suggest an acute hallucinogenic dose and chronic, intermittent low doses of DMT produce very different biochemical and structural phenotypes, Olson said.

Despite the potential adverse effects of microdosing, the findings mean that it's possible to decouple the hallucinogenic effects from the therapeutic properties of these compounds.

"Our study demonstrates that psychedelics can produce beneficial behavioral effects without drastically altering perception, which is a critical step towards producing viable medicines inspired by these compounds," Olson said.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190304100015.htm

Can tiny doses of magic mushrooms unlock creativity?

Preliminary study suggests that 'microdoses' of psychedelics may enhance a person's creative problem solving abilities

October 25, 2018

Science Daily/Springer

The use of minute doses of magic mushrooms and truffles containing psychedelic substances could induce a state of unconstrained thought that may produce more new, creative ideas. "Microdosing" in this way may allow people to experience the creative benefits of psychedelic drugs without the risk of the so-called "bad trips" that often come with high doses of such substances. This is according to a new study in the Springer-branded journal Psychopharmacology which is the official journal of the European Behavioural Pharmacology Society (EBPS). The research was led by Luisa Prochazkova of Leiden University in The Netherlands and is the first study of its kind to experimentally investigate the cognitive-enhancing effects of microdosing on a person's brain function within a natural setting.

Taking a tiny fraction of a normal dose of psychedelic substances is becoming a trend in some professional circles because this is thought to stimulate brain function and enhance mental flexibility and creativity. However, experimental research that moves away from anecdotal evidence is still rare.

In this study, Prochazkova and her colleagues investigated how a microdose of a psychedelic substance affected the cognitive brain function of 36 people who were present at an event organized by the Psychedelic Society of The Netherlands. During the experimental phase, participants were set three tasks before and after they consumed on average 0.37 grams of dried truffles. The tests assessed their convergent thinking (the identification of a single solution to a problem), their fluid intelligence (the capacity to reason and solve new problems) and their divergent thinking (the ability to recognize many possible solutions). Afterwards, the researchers analyzed the active substances present in the truffles consumed by participants.

After taking the microdose of truffles, the researchers found that participants' convergent thinking abilities were improved. Participants also had more ideas about how to solve a presented task, and were more fluent, flexible and original in the possibilities they came up with. Microdosing with psychedelic substances therefore improved both the divergent and convergent thinking of participants.

These findings are in line with earlier studies that found high doses of psychedelics can enhance creative performance. The fact that participants' intelligence scores and general analytical abilities did not change suggests that the effect of the truffles is rather selective, and more to the benefit of a person's creative domain.

"Taken together, our results suggest that consuming a microdose of truffles allowed participants to create more out-of-the-box alternative solutions for a problem, thus providing preliminary support for the assumption that microdosing improves divergent thinking," explains Prochazkova. "Moreover, we also observed an improvement in convergent thinking, that is, increased performance on a task that requires the convergence on one single correct or best solution."

Prochazkova hopes that these findings will stimulate further research into the beneficial effects of microdosing psychedelics. "Apart from its benefits as a potential cognitive enhancement technique, microdosing could be further investigated for its therapeutic efficacy to help individuals who suffer from rigid thought patterns or behavior such as individuals with depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder," she explains.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181025103329.htm