However, the study also highlighted the challenges of developing psychedelic-based therapies. The hallucinatory effects of these substances are deeply entwined with the therapeutic effects, making it difficult to develop a drug that can be used without supervision. The researchers suggest that we may need to rethink how we conceive of medication, as these substances are typically used in one or two interventions with long-lasting effects, rather than being taken chronically like traditional antidepressants.
Key takeaways:
- A group of interdisciplinary researchers have used AI and brain imaging to draw from the experiences of internet users who have used psychedelic drugs, potentially paving the way for a new class of hybrid drugs.
- The researchers downloaded nearly seven thousand testimonials for 27 different psychedelics from Erowid’s archives, an online drug forum, and used AI to boil down commonly recounted experiences into their most essential, expressive keywords.
- The study, "Trips and Neurotransmitters: Discovering Principled Patterns Across 6850 Hallucinogenic Experiences," is the largest ever study of psychedelic influence on the brain and offers a map of neurotransmitter-receptor combinations that need to be stimulated to induce a specific state of conscious experience.
- Despite the potential of psychedelic-based therapy, there are challenges to overcome, including the difficulty of quantifying the "mystical" experience often associated with these drugs, and the need for supervision due to the hallucinatory effects of these substances.