Psilocybin in the Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:
This study is the first clinical use of a psychedelic in the United States in more than 30 years. Eight patients have been treated, completing this pilot study. All the patients were beyond the reach of standard treatments, and all responded well. One patient had symptom remission for weeks following one psilocybin session. The researchers will apply to the federal government’s National Institutes of Health for funding for the next phase, which is an expanded study. This progress from a Heffter funded pilot study to larger studies with federal funding is what we hope to see in each of our American projects. This study shows a potential breakthrough treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder, a recalcitrant disease that is the fourth most common outpatient psychiatric problem. Location: University of Arizona Medical Center. Principal Investigator: Dr. Francisco Moreno, M.D.
Spiritual Intervention with Psilocybin in End-Stage Cancer Patients:
This study is beginning now. The study examines the use of psilocybin in a controlled setting to reduce the psychospiritual anxiety, depression, and physical pain of terminal cancer patients. As a society we spend a great deal of attention treating cancer, but very little treating the human being who is dying of cancer. This study treats the whole human being. It aims to help the patient move towards a “good” death, and help the patient’s family deal well with the dying process of their loved one. If we can learn to work more skillfully with dying, we will also learn to take better care of life. All the approvals are in place; we are now recruiting patients. We have an excellent team including Dr. Charles Grob, M.D., a Heffter founder, and Marycie Hagerty, R.N., a highly qualified research nurse who moved from San Diego to Los Angeles to participate in this study. This is the first work of this kind with the dying since the early 1970’s. Location: Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Principal Investigator: Dr. Charles Grob, M.D. We need an additional $65,000 to complete this important study.
Ketamine in the Treatment of Heroin Addiction:
We previously funded a group of Russian investigators to study single doses of ketamine in treating alcohol and heroin addiction. Positive results were demonstrable for a year after a single dose with associated therapy. This study looks at whether repeated treatment with ketamine increases the duration of the remission. Fifty-nine subjects have been treated. The original intention was to treat 80 subjects, but the Russian authorities recently scheduled ketamine, and under their system a scheduled drug cannot be used to treat addiction. Nevertheless, the 59 completed subjects will give statistically important results. This project has now entered the data analysis phase. Location: Leningrad Regional Center of Addictions. Principal Investigator: Dr. Evgeny Krupitsky, M.D.
Effects of Long-Term Peyote Use:
This study is an examination of the effects of long-term peyote use on the members of the Native American Church, to investigate whether there are any measurable negative impacts of such use. The idea behind the study is that if hallucinogens such as peyote, used in the Church ceremonies, may be effective over time to treat medical and psychiatric conditions, we need to learn about the effects of long-term use. This study assessed the only group of people in America who can legally consume a psychedelic medicine, peyote, and who do so in large quantities over long periods of time. The data convincingly show that there are no measurable negative impacts. The study was co-funded by Heffter and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It has been completed and is being submitted for publication. Location: McLean Hospital, a teaching hospital of the Harvard Medical School. Principle Investigator: Dr. John Halpern, M.D.
II. Basic Science Studies
Mapping Consciousness onto the Brain:
For the last three years, our Zurich team has made a wide range of measures of brain function and cognition after differing doses of psilocybin, and compared the results with subjects in a normal state. The Swiss team has demonstrated, among other things, that key dimensions of altered states of consciousness such as oceanic boundlessness and visionary restructuralization can be mapped to specific neuronal networks in the brain. The next phase will continue identifying key aspects of how the physical brain forms a substrate for our experience of consciousness. A new series of studies over the next three years will use psilocybin as an elegant probe to understand how we function, again using normal subjects for comparison. Next studies include one that will examine the root causes of the eating disorder, bulimia, as well as obsessive-compulsive disorder, by looking at the role of serotonin in patients with these problems. Another study will correlate a range of meditative experiences with corresponding brain events at a level of sophistication never undertaken before. Location: University of Zurich. Principal Investigator: Dr. Franz Vollenweider, M.D. We need an additional $200,000 for the eating disorder study.
LSD in the Mammalian Brain:
The exciting new technologies of functional genomics were used in this study to determine how LSD influences genetic expression within the prefrontal cortex, considered to be the seat of consciousness, within the brain. The investigators have shown that LSD modulates the expression of genes encoding for proteins that alter how neurons communicate with each other. Many of the genes and proteins increased by LSD are involved in synaptic plasticity, which is the underlying process for learning and memory. Thus LSD and other hallucinogens may provide vital clues to understanding these fundamental thought processes. The first preliminary study identifying these genes has been completed and the results published in two prominant neuroscience journals. A second study, currently in press in another journal, identified a novel arrestin-like gene that is regulated by LSD. This is a previously undiscovered gene, and has been named "Induced by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-1" or ILAD-1 for short. The function of this gene and how LSD modulates its expression may lead to new insights into how serotonin receptors transmit signals within neurons. Location: Vanderbilt University. Principal Investigators: Drs. Charles D. Nichols, Ph.D., and Elaine Sanders-Bush, Ph.D.
Effects of Psilocybin on Rivalry Between Brain Hemispheres:
This important area of brain research looks into how the two different brain hemispheres compete to make sense of ambiguous information when each is presented with a different image. Each hemisphere dominates for a brief period of time, during which we see the image that hemisphere perceives. Then the other hemisphere dominates and we see the other image. This rivalry may provide a window into the difference between the processing of visual information, and the perception of visual stimuli—that is, between brain events and the conscious experiences that correlate with them. In this study, the researchers looked at how psilocybin changes the rate of switching between the hemispheres. The bottom line is that psilocybin increases the ability to perceive and be conscious of seemingly contradictory information. The study has been completed and is being submitted for publication. Location: University of Queensland, Australia and University of Zurich. Principal Investigators: Dr. Jack Pettigrew, Ph.D. and Olivia Carter, M.A.
