People who microdose psychedelic substances report an improvement in mood and concentration

A researcher at the University of Toronto at Mississauga and his colleagues "discovered promising research leads" to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of microdosing with psychedelic substances LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) and psilocybin (the key ingredient of magic mushrooms).

Their study, recently published in the Harm Reduction Journalfound that people who took very small doses of psychedelic substances generally reported an improvement in their mood and concentration, as well as concerns about illegality and stigma.

Microdosing refers to the practice of regularly ingesting small amounts of non-hallucinogenic psychedelic substances. The National Post traces the trend back to 2010 when biohackers began to look for a competitive advantage. Thomas Anderson, Ph.D. student and cognitive neuroscientist, associate professor of psychology Norman Farb, Rotem Petranker of York University and colleagues at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine and the University of Toronto. University of Scarborough are the first to scientifically explore microdosing.

"The most common benefit was the improvement in mood, suggesting that microdosing research as a potential pharmacotherapeutic treatment for depression might be worth it," Anderson said. . "Microdosing could be a possible alternative to SSRIs [selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, a class of drugs commonly used to fight depression]which is great but does not work for everyone.

"Microdosing will not work for everyone either, but it may be a possible alternative to other treatment options."

Participants also reported an improvement in creativity, which includes divergent thinking, curiosity and openness. This discovery of creativity is in line with another recent publication by Anderson and colleagues that microdosers were more creative and more open, less neurotic and dysfunctional.

In the paper, Anderson and his colleagues collected reports from nearly 300 self-identified microdosers and summarized the improvements reported in categories. The main categories were: mood improvement (27% of reports), concentration (15%), creativity (13%) and self-efficacy (11%). Mood refers not only to happiness and well-being, but also to the reduction of depression, according to participants.

The main challenges associated with microdosing were physiological discomfort and anxiety about illegality. The discomfort included complaints such as headaches, nausea and insomnia, while illegality posed the biggest problem to microdoseurs, who must shop on the black market to get psychedelic. They may not be sure of the purity of their purchases and there may be an irregular supply.

Stigma about illicit substances was also present, but users may not be as stigmatized as the fears of the micro-dosing community, Anderson said.

"Many people accept psychedelics relatively privately, but the same people may mistakenly believe that others do not accept it too, so they think that there is a lot of stigma when it does not happen. There have been some academics to support us-we have heard of no one who is actually against a scientific study responsible for these substances. "

The authors emphasize that the study does not claim to be causal, but simply reflects the experiences of those involved in microdosing.

"Scientifically speaking, we do not know if microdosing really does anything," said Anderson, adding that the purpose of this paper is to provide a foundation for future research and to reveal research leads to high potential so that funds can be spent promising uses of microdosing.

"In the end, randomized, placebo-controlled pre-registered trials (RCTs) of microdosing psychedelic substances are needed to test its safety and efficacy," the authors write.