Medicine/Healing

This is your brain on microdoses of psilocybin

In describing their new study, Prochazkova and co-authors said, “Taken together, our results suggest that consuming a microdose of [psychedelic] 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.”

Although there’s lots of anecdotal evidence about the “mind-expanding” powers of psilocybin, clinical research is relatively rare. For this study, Prochazkova and colleagues set out to investigate how a microdose of a psychedelic substance (.33 grams of dried “psilocybin truffles” for average body weight) affected cognitive brain function in 36 study participants … The new study Prochazkova et al. is the first of its kind to investigate the how very small amounts of a psychedelic drug influence three cognitive domains: (1) convergent thinking (e.g., the identification of a single solution to a problem), (2) divergent thinking (e.g., the ability to recognize many possible solutions), and (3) fluid intelligence (e.g., the capacity to reason and solve new problems.) “We found that both convergent and divergent thinking performance was improved after a non-blinded microdose [of psilocybin], whereas fluid intelligence was unaffected,” the authors said.  Prochazkova is optimistic that her team’s latest findings will lead to more research into the potential benefits 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 said.​

Original Article (Psychology Today):
This Is Your Brain on Microdoses of Psilocybin
Artwork Fair Use: State Library of New South Wales

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