The Heifets Laboratory
Welcome to the Heifets Lab
Our research group is dedicated to understanding and improving on powerful, rapid-acting therapies for psychiatric disease, such as ketamine, MDMA and psilocybin. We bridge basic science and clinical trials, connecting neuroscience, psychiatry and anesthesiology in pursuit of highly effective, safe treatment strategies scalable to the millions of patients who need them.
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A little perspective on psychedelic exceptionalism! I’m convinced that altered states are worth visiting, but not sure which (if any) should be privileged- sometimes the feeling of insight is just the feeling of insight…
It's assumed that psychedelic therapy is unique as drug + psychotherapy, but it's not! Here's some ritalin assisted psychotherapy ads from the 50s
I know its repetitive and boring, but one more time to drive home the point: another #psilocybin trial on major #depression, another missing #placebo response.
This time the placebo response is merely ~2.4 points, which is less than ~1/3 of antidepressant trials. This lack of a
Super excited to share our new preprint!
We built global reference curves of pain from 6.1M people in 118 countries 🌍 to find out how pain unfolds across the lifespan, and how individual- and country-level risk factors shape these trajectories.
Pain across the lifespan: global and regional reference curves from 6.1 million individuals in 118...
Pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide, yet no harmonised self-reported reference framework exists to chara...
www.medrxiv.org
Much needed work here- overly conservative exclusions in psychedelic trial make our trials less representative of real world patients
New preprint on BP effects of psilocybin, drawing from 536 high-dose sessions across 14 studies from @JHPsychedelics
BP changes generally modest, transient, and self-limiting, similar in magnitude to moderate exercise or sex.
We argue for allowing up to 160/100 baseline BP
New preprint on BP effects of psilocybin, drawing from 536 high-dose sessions across 14 studies from @JHPsychedelics
BP changes generally modest, transient, and self-limiting, similar in magnitude to moderate exercise or sex.
We argue for allowing up to 160/100 baseline BP
Great to see replications of studies in this field! In this more rigorous set of studies, the findings from the original study showing a reduction in authoritarian attitudes after psychedelics was not observed.
Now out in JoP with @zarmeen_z and Rick Strassman: 5HT-1A blockade with pindolol increases the subjective effects of DMT.
This is the first quantitative analysis of 1A blockade on a psychedelic in humans., from data previously collected by Strassman but never analyzed
I spoke with Peter Hendricks about his fascinating psilocybin for cocaine use disorder study, out today.
Aside from the impressively representative patient population and positive result, there was also a report of spontaneous orgasm!
Full interview (no paywall)...
When I saw the news about the new executive order to fast-track psychedelic clinical trials and devote more $$$ to psychedelics research, I knew just who to call. Thanks, @TheBorisLab, for walking us through the policy and the science and sharing a peak into your crystal ball!