In a new study, researchers found huge improvements in psychiatric symptoms on placebo alone, particularly for depression and anxiety. They included the 10 least biased, most recent randomised controlled trials for nine common diagnoses in their attempt to quantify the improvements that could be expected without treatment.
Simple logic tells us that those atop a societal hierarchy will provide rewards for professionals—be they clergy or psychiatrists—who promote an ideology that maintains the status quo, and that the ruling class will do everything possible to manipulate the public to believe that the social-economic-political status quo is natural.
(Stacker) – Over 9 million veterans receive healthcare through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), but as many as 1.5 million remain uninsured — amounting to about 6% of veterans nationwide (or one out of every 15 veterans), data shows. These insurance gaps mean that many who served our country go without necessary healthcare each year
When Vice President Kamala Harris toured the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School this week, site of the infamous 2018 Parkland, Florida, mass shooting, she pushed for more gun control and called for communities to accept more federal help in stopping school shootings. “I will continue to advocate for what we must do in terms of universal background checks and assault weapons ban” Harris said.
A group of 400 Israeli survivors of the October 7 Hamas attack, including civilians, released hostages, and soldiers, could be offered MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in a potentially trailblazing study to commence later this year.
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“Our goal is to create a therapy model that can serve universally, with the intention and prayer to help people,” said Dr. Keren Tzarfaty, CEO and co-founder of MAPS Israel, which is already running trials evaluating MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and eating disorders. “We hope it will demonstrate high levels of safety and effectiveness and enable us to offer the program in other places over the region and the world, not only to treat PTSD, but to help people open their hearts and expand their minds.”
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Dr. Rick Doblin, founding president of the U.S.-based MAPS and a longtime advocate for using psychedelic therapy in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, said that the study would serve as a seminal piece of research into whether psychedelic-assisted therapy can help large groups of traumatized people.
“. . . if the major media picks up on this story, they will have the chance to report on what arguably is the worst—and most harmful—scandal in American medical history”
Historically, there have always been some patients who report that any treatment for depression—including bloodletting—has worked for them, but science demands that for a treatment to be deemed truly effective, it must work better than a placebo or the passage of time without any treatment. This is especially important for antidepressant drugs—including Prozac, Zoloft, and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), as well as Effexor, Cymbalta, and other serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs)—because all of these drugs have uncontroversial troubling side effects.
If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or go online to 988lifeline.org.
Yet one glaring problem remains. Despite promising clinical results, no one knows exactly how psychedelic drugs work in the brain. Examining their actions on brain cells isn’t just an academic curiosity. It could give rise to variants that maintain antidepressant properties without the high. And because hallucinogens substantially alter our perception [management?!] of the world, they could be powerful toolsfor investigating the neurobiology behind consciousness.
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This year, scientists found another common theme—psychedelics seem to “reset” the brain to a more youthful state, at least in mice. Like humans, mice have an adolescent critical period, during which their brains are highly malleable and can easily rewire neural circuits, but the window closes after adulthood.
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An earlier study showed that MDMA reopens the critical window in adult mice, so that they change their “personality.” Mice raised alone are often introverted and prefer to keep to themselves in adulthood. A dose of MDMA increased their willingness to snuggle with other mice—essentially, they learned to associate socializing with happiness, concluded the study.
It’s not that surprising. MDMA is well-known to promote empathy and bonding. The new study, by the same team, extended their early results to four psychedelics that don’t trigger fuzzy feelings—LSD, ketamine, psilocybin, and ibogaine. Similar to MDMA, adult mice raised alone changed their usual preference for solitude when treated with any of the drugs. Because habits are hard to change in adulthood—for mice and men—the drugs may have reopened the critical period, allowing the brain to more easily rewire neural connections based on new experiences.
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These are just early results. But psychedelic research is gaining a new ally—artificial intelligence. Algorithms that predict protein structure, combined with rational drug design, could generate psychedelics that retain their psychiatric benefits without the high.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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