DATE:
June 12, 2024 at 06:00PM
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TITLE:
LSD shows promise as anxiety treatment in new study
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URL: https://www.psypost.org/lsd-shows-promise-as-anxiety-treatment-in-new-study/
<p>LSD was accidentally discovered by Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz pharmaceutical company in Switzerland in 1938. It was <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/the-accidental-discovery-of-lsd/379564/">apparently useless</a>, but from 1947 it was <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/19990427145322/http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/lsd/lsd-4.htm">marketed</a> as “a cure for everything from schizophrenia to criminal behavior, ‘sexual perversions’, and alcoholism”. It failed to find its niche.</p>
<p>Now, over 80 years later, it may finally have found one – other than <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2014/10/02/352924426/can-psychedelics-expand-our-consciousness">expanding consciousness</a>, that is. A new study shows that it is highly effective at treating <a href="https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/lsd-based-medication-gad-receives-fda-breakthrough-status-2024a10004hf">generalised anxiety disorder</a> for up to 12 weeks with just a single dose. And it is fast acting.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.mentalyc.com/blog/icd-10-code-for-generalized-anxiety-disorder">General anxiety disorder</a> (hereafter referred to simply as “anxiety”) is a mental health condition characterised by excessive worry, fear and anxiety about everyday situations. It affects about 6% of adults during their life. Treatments include psychotherapy, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, as well as medications, such as antidepressants and benzodiazepines.</p>
<p>Psychotherapy is expensive and takes weeks or months, while drugs need to be taken daily for weeks, months or even years. And these can have side-effects. Benzodiazepines are very <a href="https://americanaddictioncenters.org/benzodiazepine/symptoms-and-signs">addictive</a>, while SSRIs (the latest generation of antidepressants) have a <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/talking-therapies-medicine-treatments/medicines-and-psychiatry/ssri-antidepressants/side-effects/">variety of side-effects</a> including sexual dysfunction.</p>
<p>In addition, there are many anxious patients for whom <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40501-017-0129-6">none of the established drugs work</a>. Clearly, new drugs for anxiety are needed.</p>
<p>A clinical trial in the US by the biopharmaceutical company MindMed has shown that a form of LSD (lysergide d-tartrate), given at a relatively low dose, can effectively treat people with anxiety.</p>
<p>Patients were given the drug at 25µg, 50µg, 100µg or 200µg. This was a phase 2b clinical trial, which is where different doses of a drug are tested in a group of people with the illness in question. The purpose is to find a dose that works while having acceptable side-effects. It was found that the 100µg dose was very effective while having only relatively minor side-effects.</p>
<p>The study used the <a href="http://www.assessmentpsychology.com/HAM-A.pdf#:%7E:text=The%20Hamilton%20Anxiety%20Scale%20%28HAM-A%29%20is%20a%20rating,0%20%3D%20Not%20present%20to%204%20%3D%20Severe">Hamilton anxiety scale</a> to measure anxiety levels. Researchers found improvements in anxiety levels within only two days of administration of their drug.</p>
<p>Further improvements were seen four and 12 weeks into the study. At 12 weeks, 65% of the patients were less anxious, with 48% of patients no longer meeting the clinical criteria for anxiety.</p>
<p>The results were so remarkable that the <a href="https://www.fda.gov/">Food and Drug Administration</a> (the organisation that approves new drugs in the US) has designated this a “breakthrough” drug. This means the FDA will work closely with MindMed during the next phase of testing in humans (called “phase 3”). This is where a larger group, usually up to 3,000 patients, is tested.</p>
<p>In phase 3, LSD may also be tested against established drugs for anxiety to determine if it works as well or possibly even better than those already in clinical use.</p>
<h2>Psychedelics shown to treat a range of disorders</h2>
<p>Previous studies have examined certain illicit drugs, usually hallucinogens or psychedelics, as treatments for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and addiction. LSD, ecstasy (MDMA), ketamine, ayahuasca and psilocybin <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38574699/">all seem useful</a> in various mental health conditions.</p>
<p>A single dose of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5116384/">ketamine</a> can alleviate depressive symptoms for up to a week. The current study by MindMed is the first positive single-dose study, with no psychotherapy, of LSD for anxiety.</p>
<p>It is incredible to think that the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1006495476/after-50-years-of-the-war-on-drugs-what-good-is-it-doing-for-us">US war on drugs</a> which started with Richard Nixon in 1970, and the consequent difficulties in scientifically examining these illicit drugs, has lasted this long.</p>
<p>Most of these drugs were outlawed and <a href="https://www.dea.gov/drug-information/drug-scheduling">scheduled</a> as having “no accepted medical use”. Five decades later, we are finally finding clinical uses for these drugs.</p>
<p>The data from the MindMed study has been sent to a top science journal for peer review, so we should not get carried away just yet. A phase 3 trial is still needed. However, if a single dose of LSD does work for 12 weeks, then this is truly remarkable. We could be on the verge of a new era of treatments for mental health problems.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/single-dose-of-lsd-highly-effective-at-treating-anxiety-227974">original article</a>.</em></p>
DATE: June 12, 2024 at 03:15PM
SOURCE: Psychiatric Times
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DATE:
June 12, 2024 at 02:00PM
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TITLE:
Massive cross-cultural study finds participation with news is declining
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URL: https://www.psypost.org/massive-cross-cultural-study-finds-participation-with-news-is-declining/
<p>A massive cross-cultural study reported a 12% decline in overall news participation—including liking, sharing, and commenting on social media, and discussing news offline—a trend spanning 46 countries between 2015 to 2022. This research was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241247822"><em>New Media & Society</em></a>.</p>
<p>“I was interested in news participation because in recent years many have expressed concerns about dark forms of participation, such as the sharing of ‘fake news’. Yet, what we see on social media isn’t a representative sample of reality,” said Sacha Altay (<a href="https://x.com/Sacha_Altay">@Sacha_Altay</a>), a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zürich in the department of political science. “For instance, we know that a small group of very active and vocal internet users drive most forms of dark participation online. I wanted to understand general trends in participation beyond these potentially unusual and unrepresentative cases.”</p>
<p>The research team used data from the Digital News Report surveys conducted by YouGov and its partners, which encompassed responses from 577,859 individuals across 46 countries over an eight-year period. These surveys were designed to be nationally representative, with quotas for age, gender, region, and, in some cases, education and political orientation.</p>
<p>Participants were asked about their engagement in various forms of news participation, such as talking about news face-to-face, sharing news on social media, commenting on news articles, sharing news via email, and so on. The researchers computed a participation score based on the sum of these activities. The study also gauged trust in news on a 5-point scale. At the country level, it included variables from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project, including political polarization and freedom of discussion.</p>
<p>“The main takeaway is that in many countries, news participation is declining,” explained Altay. “For example, people report sharing, commenting, or liking news on social media less. This decline is not only confined to online spaces: people also report talking less about the news in face-to-face interactions with their friends or colleagues. The only form of participation that has increased is news sharing via private messaging applications such as WhatsApp.”</p>
<p>Specifically, sharing news on social media dropped by 29%, commenting decreased by 26%, and offline discussions fell by 24%. Conversely, sharing news through private messaging apps increased by 20%, suggesting a preference for private communication channels.</p>
<p>Participants with higher education levels, younger individuals, women, and those with a keen interest in news were more likely to participate in news activities. However, over time, the decline in participation was more pronounced among women, those without a bachelor’s degree, and individuals with low trust in news. This shift resulted in men eventually participating more than women, a reversal of the trend observed in 2015. Further, political polarization within countries was linked to lower levels of news participation, suggesting that increasing societal divides may discourage news engagement.</p>
<p>What questions still need to be answered? Altay said, “First, our findings suggest that we should pay more attention to the role that private messaging applications play in news participation. Second, we should try to understand why people seem to be moving away from public online spaces, and whether new forms of (online or offline) participation are emerging.”</p>
<p>The researcher noted a potential limitation. “We rely on self-reported measures of news participation, which is not ideal, but at the same time it’s the only way to conduct a longitudinal analysis of news participation in 46 countries. Moreover, rich countries of the Global North are over-represented in the data, so despite the cross-cultural scope of the dataset we cannot make claims about the whole world.”</p>
<p>“The decline in news participation that we document is likely a symptom of growing negative perceptions of the news: in the last seven years, trust in news has slowly but steadily declined, news avoidance has grown, and interest in news has fallen sharply,” Altay told PsyPost. “I see these trends as worrying given the role that the news plays in informing people and, among other things, holding politicians accountable.”</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241247822">News participation is declining: Evidence from 46 countries between 2015 and 2022</a>”, was authored by Sacha Altay, Richard Fletcher, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen.</p>
DATE: June 12, 2024 at 01:00PM
SOURCE: Psychiatric Times
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Veterans paired with a service dog for 3 months were 66% less likely to be diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder. https://t.co/m3UhVhVEoNhttps://t.co/VLDzGqC8R2
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Wed, 12 Jun 2024 15:01:24 +0000
TITLE:
Staff Perspective: The State of PTSD Treatment: Research is Important!
DESCRIPTION:
In the world of treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) there seems to be an insatiable desire for new and novel treatments. And there is a frequent refrain that “We need effective treatments for PTSD! ”
DATE:
June 12, 2024 at 10:00AM
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TITLE:
Alpha neurofeedback improves visual working memory, study finds
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URL: https://www.psypost.org/alpha-neurofeedback-improves-visual-working-memory-study-finds/
<p>A recent study in China found that alpha neurofeedback training improves visual working memory. The group that received this training improved both the capacity and accuracy of their visual working memory compared to the group that underwent sham training. The paper was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-024-00242-w"><em>npj Science of Learning</em></a>.</p>
<p>Biofeedback training is a therapeutic technique that uses real-time monitoring of physiological functions, such as heart rate, muscle tension, and brainwave activity, to help individuals learn to control these processes consciously. The idea behind biofeedback is that if constant and accurate information is provided to an individual about their heart rate or brainwave activity, they will be able to identify actions that affect these processes and, through that, learn to control them. This technique is generally applied to bodily processes that humans cannot easily monitor using their consciously available senses.</p>
<p>Alpha neurofeedback training is a type of biofeedback therapy that aims to help individuals learn to increase their alpha brainwave activity. Alpha waves, typically associated with a relaxed and meditative state, are prevalent when the brain is calm but alert. In this way, participants effectively learn to remain calm but alert. This training is used to reduce anxiety, improve focus or overall well-being, and for various other purposes.</p>
<p>Study author Wenbin Zhou and his colleagues wanted to explore whether alpha neurofeedback training might improve visual working memory. Visual working memory is the cognitive system responsible for temporarily holding and manipulating visual information, such as shapes, colors, and spatial relationships, to perform tasks like problem-solving and decision-making.</p>
<p>It generally works through two phases: encoding, when the memory is formed, and maintenance, when the memory is kept in a state that allows easy recall. The authors note that previous studies already indicated that alpha neurofeedback training improved visual working memory, but it remained unclear which phase of the memory process the training affects.</p>
<p>Study participants were 40 healthy volunteers recruited from Shanghai Normal University, with an average age of 24 years. The study authors randomly divided them into two groups. One group underwent alpha neurofeedback training for five days, in five daily sessions.</p>
<p>In these sessions, while participants worked on a cognitive task (a modified Sternberg task), electroencephalographic data were recorded about their brain activity. Alpha wave activity derived from this data was presented to study participants as a blue bar, the height of which depended on the amplitude of the participant’s alpha waves. Participants were asked to find a way to keep the bar as high as possible. The other group completed a sham neurofeedback training in which they were presented with feedback based on a random electroencephalography frequency band.</p>
<p>Additionally, study participants completed working memory tasks (a modified Sternberg task, block tapping task, color-recall task) at the start of the study, a day after the end of the training, and on day 14 after the start of the study.</p>
<p>Results showed that there were no differences between the two groups on the modified Sternberg task. However, the alpha neurofeedback training group showed increased visual working memory capacity on the Corsi-block tapping test. They also showed improved visual working memory precision in one of the conditions of the color-recall test.</p>
<p>“These results suggest that alpha NF [neurofeedback] training influences performance in working memory tasks involved in the visuospatial sketchpad. Notably, we demonstrated that alpha NF training improves the quantity and quality of visual working memory,” the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study sheds light on the effects of alpha neurofeedback training on visual working memory. However, it should be noted that the number of study participants was very small and they were all young people. Additionally, the effects were obtained on 2 of the 3 tests. It remains unknown whether the improvements are specific for these tasks or more general in nature.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-024-00242-w">Alpha neurofeedback training improves visual working memory in healthy individuals,</a>” was authored by Wenbin Zhou, Wenya Nan, Kaiwen Xiong, and Yixuan Ku.</p>
DATE: June 12, 2024 at 09:00AM
SOURCE: Psychiatric Times
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Social media content moderation for youth: check out this brief for clinicians. @JaneHarness9 https://t.co/7A1dBU6v8x
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