News – There are positive psychological effects associated with taking small doses of psychedelic drugs as a result of consumer expectations, suggests a study published today in eLife.
The study – the largest placebo-controlled trial of psychedelics to date – used an innovative ‘self-inflicted citizen science’ approach, where members of the public who were already microdosing applied their own placebo-controlled controls according to online tutorial. Test results may influence future studies in real-life situations.
There has been renewed interest in exploring whether psychedelic drugs may be a useful treatment for depression, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder and other conditions. Few small studies have previously stated that microdoses – small doses of psychedelic drugs taken once or three times a week – can improve people’s well-being, creativity and overall mental performance. But many of the studies in which a control group of participants does not take a dummy pill to determine whether these positive results are due to the action of the drug, or the expected outcome of the participants for benefit – so-called placebo effect. “Narrative reports on the benefits of microdosing are almost certainly biased by the placebo effect,” says lead author Balázs Szigeti, research associate at Imperial College London, UK.
Szigeti and his colleagues designed a citizen science study where people who were already microdosing could participate online. Initially, the 191 participants followed a prescribing method that mixed placebo pills with microdose ones. After induction, participants had a set of capsules without knowing which placebo and which microdose. The authors call this process ‘self-inflating’, as participants lost knowledge of the drug they were taking. The setup included barcodes that, when scanned, connected to the study’s IT infrastructure and allowed the researchers to track who was on microdoses or placebos to take. Participants then completed surveys about their experiences and completed online cognitive tests, while taking the pills over four weeks.
Participants taking the highly psychoactive drugs and those unknowingly taking the placebos reported similar psychological benefits. “Our results are mixed: on the one hand, we saw the benefits of microdosing in a wide range of psychological measures; on the other hand, similar benefits were seen among participants taking place,” Szigeti said. explain. “These findings show that the benefits are not because of the drug, but because of the placebo-like expected side effects. Many participants reported that they experienced positive effects while they were surprised to learn the placebo after the study that they had not been found on taking the real drug. “
The authors warn that the results are not as reliable as results from a traditional placebo-controlled study, due to participants getting their drug from the black market. However, the team’s citizen science approach rightly reflects ‘real-life microdosing’ – that is, how microdosing is done in practice. In addition, the study cost a fraction of the cost of a traditional clinical study, which may be a useful first step in assessing whether other popular onions can be explained by the placebo effect.
“The successful implementation of this study could encourage similar studies in a wide range of scientific or medical contexts,” said lead author David Erritzoe, Senior Clinical Lecturer in Psychology at the College Imperial London. “Accountability for the placebo effect is important when evaluating trends such as cannabidiol oil use, fad diets or supplements where social stress or consumer expectations can lead to a strong placebo response. Citizen science initiatives themselves may to use as a cheap, original screening tool before launching expensive clinical trials. “
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