Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Aug 21:12:34.
doi: 10.3389/fnsyn.2020.00034. eCollection 2020.

Psychedelics as a Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease Dementia

Simon Andrew Vann Jones  1 , Allison O'Kelly  1
Affiliations
Review

Psychedelics as a Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease Dementia

Simon Andrew Vann Jones et al. Front Synaptic Neurosci. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Currently, there are no disease-modifying treatments for Alzheimer's disease (AD) or any other dementia subtype. The renaissance in psychedelic research in recent years, in particular studies involving psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), coupled with anecdotal reports of cognitive benefits from micro-dosing, suggests that they may have a therapeutic role in a range of psychiatric and neurological conditions due to their potential to stimulate neurogenesis, provoke neuroplastic changes and reduce neuroinflammation. This inevitably makes them interesting candidates for therapeutics in dementia. This mini-review will look at the basic science and current clinical evidence for the role of psychedelics in treating dementia, especially early AD, with a particular focus on micro-dosing of the classical psychedelics LSD and psilocybin.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; dementia; microdosing; plasticicity; psychedelic.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Aday J. S., Bloesch E. K., Davoli C. C. (2020). Can psychedelic drugs attenuate age-related changes in cognition and affect? J. Cogn. Enhan. 4, 219–227. 10.1007/s41465-019-00151-6 - DOI
    1. Agin-Liebes G. I., Malone T., Yalch M. M., Mennenga S. E., Ponté K. L., Guss J., et al. . (2020). Long-term follow-up of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for psychiatric and existential distress in patients with life-threatening cancer. J. Psychopharmacol. 34, 155–166. 10.1177/0269881119897615 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Alzheimer’s Society (2019). Demography. Available online at: http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=412. Accessed May 20, 2019.
    1. Anderson T., Petranker R., Christopher A., Rosenbaum D., Weissman C., Dinh-Williams L. A., et al. . (2019). Psychedelic microdosing benefits and challenges: an empirical codebook. Harm Reduct. J. 16:43. 10.1186/s12954-019-0308-4 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Athilingam J. C., Ben-Shalom R., Keeshen C. M., Sohal V. S., Bender K. J. (2017). Serotonin enhances excitability and γ frequency temporal integration in mouse prefrontal fast-spiking interneurons. eLife 6:e31991. 10.7554/elife.31991.022 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources