Multimodal creativity assessments following acute and sustained microdosing of lysergic acid diethylamide

Abstract

Introduction: Enhanced creativity is often cited as an effect of microdosing (taking repeated low doses of a psychedelic drug). There have been recent efforts to validate the reported effects of microdosing, however creativity remains a difficult construct to quantify.

Objectives: The current study aimed to assess microdosing's effects on creativity using a multimodal battery of tests as part of a randomised controlled trial of microdosing lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).

Methods: Eighty healthy adult males were given 10 µg doses of LSD or placebo every third day for six weeks (14 total doses). Creativity tasks were administered at a drug-free baseline session, at a first dosing session during the acute phase of the drug's effects, and in a drug-free final session following the six-week microdosing regimen. Creativity tasks were the Alternate Uses Test (AUT), Remote Associates Task (RAT), Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT), and an Everyday Problem-Solving Questionnaire (EPSQ).

Results: No effect of drug by time was found on the AUT, RAT, CAT, or EPSQ. Baseline vocabulary skill had a significant effect on AUT and RAT scores.

Conclusions: Despite participants reporting feeling more creative on dose days, objective measurement found no acute or durable effects of the microdosing protocol on creativity. Possible explanations of these null findings are that laboratory testing conditions may negatively affect ability to detect naturalistic differences in creative performance, the tests available do not capture the facets of creativity that are anecdotally affected by microdosing, or that reported enhancements of creativity are placebo effects.

Keywords: Convergent thinking; Creativity; Lysergic acid diethylamide; Microdosing divergent thinking; Psychedelics.

Fig. 1

Alternate Uses Test (AUT) scores for elaboration, flexibility, fluency, and originality by Group at Baseline, Treatment, and Final visits. Box plots show the inter quartile range (IQR), with values over 1.5 IQR from the hinge represented as outlier points

Fig. 2

Remote Associates Taks (RAT) scores for number attempted and number correct by Group at Baseline, Treatment, and Final visits. Box plots show the inter quartile range (IQR), with values over 1.5 IQR from the hinge represented as outlier points

Fig. 3

Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) scores for creativity and technical goodness by Group at Baseline, Treatment, and Final visits. Box plots show the inter quartile range (IQR), with values over 1.5 IQR from the hinge represented as outlier points

Fig. 4

Everyday Problem Solving (EPSQ) ratings of idea generation difficulty and idea effectiveness by Group at Baseline and Final visits. Box plots show the inter quartile range (IQR), with values over 1.5 IQR from the hinge represented as outlier points