“Citizen Science: Asking Questions of Psychedelic Microdosing”, 2021-03-02 (; backlinks; similar):
A citizen science approach to research has shown that the improvements in mood and cognition associated with psychedelic microdosing are likely due to a placebo effect.
…Now, in eLife, Balász Szigeti (Imperial College) and colleagues report how they have taken a citizen science approach to enroll 191 participants in a trial, and then used a clever experimental protocol to blind these participants to the experimental conditions ( et al 2021). Participants were split into 3 groups and took doses for 4 weeks: the first group microdosed, the second group took only placebo, and the last group had 2 weeks of microdoses and 2 weeks of placebo (Figure 1)…Surveys were given to participants at the start of the study, at multiple points during the investigation, and afterwards to measure a wide range of psychological outcomes including creativity, emotional state, mood, energy, well-being, mindfulness, openness, neuroticism and paranoia. Critically, their method enabled a placebo-controlled study, with a large sample size and realistic drug-use practices (albeit with drug samples that vary in purity and dose). This is the largest placebo-controlled microdosing study to date.
While Szigeti et al confirm anecdotal reports that microdosing improves mood and cognitive functions, there was no statistically-significant difference between the microdosing group and the placebo-treated group. This suggests that effects associated with psychedelic microdosing can be explained by the placebo effect. Consistent with this, participants scored statistically-significantly higher on the surveys when they believed they had taken a microdose.
So, does the dose of a psychedelic compound have to be strong enough to cause hallucinations in order to have a therapeutic effect? The results of Szigeti et al suggest that the answer to this question is yes.