<\/p>\n
This phenomenon can distort the results of psychedelic drug trials. While a placebo in a traditional antidepressant drug trial improves symptoms by eight points, placebos in psychedelic trials improve symptoms by a mere four points, says Szigeti.<\/p>\n
If the active drug similarly improves symptoms by around 10 points, that makes it look as though the psychedelic is improving symptoms by around six points compared with a placebo. It \u201cgives the illusion\u201d of a huge effect, says Szigeti.<\/strong><\/p>\n So why have those smaller trials of the past received so much attention? Many have been published in high-end journals, accompanied by breathless press releases and media coverage. Even the inconclusive ones. I\u2019ve often thought that those studies might not have seen the light of day if they\u2019d been investigating any other drug.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, nobody would care,\u201d Szigeti agrees.<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s partly because people who work in mental health are so desperate for new treatments, says Owens. There has been little innovation in the last 40 years or so, since the advent of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. \u201cPsychiatry is hemmed in with old theories \u2026 and we don\u2019t need another SSRI for depression,\u201d he says. But it\u2019s also because psychedelics are inherently fascinating, says Szigeti. \u201cPsychedelics are cool,\u201d he says. \u201cCulturally, they are exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve often worried that psychedelics are overhyped\u2014that people might get the mistaken impression they are cure-alls for mental-health disorders. I\u2019ve worried that vulnerable people might be harmed by self-experimentation.<\/p>\n Szigeti takes a different view. Given how effective we know the placebo effect can be, maybe hype isn\u2019t a totally bad thing, he says. \u201cThe placebo response is the expectation of a benefit,\u201d he says. \u201cThe better response patients are expecting, the better they\u2019re going to get.\u201d Tempering the hype might end up making those drugs less effective, he says.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n #Mindaltering #substances #falling #short #clinical #trials<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This phenomenon can distort the results of psychedelic drug trials. While a placebo in a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4144,4143,4141,1235,4142,4145],"class_list":["post-4198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-clinical","tag-falling","tag-mindaltering","tag-short","tag-substances","tag-trials"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/psilocybin-med.jpg",1200,600,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/psilocybin-med-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/psilocybin-med-300x150.jpg",300,150,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/psilocybin-med-768x384.jpg",640,320,true],"large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/psilocybin-med-1024x512.jpg",640,320,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/psilocybin-med.jpg",1200,600,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/psilocybin-med.jpg",1200,600,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/psilocybin-med-1024x512.jpg",1024,512,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/psilocybin-med-540x340.jpg",540,340,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/news678.top\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Stories","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}