NP&PP department, psychedelics

How does 2C-B compare to psilocybin and placebo regarding subjective effects, mood and cognition?

2C-B is a hallucinogenic phenethylamine derived from mescaline. First made by the grand wizard of psychedelic biochemistry Sasha Shulgin in 1974, 2C-B became his favourite of the "magical-half dozen" of substituted phenethylamines. Published in his seminal book PIHKAL, 2C-B promptly reached the wider world of recreational users. However, despite being the most popular 2C-X compound… Continue reading How does 2C-B compare to psilocybin and placebo regarding subjective effects, mood and cognition?

Cannabis

Cannabis containing equivalent concentrations of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) induces less state anxiety than THC-dominant cannabis

Can the cannabinoid CBD counteract the anxiety inducing effects of its psychoactive cousin THC? Turns out it depends on how anxious you feel before smoking up! Read about it in the recent publication by our colleague Dr. Nadia Hutten et al.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9584997/

Uncategorized

Does stress make us less able to forget?

If you ever blacked out during an exam or lost forgot your lines when speaking in front of an audience, the notion that stress makes us unable to forget appears counterintuitive. But what if we actually try to forget something through active suppression? In that case, it appears that stress is actually preventing us to… Continue reading Does stress make us less able to forget?

NP&PP department, Older adults, Review, SSRI

The effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors on memory functioning in older adults: A systematic literature review

SSRIs are still widely prescribed to treat various psychiatric indications even in older adults. The side effects of SSRIs have been characterized in younger adults, but this is not the case for older adults. One concern is that SSRI treatment may contribute to a deterioration of cognitive performance in this older patient population. This systematic… Continue reading The effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors on memory functioning in older adults: A systematic literature review

Uncategorized

Acute treatment with the PDE4 inhibitor roflumilast improves verbal word memory in healthy old individuals: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

After many years of animal research, in which we found that inhibition of the enzyme phosphodiesterase type 4 (PDE4) improved memory in animals, we now find first evidence that this mechanism also works in humans. In this study, we tested how many words older participants (aged between 60 and 85 years old) could remember from… Continue reading Acute treatment with the PDE4 inhibitor roflumilast improves verbal word memory in healthy old individuals: a double-blind placebo-controlled study