Safety & Risk Management
Safety is the most important subject in this field, and the most easily misrepresented. Under careful screening and supervision, psychedelics have a reassuring acute safety profile: serious harm in modern trials is rare, and the common effects (nausea, anxiety, a transient rise in blood pressure and heart rate) are manageable. But that reassurance is a property of the trial, not just the drug: it comes from excluding the people most at risk and watching everyone closely. The real-world picture is harder, dominated by drug interactions, vulnerable individuals, and unsupervised settings. This page is an honest account of the genuine risks, how serious and how common each is, who is most exposed, and how the field tries to manage them, without the reflexive "remarkably safe" that the evidence does not support.
Data updated
Key Insights
- 1
This is a cross-cutting safety reference, not a condition or a treatment. The question here is risk: what can go wrong with psychedelics and psychedelic therapy, how serious and how common each problem is, who is most exposed, and what screening and supervision actually prevent.
- 2
In screened, supervised trials the acute safety profile is genuinely reassuring: a meta-analysis found serious adverse events in roughly 4% of participants with a pre-existing neuropsychiatric disorder and none in healthy participants. But the same review found only about a quarter of trials used systematic adverse-event reporting, so the reassurance is real but incompletely measured.
- 3
The most serious compound-specific risk is ibogaine cardiac toxicity: it prolongs the QT interval and has been linked to dozens of deaths, including in people with no known heart disease, which is why it demands cardiac screening and monitoring. Ketamine carries dependence and bladder risks with repeated use, and MDMA carries interaction and overheating risks.
- 4
The dangerous cases are usually about context, not chemistry alone. In pharmacovigilance data, MDMA serotonin-toxicity and cardiovascular events almost always involved another drug taken alongside it; psychosis associations largely disappear once baseline psychiatric history is accounted for. The standard exclusions (psychosis or bipolar history, heart disease, interacting medications) exist for good reasons.
- 5
The crucial caveat is that "safe in a screened trial" is not "safe in the real world". The reassuring numbers come from carefully selected, closely supervised participants; they do not transfer to unsupervised or recreational use, and they cannot capture rare serious events that small trials are too small to detect.
By the numbers
- 72
- Trials tracked
- 328
- Papers tracked
- 3,632
- Trial participants
as of June 2026
as of June 2026
as of June 2026
About Safety & Risk Management
Safety and risk management is not a condition or a treatment; it is the cross-cutting question that runs underneath every other page on this site. Whatever a psychedelic might do for depression or trauma, the first responsibility is to understand how it can harm, how often, how badly, and to whom. This page gathers what the evidence actually shows about the risks of these drugs and the therapy built around them, and about the screening and supervision that the field uses to keep those risks in check.
The honest starting point is a genuine tension. On one hand, the acute safety record of psychedelics in modern, well-run trials is reassuring: catastrophic events are rare, and the common adverse effects are transient and manageable. On the other, that reassurance is partly manufactured by the trial itself. Studies screen out the people most likely to be harmed, supervise everyone closely, and still, by the field’s own admission, measure adverse events inconsistently. So a low rate of harm in a trial tells you something real about the drug and something equally real about how carefully the trial was run.
The single most important idea to carry through this page is the difference between "safe under these conditions" and "safe". Almost every reassuring statistic here is conditional on screening (excluding, for example, a personal or family history of psychosis or bipolar disorder, and significant heart disease), on supervision, and on the absence of interacting drugs. Strip those conditions away, as recreational or poorly regulated use does, and the risk profile changes. Read this page as a guide to what the dangers are and how they are contained, not as a promise that these drugs are harmless.
Approach & Methods
Because there is no condition here, the relevant "standard practice" is the field’s risk-management framework itself: screening, preparation, supervision and integration. Screening is the single most powerful safety tool. Trials exclude a personal or family history of psychosis or bipolar disorder, because the clearest signal in the data is that serious psychiatric adverse events concentrate in people with pre-existing vulnerability; a meta-analysis found serious adverse events in about 4% of participants with a neuropsychiatric disorder and in none of the healthy participants[1]. Cardiovascular disease is excluded because these drugs transiently raise heart rate and blood pressure, and interacting medications are managed because, as the pharmacovigilance data show, many of the worst events are interaction-driven.
The second pillar is the dosing session itself: a prepared participant, a supportive setting, trained people present, and integration afterwards. This "set and setting" framework is not soft decoration; it is an empirically supported safety measure, with survey data showing that a therapeutic-like context and relational support reduce the frequency and impact of challenging experiences[2]. Two honest gaps remain. Adverse-event reporting across the field is inconsistent, which means the true denominator of harm is uncertain, and there is no validated pharmacological way to abort a difficult experience once it is underway[3], so management remains almost entirely about people and environment rather than rescue medication.
This report summarises what Blossom’s database shows about the safety and risk management of psychedelics, and it is worth saying at the outset what kind of page this is. It is not a condition page and not a treatment. It is the field’s safety reference: an honest account of what can go wrong, how serious and how common each risk is, who is most exposed, and how research tries to keep people safe. The aim is neither to alarm nor to reassure, but to be accurate.
A note before the evidence
This page is a research summary, not medical advice, and nothing here is a recommendation to take psychedelics. Crucially, the reassuring safety findings described below come from carefully screened participants in supervised clinical settings. They do not transfer to unsupervised, recreational or self-directed use, where the screening, monitoring and support that make trials relatively safe are absent. If you are considering these drugs, the single most important safety fact is that context and screening matter as much as the substance.
How safe are psychedelics, honestly?
The fair answer is: reassuringly safe in the acute term, under the right conditions, with important exceptions. In modern trials the classic psychedelics rarely cause serious harm. The largest systematic look found serious adverse events in roughly 4% of participants who had a pre-existing neuropsychiatric disorder, and in none of the healthy participants[1], a pattern that both reassures and instructs: most serious psychiatric harm concentrates in vulnerable people, which is exactly why trials screen them out. The common adverse effects, nausea, headache, anxiety, a transient rise in heart rate and blood pressure, are real but manageable.
That reassurance comes with a measurement caveat that the field is unusually candid about. The same review found that only about a quarter of studies used systematic adverse-event assessment, so the low harm rates are real but imperfectly counted. Even apparently benign drugs spring surprises: there is a documented case of psilocybin causing fainting from a sharp drop in blood pressure[2], the kind of event that inconsistent reporting can easily miss. "Safe so far, as measured" is more honest than "safe".
The serious exceptions
A handful of risks are serious enough to dominate the safety conversation. The first is ibogaine’s cardiac toxicity. It prolongs the QT interval and has been linked to at least twenty-seven deaths, including arrhythmias in people with no known heart disease[3], with a broader review of its clinical use documenting severe complications and further fatalities[4]. Ibogaine can have a genuine anti-addiction effect and can kill; both are true, which is why it is the strongest case in this whole field for cardiac screening, monitoring and (in newer protocols) magnesium co-administration to blunt the arrhythmia risk[5].
The second exception is ketamine, whose risks are about repetition rather than a single dose. It has a real dependence liability, illustrated by a case of addiction after just one sub-anaesthetic dose[6], and real-world data across nearly 1.5 million esketamine sessions recorded hundreds of abuse or misuse incidences alongside frequent sedation and dissociation[7]. Pharmacovigilance has also raised suicidality signals for esketamine[8], which must be read against the severe baseline risk of the patients who receive it, but which reinforce that repeated, unsupervised ketamine use is a different and riskier thing than a single monitored session.
Why context matters more than the molecule
One of the most useful lessons in the safety literature is that many of the scariest events are about combinations and circumstances, not the drug in isolation. MDMA is the clearest case: in pharmacovigilance data, every reported serotonin-syndrome case involved another serotonergic drug[9] and every reported cardiovascular case involved a concomitant drug[10]. The danger lived in the interaction, not in MDMA alone. The same theme runs through the psychosis question, where a careful analysis showed that an apparent link between hallucinogens and psychosis largely vanished after adjusting for baseline psychiatric history[11]: the risk was concentrated in people already vulnerable, which is why family history of psychosis or bipolar disorder is a standard exclusion.
This is why screening and the dosing environment do so much of the safety work. Set and setting are not mystical; they are measurable risk controls, and survey evidence shows that a supportive, therapeutic-like context reduces challenging experiences[12]. The corollary is uncomfortable but important: the same dose that is low-risk for a screened person in a supervised room can be considerably riskier for an unscreened person, on interacting medication, in an uncontrolled setting. The drug is only one of the variables.
The risks that are real but easy to over- or under-state
Some risks need calibration rather than alarm. Persisting perceptual changes (HPPD) are a good example: a prospective cohort found that over 30% reported some HPPD-type effects at four weeks, but fewer than 1% found them distressing[13]. That is neither "harmless" nor "an epidemic of visual damage"; it is a common, usually trivial, occasionally troubling effect. Mania risk in bipolar disorder is similar: a survey found that about a third of people with bipolar reported new or worsening symptoms, prominently manic ones, after psilocybin[14], a real enough signal to justify caution and exclusion, though survey data cannot establish how often this happens under controlled conditions.
Two further honest gaps deserve naming. There is, as yet, no validated pharmacological way to abort a severe acute reaction[15], so crisis management still rests on people and environment. And long-term safety, especially for repeated low-dose use, is genuinely under-studied: a systematic review of microdosing side effects found them mild and short-lived but flagged that follow-up was too short to judge long-term risk[16], including the theoretical concern about chronic effects on heart valves from sustained receptor stimulation. "No evidence of long-term harm" here means "not yet studied", not "shown to be safe".
Reading this honestly
So how should you read the safety story? As genuinely reassuring within strict limits, and as a standing warning against generalising past them. Under careful screening and supervision, psychedelics rarely cause serious acute harm, and most of their common effects are transient and manageable. That is a real and important finding. But it is conditional through and through: on excluding the vulnerable, on supervising the session, on avoiding interacting drugs, and on a level of monitoring that recreational and unsupervised use does not provide. The serious exceptions, ibogaine’s cardiac toxicity, ketamine’s dependence, interaction-driven toxicity, vulnerable populations, are exactly the cases where the conditional reassurance breaks down. The most useful thing this literature offers an honest reader is a refusal of the easy slogan: not "remarkably safe", but "reasonably safe under these specific conditions, dangerous in these specific ways, and not yet fully measured". That sentence, unglamorous as it is, is the truth the evidence supports.
Acute Effect Characterisation
Acute drug effects and evidence levels observed in Safety & Risk Management research — characterisation, not therapeutic efficacy.
| Compound | Magnitude | Evidence | Consistency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ibogaine This matrix characterises RISK, not benefit: magnitude is the severity/prominence of the safety concern. Ibogaine is the field’s most serious safety signal: it prolongs the QT interval and has been linked to dozens of deaths, including in people without known heart disease, plus a mania case series. Demands ECG/cardiac screening, continuous monitoring and (in newer protocols) magnesium; exclude cardiovascular disease and interacting drugs. | Large | Moderate | High |
| Ketamine Risk characterisation, not benefit. Ketamine carries a genuine dependence and abuse liability (documented even after a single dose) and urological harm with repeated use, alongside acute dissociation, blood-pressure rise and post-marketing suicidality signals. Mitigated by supervised administration, abuse-history screening, limiting dose frequency and monitoring. | Medium | Moderate | Moderate |
| MDMA Risk characterisation, not benefit. MDMA raises heart rate and temperature; its serotonin-toxicity and cardiovascular events in pharmacovigilance data almost always involve another serotonergic or stimulant drug taken with it. Recreational risks include hyperthermia and hyponatraemia. Mitigated by washout of serotonergic medications, cardiovascular screening and temperature/fluid monitoring. | Medium | Moderate | High |
| Psilocybin Risk characterisation, not benefit. Under screening psilocybin’s acute risks are mostly transient: anxiety or challenging experiences, a transient cardiovascular rise (rarely fainting), a small dosing-day suicidal-ideation signal, mania risk in bipolar, and sub-clinical perceptual after-effects. Well contained by psychosis/bipolar exclusion, cardiovascular screening, preparation and supervision. | Small | Moderate | High |
| LSD Risk characterisation, not benefit. LSD’s long duration means a sustained heart-rate rise and a longer window of dose-dependent anxiety and perceptual change, plus the usual concern about persisting perceptual effects. No serious cardiovascular events in supervised dose-response work. Mitigated by cardiovascular and psychiatric screening and a supervised setting. | Small | Moderate | High |
| Ayahuasca Risk characterisation, not benefit. Beyond near-universal vomiting, the main risks are acute challenging psychological reactions, amplified by poor screening and inexperienced guiding in ritual settings, and a real interaction risk because its harmala alkaloids are MAO inhibitors (dangerous with serotonergic drugs and certain foods). Mitigated by screening, experienced facilitation and dietary/medication precautions. | Small | Low | Moderate |
| DMT Risk characterisation, not benefit. DMT’s effects are extremely intense but very brief, with transient cardiovascular activation; population exposure is small and mostly early-phase healthy volunteers, so the profile is reassuring but thinly evidenced. Mitigated by supervised dosing and standard cardiovascular and psychiatric screening; long-term data are essentially absent. | Small | Low | Moderate |
| 5-MeO-DMT Risk characterisation, not benefit. 5-MeO-DMT produces a very rapid, overwhelming experience, and its clinical safety data are still preliminary (early-phase). The acute profile looks manageable under monitoring, but the evidence base is too thin to call it well-established. Mitigated by close physiological monitoring and supervised dosing. | Small | Very Low | Low |
Ibogaine and Safety & Risk Management
Ibogaine is where the field’s safety story turns serious. It blocks a cardiac ion channel and prolongs the QT interval, which can trigger fatal arrhythmias, and a toxicology review counted twenty-seven fatalities following ibogaine, with arrhythmias documented even in people who had no known heart disease or family history[1]. A systematic review of its clinical use across 705 individuals likewise reported severe neurological and cardiac complications and deaths[2], and there is a separate case series of mania after ibogaine in people with no prior bipolar diagnosis[3].
This does not make ibogaine uniquely useless, but it does make it uniquely dangerous to use casually, and it is the clearest argument on this site for medical screening and monitoring. The most credible clinical work treats the cardiac risk as the central design problem: a study in veterans co-administered magnesium specifically to mitigate arrhythmia and reported no serious adverse events[4], though that was open-label and uncontrolled. The honest summary is that ibogaine’s anti-addiction signal is real and so is its capacity to kill, and the gap between a monitored clinic and an unregulated overseas one is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
Ketamine and Safety & Risk Management
Ketamine is the psychedelic-adjacent drug with the largest real-world safety dataset, and it carries two risks the classic psychedelics do not. The first is dependence. A case report describes addiction developing after a single sub-anaesthetic dose, escalating to daily use[1], and real-world esketamine data across nearly 1.5 million sessions logged sedation in about a third and dissociation in two-fifths, alongside 210 abuse or misuse incidences[2]. The second is a suicidality signal in pharmacovigilance: FAERS analyses flagged disproportionate reports of suicidal ideation and completed suicide[3], and a European database analysis raised a similar concern relative to standard antidepressants[4].
These signals need careful reading. Pharmacovigilance databases show associations, not proven causation, and the patients receiving esketamine are, by definition, severely depressed and at elevated baseline suicide risk. But the dependence liability is not in doubt, and it is why repeated ketamine use, especially outside supervision, carries risks (urological harm with heavy use, escalating self-administration) that a single supervised dose does not. Ketamine is a useful illustration that "psychedelic safety" is not one profile but several, and that frequency of use, not just the drug, drives much of the danger.
MDMA and Safety & Risk Management
MDMA’s safety profile is the clearest example of risk being driven by context rather than the molecule alone. The frightening recreational reputation, serotonin syndrome and cardiac events, turns out, in pharmacovigilance data, to be almost entirely a story about combinations: every one of the reported serotonin-syndrome cases involved another serotonergic drug taken alongside MDMA, with none attributed to MDMA alone[1], and every reported cardiovascular case likewise involved concomitant drugs[2]. The recreational dangers of hyperthermia and water intoxication are real but belong to hot, crowded, unsupervised settings, not the clinic.
There is also a subtler, therapy-specific risk worth naming plainly. MDMA strengthens trust and emotional openness, which is part of why it is studied as a therapy aid, and that same openness can increase a patient’s vulnerability to a practitioner who abuses it. Recent profiling work is careful here: clinical MDMA enhances the therapeutic alliance but does not actually heighten suggestibility, even as it raises susceptibility to boundary violations[3]. The safeguard is not pharmacological but ethical and structural: trained, accountable providers, clear boundaries, and recognition that an open, trusting state is exactly when protection matters most.
Research Outlook
The research outlook for safety is, encouragingly, about the field turning its attention to its own blind spots. The most important shift is toward better measurement: the finding that only about a quarter of trials used systematic adverse-event assessment[1] has become a rallying point for standardised harm reporting, and large real-world datasets, such as the esketamine pharmacovigilance work[2], are beginning to catch the rare and longer-term events that small trials cannot.
Two further directions matter. The first is honesty about specific populations and effects: prospective work on persisting perceptual effects, which appeared in over 30% of one cohort but were distressing in under 1%[3], and careful re-analysis showing that apparent psychosis associations are largely confounded by baseline psychiatric history[4], are exactly the nuanced, non-alarmist, non-reassuring evidence the field needs. The second is the unglamorous work of risk management itself, from validated screening to, eventually, a real answer to how to help someone through an acute crisis. The outlook is a safety science slowly becoming as rigorous as the efficacy science it underpins.
Industrial Landscape
Safety is everyone’s concern in this field, but the most consequential players are regulators and the pharmacovigilance systems behind them. The large signals that small trials miss, ketamine’s real-world abuse rate, MDMA’s interaction-driven events, esketamine’s suicidality flags, come from regulatory databases (FAERS, EudraVigilance) and the agencies that run them, and regulators’ criticism of inconsistent adverse-event reporting has pushed sponsors toward better safety data. For companies, safety is both a hurdle and a differentiator: a clean, well-characterised risk profile, or a short-acting compound that limits exposure, is a commercial asset as much as a clinical one.
For an honest broker, safety is the area where the temptation to reassure is strongest and most dangerous. "Psychedelics are remarkably safe" is a half-truth: true of a screened, supervised participant, misleading as a general claim, and actively harmful when it travels into unsupervised or microdosing contexts where the screening and monitoring that make trials safe simply are not there. The responsible posture is to take the genuine reassurance seriously (these are not, under proper conditions, especially dangerous drugs) while naming the real exceptions plainly, ibogaine’s cardiac risk, ketamine’s dependence, interaction-driven toxicity, vulnerable populations, and insisting that "safe in a trial" earns no claim about "safe in the world".
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Top 10 Psilocybin Papers for Safety & Risk Management
The 10 most important papers, curated by Blossom
Quick Indicators
Organisations
Search →Ohio State University
The Ohio State University is a public land-grant research university based in Columbus, Ohio, offering undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs and conducting research across many fields. It was founded as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College and serves as a major educational and economic institution in Ohio.
COMPASS Pathways
COMPASS Pathways is a UK-listed biopharmaceutical company developing COMP360 synthetic psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression, with two successful Phase 3 trials making it the leading candidate for the first regulatory approval of a classic psychedelic medicine.
Definium Therapeutics
Definium Therapeutics (formerly Mind Medicine / MindMed) is a late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company headquartered in New York, founded in 2019 and rebranded in January 2026. Led by CEO Robert Barrow, the company applies scientific rigor to psychedelic-derived molecules to develop accessible, rapidly-acting psychiatric treatments. Its lead asset, DT120 ODT (formerly MM-120) — a pharmaceutically optimised formulation of lysergide D-tartrate (LSD) as an orally disintegrating tablet — has received FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation for generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) and delivered compelling Phase 2b results: 65% clinical response rate and 48% remission at 12 weeks following a single dose. Three Phase 3 trials are currently underway: Voyage and Panorama (GAD) and Emerge (MDD, fully enrolled). Topline data from all three studies is expected in 2026, potentially positioning Definium for the first-ever FDA approval of an LSD-derived therapy. A second pipeline asset, DT402 (formerly MM402) — an MDMA-related compound — is in Phase 1 development for autism spectrum disorder.
Lobe Sciences
Canadian psychedelic biotech developing conjugated psilocin formulations for treatment-resistant conditions. Spun out its proprietary Conjugated Psilocin™ technology to Cynaptec Pharmaceuticals in April 2025 via an $8.46 million financing round. Lead programme L-130 targets cluster headache disorder.
Delix Therapeutics
Delix Therapeutics is harnessing the power of neuroplastogens, a novel class of compounds designed to bring about a new paradigm in brain health therapeutics with treatments intended to be safe, fast-acting, and long-lasting. Through its discovery platform, Delix has identified non-hallucinogenic versions of psychedelic compounds with favorable safety and therapeutic profiles. The company was co-founded in 2019 by David E. Olson and Nick Haft, building upon Olson's discovery at the University of California, Davis, of several novel psychoplastogens that have significant therapeutic potential in preclinical models, without hallucinogenic side effects. Delix's treatments are designed to address the root cause of neuropsychiatric conditions by repairing the underlying synaptic damage through targeted neuroplasticity. To date, the company has synthesized over 2000 novel psychoplastogens, many of which are analogs of known psychedelics such as ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT. Their lead compound, zalsupindole (DLX-001), produces the same rapid and sustained structural and functional plasticity as ketamine, psilocybin, and DMT, without inducing hallucinations or dissociation. Recent Phase I data have demonstrated that DLX-001 is associated with robust signs of CNS engagement and a favorable safety and tolerability profile, with no serious adverse events reported to date. The company's compounds are tailored for swift neuronal repair and can be taken at-home, providing significant advantages to patients, their loved ones, and healthcare providers. Delix focuses on developing non-hallucinogenic psychoplastogens as scalable alternatives to first-generation hallucinogenic psychoplastogens like ketamine and psilocybin.
Resilient Pharmaceuticals
Resilient Pharmaceuticals (formerly Lykos Therapeutics, formerly MAPS PBC) is a US-based public benefit corporation developing MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD. It was founded in 2014 by MAPS as a commercial spinout to carry MAPS MDMA research through late-stage trials and regulatory approval. After two Phase 3 trials and an NDA filing, FDA issued a Complete Response Letter in August 2024 and requested an additional Phase 3 trial before approval. The company subsequently restructured and rebranded, while the public Lykos web presence continues to describe the organisation as pursuing FDA approval for MDMA-assisted therapy. As of the June 2026 review, no public company announcement of a new pivotal trial start or NDA resubmission date was found. VA/DoD-backed MDMA/PTSD research is proceeding in the broader field, but it should not be treated as direct support for Resilient/Lykos NDA resubmission unless linked by company or FDA evidence.
AtaiBeckley
AtaiBeckley Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company formed in 2025 through the strategic combination of atai Life Sciences and Beckley Psytech. It operates as a public company focused on developing rapid-acting, durable, and convenient mental health treatments, with a strong psychedelic-therapeutics emphasis. Its principal executive office is in New York, New York, United States. AtaiBeckley matters in the psychedelic ecosystem because it combines clinical development capabilities with a public-market platform that can support late-stage psychedelic drug programs. Public disclosures describe pipeline work that includes BPL-003 and note that the company’s psychedelic-based therapies are being advanced through the Beckley Psytech strategic investment and later combination.
University of Amsterdam
The University of Amsterdam (UvA) is one of the Netherlands' leading research universities, with its Amsterdam UMC Department of Psychiatry conducting clinical trials on psilocybin and psychedelic-assisted therapies for treatment-resistant mental health conditions.
New York University
The Center for Psychedelic Medicine at NYU Langone Health is directed by Dr. Michael Bogenschutz and performs health-focused research across the translational spectrum, from basic science to large-phase clinical trials. The center has three transdisciplinary areas of focus: psychiatry, medicine, and preclinical research. Currently, the team is actively investigating clinical applications for various psychedelic compounds, leading robust studies on psilocybin-assisted therapy for alcohol use disorder, major depression, and advanced cancer-related psychiatric distress.
University of California, San Francisco
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) hosts major psychedelic research activity through the Translational Psychedelic Research Program (TrPR), Neuroscape Psychedelics Division, and psychiatry-led clinical research on psychedelic-assisted therapies.
Psychedelic Resource Group, Trinity College Dublin
The Psychedelic Resource Group at Trinity College Dublin advances translational psychedelic research across psychiatry and neuroscience, with a focus on clinical applications, public-health integration, and evidence generation for psychedelic-assisted care.
University of California Davis
The Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics (IPN) at UC Davis explores the neuroscience of psychedelics. Under the lead of David Olson, the team conducts high-impact interdisciplinary psychedelic science using modern neurobiology and chemistry tools. Contributions by the group include discovering that psychedelics promote neural plasticity, developing a biosensor for measuring hallucinogenic potential, and designing non-hallucinogenic psychedelic analogues with therapeutic potential.
People
Search →Robin Murphy
Researcher at the University of Auckland School of Pharmacy
She is a coauthor on multiple human psychedelic studies spanning LSD microdosing, sleep, and psilocybin/escitalopram comparisons, making her part of the team contributing to the modern evidence base for psychedelic medicine.
Hartej Gill
Researcher in mood disorders psychopharmacology at the University of Toronto / University Health Network
Notable for coauthoring multiple reviews and meta-analyses on ketamine, esketamine, suicidality, cognition, and psychedelic drug trials in psychiatric research.
Eduardo Schenberg
Neuroscientist and founder/director of Instituto Phaneros
A leading Brazilian psychedelic researcher known for clinical and translational work on ayahuasca, ibogaine, MDMA, and ethics/policy in psychedelic medicine.
Jeanine Kamphuis
Psychiatrist and researcher at the Department for Mood Disorders, University Hospital Groningen (UMCG)
She studies ketamine, esketamine, and classic psychedelics for treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders, including depression, and is a coauthor on multiple psychedelic/ketamine reviews and clinical studies.
Henrik Jungaberle
Dr. sc. hum., CEO and founder of the MIND Foundation; Head of Development at OVID Clinic Berlin
He is a prominent European psychedelic research and implementation figure contributing to psilocybin clinical trials, harm reduction, and healthcare integration work.
Aaron Klaiber
Doctoral researcher at the University of Basel
He appears as an author on multiple controlled human psychedelic studies spanning DMT, mescaline, MDMA, LSD, and psilocybin, suggesting a substantial role in contemporary psychopharmacology research.
Joost Breeksema
Postdoctoral researcher and Executive Director of the OPEN Foundation
He is a prominent psychedelic researcher and advocate whose work helps shape evidence-based psychedelic policy, ethics, and patient-centered understanding of psychedelic and ketamine/esketamine treatments.
Juliana Rocha
Doutoranda em Ciências Médicas / Saúde Mental at the Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo
She is a recurring coauthor on clinical psychedelic studies, especially ayahuasca trials on social anxiety, emotion recognition, personality, and social cognition, helping expand the human evidence base for psychedelic-assisted psychiatric research.
Mathieu Seynaeve
Senior Medical Director and Head of Psychotherapy at Beckley Psytech
He is a clinical development leader behind multiple human studies of 5-MeO-DMT and psilocybin, including trials in alcohol use disorder, treatment-resistant depression, and headache disorders.
Kayla Teopiz
Researcher in psychiatry and ketamine/psychedelic medicine research; likely affiliated with the University of Toronto/Trillium Health Partners research network
Teopiz coauthors multiple systematic reviews and clinical studies on ketamine, esketamine, and psilocybin in depression and suicidality, helping synthesize the evidence base for psychedelic and glutamatergic treatments in psychiatry.
Michiel Van Elk
Associate Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Leiden University
Michiel van Elk is a prominent psychedelic science researcher known for rigorous, skeptical work on psilocybin, microdosing, expectancy effects, and the psychological mechanisms and risks of psychedelic experiences.
Jolien Veraart
Psychiatrist and PhD researcher at the University Medical Center Groningen / University of Groningen
She is a leading clinical researcher on ketamine and oral esketamine for treatment-resistant depression, including safety, efficacy, and real-world implementation.
Connected Evidence
The latest clinical data and verified academic findings associated with Safety & Risk Management.