MAPS experienced or non experienced volunteers.

webbykevin

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
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Just wanted to say how Impressed I have been with the recent presentations posted on the MAPS youtube channel, your work on and approach to psilocybin research is inspiring.

I have a question about the process of choosing volunteers, In most of the human trials/studies on psilocybin I've read about recently it seems to be a prerequisite that participants have no previous experience with psilocybin or preferably have no psychedelic history at all. (I can understand the reasons for this but feel it would be interesting when investigating the content of the experience to collate some data from experienced psychonaughts).

However I was surprised to hear in the recent presentation on Salvia that a requirement for the volunteers was that they were experienced previously with salvia, It wasn't clear about whether that meant they must have had Salvinorum A or just had experience with the plant in organic form.

So why the difference ?

the only reason I can think of it that because salvia has such a strong presentation psychologically that you wanted to be sure you didn't have people totally freaking out in the session and so experienced users would be more likely to be able to navigate through the high doses and that would provide you with a better chance of getting good data with less risk.
 
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I think it's going to be somewhat dependent on what you're trying to study as well. For some applications, mostly clinical ones, it may be preferable to have drug naive subjects. But if you're needing someone to lie in some type of imaging device for an extended period of time while tripping, having experienced subjects may be more advantageous.

And some IRBs may have problems with psychedelic naive volunteers, given the general ineffability of the psychedelic experience & the somewhat philosophical question of whether someone can provide informed consent for something they don't completely understand
 
And some IRBs may have problems with psychedelic naive volunteers, given the general ineffability of the psychedelic experience & the somewhat philosophical question of whether someone can provide informed consent for something they don't completely understand

Good point.
 
I think it's going to be somewhat dependent on what you're trying to study as well. For some applications, mostly clinical ones, it may be preferable to have drug naive subjects. But if you're needing someone to lie in some type of imaging device for an extended period of time while tripping, having experienced subjects may be more advantageous.
Absolutely true. Even for experienced psychedelics users this proved to be quite a challenge. See psychiatrist Ben Sessa's descriptions in this video for example. (Don't recall the exact time frame, but it's worth watching the whole thing.) [edit] See 04:34 and 07:53 and 10:50 ... was kind enough to look it up for ya. Just love his stories. :)

And some IRBs may have problems with psychedelic naive volunteers, given the general ineffability of the psychedelic experience & the somewhat philosophical question of whether someone can provide informed consent for something they don't completely understand
Which is why the Johns Hopkins studies with psilocybin on mystical experiences is so wonderful. Even in hallucinogen naive participants, they managed to facilitate mystical type experiences that had profound influence on peoples lives and were regarded by 2/3 is one out of their five most spiritually significant or personally meaningful experiences in their life. I think that's just utterly fascinating, to think that given the right conditions, preparation and aftercare, with just one (!) session you can facilitate such a profound experience in people with no previous experience.
 
Many studies have different approaches to including and excluding volunteers. You may find that one organization conducts a study in a certain way and then modifies the study design for specific purposes.
 
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