Scientists Microdosed Rats With DMT, and It Was Both Good and "Concerning"

“People who experiment with microdosing claim that it can help a person to think more creatively, feel less anxious, and sharpen focus. But despite plenty of anecdotal evidence and Silicon Valley’s ample claims that these positive effects are real, scientists still can’t definitively say that microdosing — consistently taking low doses of psychedelic drugs — actually works. Bringing us closer to a clear answer is a new study showing that microdosing can indeed have beneficial effects — but not without potential downsides.

This ACS Chemical Neuroscience study, published Monday, is one of the first to test how psychedelic microdosing effects animal behavior. The scientists, led by University of California, Davis assistant professor David Olson, Ph.D., microdosed male and female rats with N,N-dimethyltryptamine, the chemical substance better known as DMT and the principal psychoactive component in the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca. Previous studies established that DMT affects rodents much like it does people, impacting behaviors relevant to mood, cognitive function, and anxiety…” Continue reading…