Rotem Petranker

• PhD Student at York University

Despite psychedelic microdosing being a growing practice, the research on the topic is still in its infancy. While several studies have described the characteristics, motivations and practices of microdosers, the differences between individuals that only microdose and those that use both micro and macrodoses of psychedelics remain unexplored. In an...

Introduction The practice of taking small, sub-hallucinogenic doses of psychedelics, known as microdosing, has exploded in popularity over the last decade. Users claim benefits ranging from improved mood and enhanced creativity to an increased sense of meaning and connectedness in life. While research on microdosing is still lagging behind the shif...

Psychedelic drugs have experienced an unprecedented surge in recreational Highlights use within the past few years. Among recreational users, the risks of psychedelic Psychedelic use is rapidly growing in use by pregnant and breastfeeding women are severely understudied and there popularity for recreational and clinical is little information on the...

The resurgence of psychedelic research explicitly targets treating mental health conditions largely through psychedelics-assisted psychotherapy. Current theories about mechanisms of change in psychedelics-assisted psychotherapy focus on mystical experiences as the main driver of symptom improvement. During these mystical experiences, participants r...

Rationale The use of psychedelics for medical and recreational purposes is rising. Contextual factors such as expectancy, intention, and sensory and social environment (set and setting) are widely recognized as moderating the effects of these substances. Nevertheless, clinical trials of microdosing — the ingestion of small, sub-hallucinogenic doses...

A psychedelic industrial complex is emerging as new research on these substances and their effects is being approved. These substances show promise, but much remains unknown about their potential for both benefit and harm. Despite the paucity of reliable mechanistic evidence, some entrepreneurs have already begun to market psychedelic advice. We dr...

A psychedelic industrial complex is emerging as new research on these substances and their effects are being approved. These substances show promise, but much remains unknown about their potential for both benefit and harm. Despite the paucity of reliable mechanistic evidence, some entrepreneurs have already begun to market psychedelic advice. We d...

NOTE: This paper is open-access. You can access the full-text at the journal's website for free. The use of psychedelic substances in both humanistic and mainstream clinical research has been increasing in the last decade. In particular, the practice of microdosing—ingesting sub-hallucinogenic doses of psychedelics—has been increasing in populari...

Background Sustaining attention for extended periods of time is associated with negative affect and this increase in negative affect is related to poorer task performance. Trait mindfulness has been shown to be associated with better sustained attention performance. This may be because trait mindfulness is associated with better attention ability o...

Background: Microdosing psychedelics is the practice of taking small, sub-hallucinogenic doses of lysergic acid diethylamide or psilocybin containing mushrooms. Despite its surging popularity, little is known about the specific intentions to start microdosing and the effects of this practice. Aims: First, we aimed to replicate previous findings re...

Science requires replicable tools to measure its intended constructs. Attention research has developed tools that have been used in mind-wandering research, but mind-wandering measures often rely on response-inhibition, which introduces speed-accuracy trade-offs that may conflate errors for mind-wandering. We sought to replicate three studies that...

Psychedelics have a checkered past, alternately venerated as sacred medicines and vilified as narcotics with no medicinal or research value. After decades of international prohibition, a growing dissatisfaction with conventional mental health care and the pioneering work of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Science (MAPS) and others...

Background: The use of psychedelic substances like LSD and magic mushrooms in research and to treat mental health conditions has been increasing in the last decade. In particular, the practice of microdosing – using sub-hallucinogenic amounts of psychedelics – has been increasing (Anderson et al., 2019), but large-scale systemic qualitative analyse...

Psychedelics have a checkered past, alternately venerated as sacred medicines and vilified as narcotics with no medicinal or research value. After decades of international prohibition, a growing dissatisfaction with conventional mental health care and the pioneering work of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Science (MAPS) and others...

Background: Microdosing psychedelics – the practice of taking small, sub-hallucinogenic doses of substances like LSD or psilocybin-containing mushrooms – is becoming increasingly popular. Despite its surging popularity, little is known about the effects of this practice. Aims: This research had three main aims. First, we attempted to replicate prev...

Rationale Microdosing psychedelics – the practice of consuming small, sub-hallucinogenic doses of substances such as LSD or psilocybin – is gaining attention in popular media but remains poorly characterized. Contemporary studies of psychedelic microdosing have yet to report the basic psychiatric descriptors of psychedelic microdosers. Objectives...

The social context-seeing people emotionally interacting-is one of the most common contexts in which emotion perception occurs. Despite its importance, emotion perception of social interactions from a 3rd-person perspective is poorly understood. Here we investigated whether emotion recognition of fear and anger is facilitated by mere congruency (th...

Data from two surveys

Background: Microdosing psychedelics is the practice of consuming very low, sub-hallucinogenic doses of a psychedelic substance, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or psilocybin-containing mushrooms. According to media reports, microdosing has grown in popularity, yet the scientific literature contains minimal research on this practice. There...

We sought to replicate existing findings in the mindfulness literature, specifically those that pertain to boredom and sustained attention. Furthermore, this project took a first step in teasing out the relevant aspect of mindfulness to sustained attention.

A replication of the existing research on mindfulness and sustained attention, and an extension of the literature into a mechanistic model of the relationship between the two. Results suggest that the key construct linking trait mindfulness and sustained attention is the negative affect experienced during sustained attention tasks.

The term valence can refer to either the affective response (e.g., "I feel bad") or the semantic knowledge about a stimulus (e.g., "car accidents are bad"). Accordingly, the content of self-reports can be more "experience-near" and proxy to the mental state of affective feelings, or, alternatively, involve nonexperiential semantic knowledge. In thi...

Rationale Microdosing psychedelics—the regular consumption of small amounts of psychedelic substances such as LSD or psilocybin—is a growing trend in popular culture. Recent studies on full-dose psychedelic psychotherapy reveal promising benefits for mental well-being, especially for depression and end-of-life anxiety. While full-dose therapies inc...

Microdosing psychedelics - the regular consumption of small amounts of psychedelic substances such as LSD or psilocybin - is a growing trend in popular culture. Recent studies on full-dose psychedelic psychotherapy reveal promising benefits for mental well-being, especially for depression and end-of-life anxiety. While full-dose therapies include p...

Meta-awareness (MA) is the process of attending to and appraising the contents of consciousness. MA is critical for certain higher-order attentional resources, but a research gap exists in how to practically detect MA in time-sensitive contexts. Validation of continuous MA measurements would allow us to better understand its temporal dynamics. We w...

This presentation shows the results for our preregistered hypotheses concerning the relationship between microdosing and: Open Mindedness, Negative Emotionality, Wisdom, Dysfunctional Attitudes, and creativity (as measured by the Unusual Uses task)

There is some evidence that intensive mindfulness retreats are beneficial for performance on a sustained attention task (MacLean et al, 2010). At the same time, there is some evidence to suggest that casual practice of mindfulness is unrelated to sustained attention (MacCoon et al., 2014). Boredom and discomfort are negatively correlated with perfo...

Microdosing psychedelics has become a recent media phenomenon. Microdosing is the practice of taking sub-threshold doses of a substance, in this case, a psychedelic substance such as LSD or psilocybin. No scientific research has been published on the effects of microdosing psychedelics thus we ran a cross-sectional observational study on the microd...

The Salon: Bringing Intellectual Conversation into the Living Room A Salon brings together diverse individuals to refine and amuse through conversation about a particular topic. The Salons of 17th and 18th century revolutionary France played an integral role in the country's cultural development, the dissemination of "Enlightenment" and intellectua...

A Perliminary Study of Microdosing Psychedelics Microdosing psychedelics, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin, has become a recent media phenomenon, yet scientific studies verifying its effects are absent from the literature. To begin addressing these gaps in knowledge, we measured the microdosing drug practices and psychologic...

The majority of emotion perception studies utilize instructed and stereotypical expressions of faces or bodies. While such stimuli are highly standardized and well-recognized, their resemblance to real-life expressions of emotion remains unknown. Here we examined facial and body expressions of fear and anger during real-life situations and compared...