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Effects of psilocybin therapy on personality structure

Erritzoe, D; Roseman, L; Nour, MM; MacLean, K; Kaelen, M; Nutt, DJ; Carhart-Harris, RL; (2018) Effects of psilocybin therapy on personality structure. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica , 138 (5) pp. 368-378. 10.1111/acps.12904. Green open access

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Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To explore whether psilocybin with psychological support modulates personality parameters in patients suffering from treatment-resistant depression (TRD). METHOD: Twenty patients with moderate or severe, unipolar, TRD received oral psilocybin (10 and 25 mg, one week apart) in a supportive setting. Personality was assessed at baseline and at 3-month follow-up using the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R), the subjective psilocybin experience with Altered State of Consciousness (ASC) scale, and depressive symptoms with QIDS-SR16. RESULTS: Neuroticism scores significantly decreased while Extraversion increased following psilocybin therapy. These changes were in the direction of the normative NEO-PI-R data and were both predicted, in an exploratory analysis, by the degree of insightfulness experienced during the psilocybin session. Openness scores also significantly increased following psilocybin, whereas Conscientiousness showed trend-level increases, and Agreeableness did not change. CONCLUSION: Our observation of changes in personality measures after psilocybin therapy was mostly consistent with reports of personality change in relation to conventional antidepressant treatment, although the pronounced increases in Extraversion and Openness might constitute an effect more specific to psychedelic therapy. This needs further exploration in future controlled studies, as do the brain mechanisms of postpsychedelic personality change.

Type: Article
Title: Effects of psilocybin therapy on personality structure
Location: United States
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1111/acps.12904
Publisher version: http://doi.org/10.1111/acps.12904
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: NEO-PI-R, Openness, depression, personality, psilocybin, psychedelic
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Imaging Neuroscience
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10061118
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