Dr. Grande included this study in her top publications list because it reflects the rapidly growing rebirth of interest in psychedelics research among European psychiatrists.
Indeed, elsewhere at the ECNP congress David J. Nutt, DM, declared, “We now have the beginnings of some swinging of the pendulum back in a modern direction. Over the last 10 years there have been a small number of open studies, all done with psilocybin, which is somewhat easier to use than LSD. There are studies in OCD [obsessive-compulsive disorder], tobacco dependence, alcoholism, resistant depression, end-of-life mood changes with cancer and other terminal diseases, and at least two ongoing randomized trials in resistant depression.”
Dr. Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, was senior author of the first proof-of-concept study of psilocybin accompanied by psychologic support as a novel therapy for moderate to severe treatment-resistant major depression (Lancet Psychiatry. 2016 Jul;3[7]:619-27).
Methylphenidate ineffective for treatment of acute mania
The MEMAP study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter clinical trial testing what has been called the vigilance regulation model of mania. This model hypothesized that unstable regulation of wakefulness figures prominently in the pathogenesis of both mania and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. If true, investigators reasoned, then 2.5 days of methylphenidate at 20-40 mg/day should have a rapid antimanic effect similar to the drug’s benefits in ADHD. Dr. Grande had been a skeptic, and indeed, the trial was halted early for futility (Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 2018 Jan;28[1]:185-94).
She reported serving as a paid speaker for Lunbeck, Ferrer, GlaxoSmithKline, and Janssen. Her own research is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.