210 papers in the library · 6,501 citations · publishing 2014-2026
Frontiers in Psychiatry December 24, 2021 Frontiers Production Office correction
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Frontiers in Psychiatry July 5, 2021 Morgan Campbell, Monnica T. Williams
Patients with mental illnesses should have the same access to promising experimental therapies, including psychedelics, as patients with other conditions. The principle of early access to experimental treatments, advanced by activist Larry Kramer during the AIDS pandemic, is now standard in medicine for diseases like cancer and infectious diseases. Psychiatry has failed to provide similar expanded access during public health emergencies, psychological crises, and pandemics, despite patient preferences and community needs. The field must align with the rest of medicine and let patient preferences guide policy and law on unapproved medications such as psychedelics.
Frontiers in Psychiatry March 22, 2021 M. A. Mende, Hendrik Schmidt
Interpersonal synchrony—the non-verbal coordination of movement and brain activity between two people—may help explain why some psychotherapy succeeds and other fails. A narrative review of studies on movement synchronization and on neurological correlates measured with EEG, fMRI, and fNIRS finds that the quality of the therapist-patient relationship is a robust predictor of outcome across therapy schools. Emerging evidence suggests that embodied cognition, which links thinking to bodily and neural processes, fits the data better than classical cognitivist views. However, whether interpersonal synchrony can be voluntarily achieved and how it directly affects therapy success remain open questions. Deeper investigation into these physical and neurological processes could reduce drop-out rates and healthcare costs.
Frontiers in Psychiatry July 21, 2026 Kenneth P. Finn, Robin M. Murray, Elizabeth Stuyt et al.
Cannabis use, especially high-potency products with THC concentrations above 10%, has been linked to rising psychosis cases from 1995 to 2010. Psychosis has multiple causes including genetics, childhood adversity, and drug use. This perspective argues that cannabis-associated violence deserves more attention, presenting high-profile media cases where THC was the only substance involved or cannabis use preceded psychosis and violence. Toxicology often fails to test for THC. The evolving evidence on cannabis, psychosis, and violence should inform medical screening, law enforcement, and policy.
Frontiers in Psychiatry July 20, 2026 Bruce Tamilson, Michael Chitolie, Jan Coebergh et al.
Functional neurological disorder (FND) is a common and disabling condition with limited effective treatments. This systematic review synthesized evidence on ketamine and esketamine use in FND. Thirteen studies were identified, mostly case reports and small case series. Some patients showed improvement in functional motor symptoms, functional dissociative seizures, and other presentations after receiving ketamine or esketamine. However, interpretation is limited by uncontrolled study designs, heterogeneous diagnoses and outcomes, and potential publication and expectancy bias. Adverse effects were variably reported but generally transient in supervised settings. The evidence is insufficient to establish efficacy, though the data suggest that further prospective controlled trials are justified.
Frontiers in Psychiatry July 20, 2026 Sergio R. Pérez Rosal, Sonya C. Faber, Markus Backmund
A 30-year-old man with severe polysubstance dependence on ketamine, cocaine, and alcohol, along with recurrent depression, underwent ibogaine-assisted treatment in a 13-day residential program in Mexico. He received an initial 800 mg ibogaine HCl dose (10.1 mg/kg) and two 300 mg booster doses (3.8 mg/kg) under medical monitoring. He reported immediate cessation of cravings for all substances. Over 17 months of follow-up, including a later medically supervised ibogaine intervention, toxicology and psychometric assessments showed continued abstinence from all substances and significant improvements in depression, anxiety, and quality of life. This is the first documented case of sustained abstinence in severe ketamine use disorder following ibogaine treatment.
Frontiers in Psychiatry August 19, 2025 Hebert W. Harris
The self emerges from recursive inferences about how others perceive us, interacting bidirectionally with bodily (interoceptive) processes, according to a new framework called Active Intersubjective Inference (AISI). The framework maps psychodynamic phenomena such as transference and projection onto neurocomputational mechanisms and applies this model to Major Depressive Disorder and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, highlighting distorted second-order inference as a core dysfunction. Therapeutic implications include psychodynamic therapy, cognitive-behavioral approaches, and psychedelic-assisted treatments to enhance inference flexibility. AISI bridges psychodynamic insights with the NIMH Research Domain Criteria, offering a testable model for precision psychiatry and future clinical trials.
Frontiers in Psychiatry April 23, 2024 Kennadi Johnson, A. Weldon, Melissa A. Burmeister
Schizophrenia carries a high mortality rate and its psychotic symptoms, though treatable with antipsychotics, remain incurable. Medication adherence is poor, and many individuals with schizophrenia use cannabis, including its component cannabidiol (CBD). While delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) can worsen psychosis and increase the risk of earlier-onset schizophrenia in genetically susceptible people, CBD may alleviate psychotic symptoms and reduce antipsychotic side effects. This review examines mechanisms behind schizophrenia-associated versus cannabis-induced psychosis, weighs evidence that THC exacerbates and CBD may ameliorate psychosis, and outlines approaches for safely incorporating CBD into schizophrenia treatment, noting that preclinical and clinical data remain inconclusive.
Frontiers in Psychiatry January 8, 2024 V. Ricci, Ilenia di Muzio, F. Ceci et al.
Patients with first-episode psychosis who use synthetic cannabinoids (SPICE) experience more severe and persistent positive symptoms and less improvement in aberrant salience—the tendency to assign excessive meaning to neutral stimuli—compared with natural cannabis users and non-users. Non-users show better recovery in global functioning. Aberrant salience scores decline over six months in all groups, but SPICE-users start higher and improve less. Negative symptoms are most prominent among non-users. These findings may help clinicians tailor diagnosis and treatment for substance-induced versus non-substance-related psychosis.
Frontiers in Psychiatry July 17, 2020 P. Nagele, Frank Brown, Victoria Bass et al.
A patient with severe recurrent treatment-resistant major depression experienced full remission lasting more than one month after a single nitrous oxide (laughing gas) inhalation treatment. Previous studies had shown antidepressant effects starting within two hours and lasting up to one week, but it was unknown whether effects could persist longer. This case provides evidence that remission can extend beyond one month.