Announcement of special issue: ‘Behavioural pharmacology of ketamine and psychedelic drugs’

A growing body of evidence shows that psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin can have long-lasting beneficial effects for treatment-resistant depression, drug and alcohol addiction, and other mental health problems. Ketamine and its S-enantiomer esketamine have been approved for severe, chronic depression. These drugs have unique properties including fast onset of action and, for psilocybin and LSD, very long-lasting effects up to six months or longer after a single administration. This has spurred research in behavioural pharmacology and neuroscience to understand their mode of action. The journal Behavioural Pharmacology is devoting a special issue to this topic and invites submissions of original empirical studies and reviews.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The past two decades have seen a remarkable renaissance in research on psychedelic drugs and ketamine. Following decades of regulatory restriction that severely limited, especially clinical research, a growing body of evidence has shown that psychedelics such as lysergic acid diethylamide and psilocybin can have long-lasting beneficial effects for treatment-resistant depression, drug and alcohol addiction, and other mental health problems. Similarly, ketamine, and especially its S-enantiomer esketamine, while also still a schedule III controlled substance, has been approved for the treatment of severe, chronic depression. Multiple studies have shown that ketamine and psychedelic drugs have several unique properties, such as fast onset of action and, especially for psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide, very long-lasting effects (up to 6 months and longer after a single administration). These unique properties have spurred a rapidly evolving research field in behavioural pharmacology and neuroscience to unravel their mode of action. To celebrate this, we are devoting the next special issue of Behavioural Pharmacology to the behavioural pharmacology of ketamine and psychedelic drugs. We invite scientists in the fields of behavioural pharmacology, experimental psychology, behavioural neuroscience, and psychiatry, with an active interest in ketamine or psychedelic drugs, to submit reports of original, empirical studies for inclusion in the special issue. Review papers are particularly welcome, but as the special issue may include a number of invited reviews, these should be discussed with the editors at an early stage to avoid duplication. The editors welcome correspondence from potential authors, so if you are planning to prepare a paper for submission, do please let us know. Also, please ask one of the editors if you are uncertain whether a report of your research would be suitable for inclusion. All papers should be submitted online at www.editorialmanager.com/bpharm. Contributors are urged to submit as early as possible and should in any case, aim to do so before the end of the 15th of August 2026. Later submissions might be accepted, but the later your submission is received, the higher the likelihood that it may miss the publication deadline. We guarantee, however, that any submission that meets quality standards but is accepted too late for inclusion in the special issue will be published as soon as possible thereafter.