/ News, Research
Microdosing LSD for ADHD: No Therapeutic Benefit Found (Liechti Lab)
LSD is widely known as a hallucinogenic drug, but is increasingly being studied for its potential to treat mental disorders. Researchers have now systematically tested whether microdoses of LSD can alleviate symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, their study, published in "JAMA Psychiatry", found that microdoses of LSD had no greater effect on ADHD symptoms than a placebo.
The six-week, placebo-controlled study was conducted at the University Hospital Basel and the University Psychiatric Clinics Basel, with Prof. Dr. Matthias Liechti, who is also a research group leader at the DBM, as the last author, and was the first controlled study of microdosing LSD for ADHD. A total of 53 adults with ADHD participated, receiving either 20 micrograms of LSD or a placebo twice a week. This dosage is at the upper end of the microdosing range and may induce mild psychedelic effects.
Participants in both the LSD and placebo groups reported symptom improvement after two weeks. However, the improvements were identical in both groups. Interestingly, almost all participants believed they had received LSD, even if they were in the placebo group. "The placebo effect was noticeable but not unusually strong compared to other ADHD studies," explains lead researcher Prof. Dr. Matthias Liechti, head of the Psychopharmacology Research Laboratory at the DBM. Patients' expectations played a key role: those who believed they had received the drug showed greater symptom improvement. These results highlight the importance of studying psychoactive substances in randomized, placebo-controlled trials. While microdosing of LSD may have potential benefits for other mental disorders such as depression, no specific therapeutic benefit was observed for ADHD.
We congratulate Matthias Liechti, Lorenz Müller, and their team on the successful completion of this important study and their valuable contribution to ADHD research.