Psychedelic-assisted therapy was no more effective than traditional antidepressants for treating major depression, according to a study published March 18 in JAMA Psychiatry.
The meta-analysis reviewed 24 trials, including eight psychedelic therapy trials with 249 patients and 16 open-label antidepressant trials with 7,921 patients. Researchers from University of California, Los Angeles and the Centre for Psychedelic Research in London found no statistically significant difference in patient improvement between the two approaches, with an estimated difference of 0.3 on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale.
Open-label antidepressant treatment showed slightly better outcomes than blinded antidepressant trials, with an estimated difference of 1.3, though the effect was not clinically meaningful. The same difference was not observed in psychedelic therapy trials.
Researchers said the findings suggest psychedelic therapy does not outperform antidepressants when accounting for “functional unblinding,” a common issue in psychedelic trials in which patients can infer what is being used to treat them.
The study challenges expectations around psychedelic therapy’s effectiveness and underscores the role of trial design, particularly blinding, in evaluating depression treatments.
