Jason Luoma, Ph.D.
Psychedelics, MDMA, and shame researcher, treatment developer, author, psychologist, and therapy trainer, at the Portland Institute for Psychedelic Science.
- Reposted by Jason Luoma, Ph.D.After being held in two of them as a boy, I fought for decades urging America to never again build concentration camps and put human beings in them. It breaks my heart to watch this happen twice now in my own lifetime.
- Reposted by Jason Luoma, Ph.D.🧪IMPORTANT! This graphic explains how science all over the US is funded. Congress approved a 2% increase in the #NIH budget for FY 26. Buried in the bill- Shift of ~40% of grants to MYF. This will still result in a 35% DECREASE in the NUMBER of grants funded per yr. Russel Vought is behind this.
- Fun 2025 post about random facts zhengdongwang.com/2025/12/21/t...
- Reposted by Jason Luoma, Ph.D.Psychedelics don’t require ethical exemptions. We argue against “ethical exceptionalism” while supporting context-sensitive policies that uphold shared research and clinical standards. Distinctive effects ≠ new ethics. OA Link: www.researchgate.net/publication/...
- Our clinical research postdoc in psychedelic science is still receiving applications through January 6th! Come join our awesome team! share.google/8eoBuA33dYa1...
- Great to see some studies coming out on psilocybin for PTSD. Lots of facilitators in Oregon are using psilocybin to treat PTSD, but so far we are lacking data. Only one previous open label trial has been published that I know of. The authors just published a qualitative study from that study. A🧵
- This new study from Compass interviewed 21 participants from an open-label trial about their experiences with psilocybin-assisted therapy.
- The study identified 4 core themes: → Non-pharmacological factors that created safety/trust → The experiential nature of psilocybin treatment → How participants engaged with trauma material → How it compared to their prior treatments
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View full thread#psychedelicscience original paper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.ec...
- Ive seen this in papers I've reviewed. People, you can't trust the references that chatgpt generates! That's not how llms work. search.app/CRgw2
- New psilocybin cognition study shows "significant improvements" in processing speed & executive function after treatment. But dig into the data and the picture gets complicated. A thread on why statistical significance does not equal clinical meaningfulness 🧵 #psychedelicscience
- The study (Johnson et al., 2025) gave 26 people with treatment-resistant depression a 25mg psilocybin dose and tested cognition at baseline, 1 day, and 2 weeks post-treatment. Group-level stats showed significant improvements on all cognitive measures. Sounds promising, right?
- They also ran "reliable change" analyses - asking whether individuals actually improved beyond what you'd expect from measurement error and practice effects. Result: Only 4-12% showed meaningful improvement. That did NOT exceed chance expectations.
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View full threadPaper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.pn...
- Reposted by Jason Luoma, Ph.D.🐁 Very concerning finding: Psilocybin promotes brain tumour growth Authors caution against use of 5-HT2A agonists like psilocybin in patients with glioma, "given the profound and sustained tumor growth-promoting effects observed." Extends to other serotonergic drugs like LSD.
- Another article about Oregon’s psilocybin system for those interested. From my vantage point seems like the system is relatively stable but probably shrinking some from increased competition from Colorado. Fewer people from the Midwest and east coast these days.
- “Many worry about how the program’s rules & fees have pushed the cost of a psilocybin session as high as $3,000, putting it out of reach for many just as psychedelics are gaining mainstream acceptance as a mental health treatment www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
- There's a chance things might pick up due to increased integration with healthcare, enabled by the new law in the new year...remains to be seen.
- Reposted by Jason Luoma, Ph.D.This new @michellemonje.bsky.social preprint shows that #psilocybin promotes the rapid and persistent growth of... xenografted glioma in mice. 🫠 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Enduring but maladaptive plasticity induced by #psychedelics. h/t @tylerekins.bsky.social @theborislab.bsky.social
- Seems like the The "Memory Wars" are coming back - now with psychedelics. A few studies coming out, this one showing 42% of people with post-psychedelic difficulties linked them to childhood trauma. Centrally, some said they recovered memories they had NO prior recollection of. #psychedelicscience
- Leaving aside the issue of how often people are recalling events accurately or not, it is clear that many people are left in a place where they are unsure whether the experiences they had due to the psychedelic were accurate recollections or not.
- Half of participants experienced profound confusion. Some couldn't determine whether they were abuse survivors or not. One participant: "That's a horrible thing to not know if it's real or not."
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View full threadRead the article yourself here: https:// doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-26198-4
- Reposted by Jason Luoma, Ph.D.Critical commentary on a recent paper reporting emergence of dissociated traumatic memories during psilocybin treatment now out in the Journal of Eating Disorders, with @trpwolff.bsky.social, @manojdoss.bsky.social, Lilian Kloft-Heller, and @henryotgaar.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1186/s403...
- Looks like we have a 7th placebo controlled trial on microdosing psychedelics showing microdosing did not outperform placebo, this time for depression. #psychedelicscience www.linkedin.com/posts/justin...
- So now we have 5 placebo controlled trials with healthy samples and two with clinical samples (ADHD and depression), none of which showed any lasting positive effects of microdosing. It's looking like microdosing is all or nearly all placebo effect.
- The only other possible explanation I can think of is that microdosing is equally likely to harm people as it is to help them. I've just not heard reports of widespread harms from microdosing, so that doesn't seem likely.
- I guess there's some small chance there are moderators that could show that certain people are helped and others get hurt, but all-in-all, the data is looking pretty grim for microdosing being more than placebo at this point. #psychedelicscience
- Two more rigorous placebo-controlled trials just came out that were negative on microdosing, this time with psilocybin. I think these are the 5th and 6th RCTs with negative results. NO cognitive or mood benefits compared to placebo. 🧵 #psychedelicscience
- The study details: 2 double-blind, placebo-controlled trials 100+ participants across the two studies 4 weeks of microdosing Multiple cognitive tasks + mood measures Participants remained successfully blinded throughout
- No positive results across the board: No improvements in cognitive control, memory, or attention No differences in well-being, mindfulness, or psychological flexibility No enhanced creativity or cognitive flexibility One social cognition finding likely a statistical fluke due to multiple testing
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View full threadStudy here: doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...
