Trial reportThe international journal of neuropsychopharmacology2017
Effect of Psilocybin on Empathy and Moral Decision-Making.
Trial report in The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 89 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
89 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 195 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of LSD, DMT and psilocybin on cognitive and psychological functions: A systematic review of the literature.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2026Pooled it
- Catalyst for change: Psilocybin's antidepressant mechanisms-A systematic review.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2025Pooled it
- Impact of psilocybin on cognitive function: A systematic review.Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2024Pooled it
- Effects of classical psychedelics on implicit and explicit emotional empathy and cognitive empathy: a meta-analysis of MET task.Scientific reports · 2024Pooled it
- A Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)-Guided Dashboard to Review Psilocybin Target Domains: A Systematic Review.CNS drugs · 2022Pooled it
- Dose-response relationships of psilocybin-induced subjective experiences in humans.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2021Pooled it
- Acute dose-dependent effects of 4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine (2C-B) compared with 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and psilocybin in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study in healthy participants.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Trial
- Shared effects of the opioid antagonist naltrexone on first-hand and empathic pain.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Trial
- Psilocybin increases emotional empathy in patients with major depression.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Trial
- Entactogen Effects of Ketamine: A Reverse-Translational Study.The American journal of psychiatry · 2024Trial
- Trial
- The effects of psilocybin on cognitive and emotional functions in healthy participants: Results from a phase 1, randomised, placebo-controlled trial involving simultaneous psilocybin administration and preparation.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2022Trial
- Serotonin depletion amplifies distinct human social emotions as a function of individual differences in personality.Translational psychiatry · 2021Trial
- LSD-induced increases in social adaptation to opinions similar to one's own are associated with stimulation of serotonin receptors.Scientific reports · 2020Trial
- Effective connectivity changes in LSD-induced altered states of consciousness in humans.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Trial
- Psilocybin and MDMA reduce costly punishment in the Ultimatum Game.Scientific reports · 2018Trial
- Acute effects of lisdexamfetamine and D-amphetamine on social cognition and cognitive performance in a placebo-controlled study in healthy subjects.Psychopharmacology · 2018Trial
- Role of the 5-HTThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2018Trial
- Human Enhancement: A Conceptual Scoping Review.The Journal of medicine and philosophy · 2026Article
- Psilocybin restores social novelty investigation in male SAPAP3 knockout mice and engages prefrontal-hippocampal circuitry.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
29 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Impaired empathic abilities lead to severe negative social consequences and influence the development and treatment of several psychiatric disorders. Furthermore, empathy has been shown to play a crucial role in moral and prosocial behavior. Although the serotonin system has been implicated in modulating empathy and moral behavior, the relative contribution of the various serotonin receptor subtypes is still unknown. Methods: We investigated the acute effect of psilocybin (0.215 mg/kg p.o.) in healthy human subjects on different facets of empathy and hypothetical moral decision-making using the multifaceted empathy test (n=32) and the moral dilemma task (n=24). Results: Psilocybin significantly increased emotional, but not cognitive empathy compared with placebo, and the increase in implicit emotional empathy was significantly associated with psilocybin-induced changed meaning of percepts. In contrast, moral decision-making remained unaffected by psilocybin. Conclusions: These findings provide first evidence that psilocybin has distinct effects on social cognition by enhancing emotional empathy but not moral behavior. Furthermore, together with previous findings, psilocybin appears to promote emotional empathy presumably via activation of serotonin 2A/1A receptors, suggesting that targeting serotonin 2A/1A receptors has implications for potential treatment of dysfunctional social cognition.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.