ArticlePsychopharmacology2022
Effects of psilocybin microdosing on awe and aesthetic experiences: a preregistered field and lab-based study.
Article in Psychopharmacology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 2 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
25 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Efficacy and Safety of Psychedelic Microdosing on Psychological Outcomes in Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.CNS drugs · 2026Pooled it
- Keeping the promise: a critique of the current state of microdosing research.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Psilocybin-assisted neurofeedback for the improvement of executive functions: a randomized semi-naturalistic-lab feasibility study.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Trial
- Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study.Translational psychiatry · 2022Trial
- Psilocybin microdosing does not affect emotion-related symptoms and processing: A preregistered field and lab-based study.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2022Trial
- Daily self-assessment within a regimen of microdosing indicates enhanced psychological functioning on microdosing days relative to non-microdosing days.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Microdosing psilocybin for major depressive disorder: study protocol for a phase II double-blind placebo-controlled randomised partial crossover trial.BJPsych open · 2026Article
- Causal Inference in Studies with Functional Unmasking: Psychedelics and Beyond.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Low-dose lysergic acid diethylamide alters subjective visual perception but not visual contrast surround suppression.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Acute Effects and Long-Term Neuropsychological Consequences of Classic Psychedelics Use.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2026Review
- Psychedelic Therapy, Positive Emotional Experiences, and the Central Role of Self-Compassion.Research square · 2025Article
- Acute effects of psilocybin on the dynamics of gaze fixations during visual aesthetic perception.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Psilocybin-induced modulation of visual salience processing.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
- Psilocybin: From Psychiatric Pariah to Perceived Panacea.The American journal of psychiatry · 2025Review
- Is microdosing a placebo? A rapid review of low-dose LSD and psilocybin research.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2024Review
- Article
- Expectancy Effects Cannot Be Neglected in MDMA-Assisted Therapy Research.ACS chemical neuroscience · 2023Article
- Cardiovascular safety of psychedelic medicine: current status and future directions.Pharmacological reports : PR · 2023Review
- Managing expectations with psychedelic microdosing.Npj mental health research · 2023Article
- Awe as a Pathway to Mental and Physical Health.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
There is an increased societal trend to engage in microdosing, in which small sub-hallucinogenic amounts of psychedelics are consumed on a regular basis. Following subjective reports that microdosing enhances the experience of nature and art, in the present study we set out to study the effects of psilocybin microdosing on feelings of awe and art perception. In this preregistered combined field- and lab-based study, participants took part in a microdosing workshop after which they volunteered to self-administer a psilocybin microdose or a placebo for three consecutive weeks, while the condition was kept blind to the participants and researchers. Following a 2-week break, the condition assignment was reversed. During each block, participants visited the lab twice to measure the effects of psilocybin microdosing vs. placebo. We used standardized measures of awe, in which participants reported their experiences in response to short videos or when viewing abstract artworks from different painters. Our confirmatory analyses showed that participants felt more awe in response to videos representing funny animals and moving objects in the microdosing compared to the placebo condition. However, about two-third of our participants were breaking blind to their experimental condition. Our exploratory findings suggest that expectancy-effects may be a driving factor underlying the subjective benefits of microdosing.
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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.