In this talk, Marta discusses the most common side effects that can result from the psychedelic use including hypomania, depersonalisation, HPPD, depression relapse and increase in anxiety as well as the possible underlying neural and cognitive mechanisms of these phenomena based on the existing scientific literature will be discussed.

Marta has an MSc in Cognitive and Decision Sciences from University College London and Post-MSc in User System Interaction from the Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e). She is a coordinator of Psychedelic Society of the Netherlands, an organisation which she co-founded to advocate for an open, unbiased discussion on the topic of psychedelics and their therapeutic potential.

I found it very interesting to consider the hypothesis that the feelings of well being that usually follow for days after taking psychedelics is due to 5ht2a downregulation as 5ht2a activation is associated with anxiety/suicide. There are many interesting points in there.

If 5-HT2A downregulation is the mechanism for tolerance, I would think that psychedelics which don't lead to tolerance would be predicted to (mostly?) lack this effect. DMT doesn't really lead to tolerance (certainly not when vaporized) yet I think people still experience this. I don't know...