2023 – Joint webinar with FENS

Psychedelics, the Clinical versus the Neuroscientist’s point of view

The first FENS-EPA webinar aimed to understand the present indications of psychedelics, and compare their chances of success (effect-size) in the different indications.

The overall environment where patients receive psychedelics is allegedly extremely important, with many possibilities of personalisation: music, paintings, low intensity lights, or the presence of a psychotherapist during the session. Beyond anecdotal experiences, the science behind such proposals and the level of medical evidence supporting these aspects are relatively weak and need more clear descriptions. Psychedelics have now been tested (usually successfully) in a broad spectrum of psychiatric disorders such as major depressive disorder and resistant depression, anorexia nervosa, OCD, PTSD or alcohol use disorder. This makes it difficult to understand what the real psychiatric target of these drugs is.

Programme:

• Welcome and introduction, Prof. Dirk Schubert
• Developing psychedelics for clinical use: how and for whom, Prof. Guy Goodwin
• Neurobiology of psychedelics: what is affected and how, Prof. Emma S J Robinson
• Q&A session, moderated by Prof. Tomáš Páleníček