Optimal dosing for psilocybin pharmacotherapy Considering weight-adjusted and fixed dosing approaches.
Growing evidence suggests psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic, is a safe and promising pharmacotherapy for treatment of mood and substance use disorders when administered as part of a structured intervention. In most trials to date, psilocybin dose has been administered on a weight-adjusted basis rather than the more convenient procedure of administering a fixed dose. The present post hoc analyses sought to determine whether the subjective effects of psilocybin are affected by body weight when psilocybin is administered on a weight-adjusted basis and when psilocybin is administered as a fixed dose. We analyzed acute subjective drug effects (mystical, challenging, and intensity) associated with therapeutic outcomes from ten previous studies (total In the 20 mg70 kg and 30 mg70 kg weight-adjusted groups, and in the fixed dose group, no significant associations were found between subjective effects and demographic variables including body weight or sex. Across a wide range of body weights (49 to 113 kg) the present results showed no evidence that body weight affected subjective effects of psilocybin. These results suggest that the convenience and lower cost of administering psilocybin as a fixed dose outweigh any potential advantage of weight-adjusted dosing.