Microdosing Associated With Increased Mindfulness, Lower Neuroticism in ADHD Patients
A study conducted by researchers in the Netherlands has found that microdosing psychedelics for 4 weeks induced an increase in mindfulness and a decrease in neuroticism among adults diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and those experiencing severe ADHD symptoms.
Findings were published this month in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.
Microdosing—repeatedly taking psychedelics in small, non-hallucinogenic amounts—has previously been identified as a treatment option for relieving ADHD symptoms, but effects of the practice on mindfulness and personality in adults with ADHD has been largely unexplored.
Researchers from Maastricht University in Maastricht, Netherlands, set out to investigate the effects of 4 weeks of microdosing with an expectation that mindfulness and personality traits including conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness, would increase, while neuroticism would decline. The researchers also examined whether using conventional ADHD medication concurrently with microdosing and/or having comorbidities influenced the effects induced by microdosing.
Study participants were measured before microdosing initiation and then at 2 and 4 weeks after, using validated self-report measures (15-item 5 facet mindfulness questionnaire and 10-item version of the Big Five Inventory to assess personality traits). The study included 233 participants at the outset, 66 after 2 weeks, and 44 after 4 weeks.
While mindfulness increased in patients after 4 weeks and neuroticism decreased after 4 weeks compared to baseline, the remaining personality traits evaluated remained unchanged. Furthermore, using conventional medication and/or having comorbid diagnoses did not change microdosing-induced effects on mindfulness and personality traits.
The researchers acknowledge that the study was limited by a lack of experimental control and that future placebo-controlled studies are warranted to confirm whether the changes observed would also occur in a controlled setting.
“Uncertain and perhaps inaccurate reports of the doses and substances used limited the possibility to make inferences about what exactly participants had taken and whether differences in substance and/or dose could have led to different effects on mindfulness and/or personality traits in adults experiencing ADHD symptoms,” the researchers wrote. “On the other hand, a strength of the employed design was the ecological validity as it captured (microdosing)-induced changes that occur in individuals who are microdosing on their own initiative, a practice we know is prevalent in current Western societies.”
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