[monkburger]

The most egregious limitation is the absurdly small sample size (n=16), which utterly cripples its statistical power. The authors throw around p-values without any serious correction for multiple comparisons.. Their confidence intervals (CIs) are embarrassingly wide in several places, making many of their so called significant findings borderline meaningless. For example, their pharmacokinetic (PK) values show ranges so broad (eg: Tmax varying from 0.25–5.0h, CL/F spanning 1.6–22 L/h) that any attempt at a reliable dose-response relationship collapses under basic scrutiny; their p-values dance precariously around the threshold of significance. (There are many more)

If this is what’s guiding psychedelic research, we’re in serious trouble.

[nabla9]

There was 96 experiments total. 16 participants, each going trough 6 sessions separated by at least 10 days.

[indiantinker]

Agreed. I mean n=16 and its on nature.

[monkburger]

The blinding? Functionally useless UNLESS the researchers genuinely believe subjects couldn't tell whether they were in a psychedelic fugue state or on a placebo. The ketanserin condition? A self-congratulatory exercise in proving that a known 5-HT2A antagonist blocks 5-HT2A-mediated effects. Stunning. rolls eyes

Then there’s the pharmacokinetics section, breathlessly confirming that LSD is absorbed, peaks, and is metabolized..just like every other small-molecule drug with hepatic clearance. The BDNF findings? A biochemical footnote with no functional correlation (tossed in for faux mechanistic depth)