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KETAMINE AND OCD

• Early clinical research has shown that ketamine can produce rapid decreases in OCD symptoms:

• Ketamine’s potential effects in OCD are linked to its action on the glutamate system, which may help disrupt rigid thought–action patterns typical of OCD.
  

PSILOCYBIN AND OCD

• Research from Robin Carhart-Harris and colleagues at Imperial College London proposes that psilocybin relaxes rigid predictive priors through what they call the REBUS model (“Relaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics”). Under psilocybin:

  • Activity at the 5-HT2A receptor increases cortical entropy.

  • High-level beliefs (about identity, trauma, self-worth, fear, etc.) lose precision.

  • Bottom-up sensory and emotional information gains influence.

  • Previously suppressed or avoided material can surface.

  • The brain becomes temporarily more flexible and open to revision.

  Psilocybin allows for new learning.

• Psilocybin reduces functional integrity of the default mode network, a system associated with:

  • Self-referential thinking

  • Rumination

  • Narrative identity

Disrupting the DMN may reduce rigid self-models — a key feature in depression, OCD, and trauma.