The gold standard for randomized clinical trials is to give a drug to some people and a placebo to others.
The trials are expensive and take a long time, and involve a small number of participants.
Natural language processing was used to assess 6,850 written accounts of hallucinogenic drug use. Each account was written by a person who took one of the drugs in a real-world setting rather than as part of a lab-based experiment. Erowid is a member-supported drug information organization.
Bzdok's team integrated the data with the records of which brain regions the drugs interact with. The team can identify which neurotransmitters are associated with specific drug experiences.
For example, words related to mystical experiences.
Bzdok believes the approach could provide new starting points for drug development. Bzdok's work was published today in the journal Science Advances, and it states that drugs that are designed to target these receptors should elicit specific aspects of drug experiences.
He says that people don't always know what drug they're taking.
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