Finally – A Psychedelic Clinical Trial Exclusively for Older Adults

NIH-funded research consortium will recruit healthy older adults and eventually those with chronic pain…

Artwork by Lauren Meyer/Painter Dancer

A little over a year ago, I read an editorial in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, titled “Expanding Perspectives on the Potential for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies to Improve the Experience of Aging.”* In it, the authors suggested that:

“… psychedelics could play a potentially important role in helping aging adults transition into old age … by facilitating acceptance of losses, openness to new experiences, and renewed meaning-making.”

With so much emphasis placed on psychedelic-assisted therapy for end-of-life care, it was exhilarating to read this validation of its benefits not just for dying, but for the process of aging.

I reached out to one of the authors, Yvan Beaussant, a palliative care physician at Dana Farber Cancer Center, and we talked about the opportunity to look at aging not just through the lens of pathology, but as the existential experience of humans being mortal. And how psychedelic experiences can bring in a philosophical and spiritual perspective as we adjust to the changes in our identities in older age.

Beaussant also shared that, despite the evident promise of these approaches for aging, there was a dearth of clinical evidence for their safety and efficacy for the older adult population. That a recent survey of psychedelic trials** found that only 1.4% of participants were 65 or older.

But there was good news on that front. He was happy to report that the National Institute on Aging (NIA) would be funding a research initiative specifically to address this knowledge gap.

Something to Inspire To

That project is now here, with the launching of the INSPIRE Network (INnovative Science of Psychedelic Inclusive Research in Elders) - a multi-site consortium that will investigate psychedelic-assisted therapy specifically in older adults.

Funded by the NIA and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, both branches of NIH, the study is being led by Drs. Stacy Fischer, Jennifer Mitchell, and Stephen Ross, and will encompass sites at the University of Colorado, UC San Francisco, NYU, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Emory University and the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

The project is planned to span five years, with the first phase evaluating safety and efficacy of psilocybin and LSD in healthy volunteers, followed by a second phase looking at psychedelic-assisted therapy for treating chronic pain (psilocybin for lower back pain and LSD for cancer-related bone pain).

In the first phase, some 80 healthy older adults ages 65-85 will be recruited across the sites.

The goal of this first phase, according to co-investigators Beaussant and Ali John Zarrabi, “is not to treat psychiatric distress, but to establish the safety of facilitated psychedelic experiences at different doses, and explore how they may foster well-being, reflection, and meaning-making in the context of normal aging.”

Input from Psychedelic Elders

The launching of the INSPIRE Network with funding from the NIH is in itself a major milestone. But the thought and care that the investigators are investing to ensure its success is truly inspirational.

Since most, if not all the investigators in the study are not within the older adult age range, they decided to form an advisory group of “psychedelic elders” who could help fine-tune the sensitivity of the study. To my great honor, I was invited to participate, alongside some of the most respected figures in the field.

We’ve been asked to weigh in on issues of Set and Setting - from the use of language to establish trust, to the role and programming of music, to the core competencies of the facilitators – all to ensure a safe, comfortable and meaningful experience for the older volunteers. We will also provide our input on the manual that will guide the facilitators as they support the volunteers during the study.

Filling a Crucial Information Gap

The importance of this study is inarguable – as it will finally generate robust, evidence-based data on the safety and effectiveness of psychedelics in the older adult population. It may also find that psychedelic-assisted therapy can be a viable, non-opioid based alternative for chronic pain – which diminishes the lived experience of millions of older adults.

As psilocybin inches towards the finish-line of FDA approval, the potential mainstreaming of psychedelic-assisted therapy to address the existential and physical challenges of aging may be a small bright spot on the horizon. But in the meantime, the findings of this study will already make the exploration of psychedelic drugs safer for older adults looking to bring meaning and resolution to their experience of aging outside of the clinical arena.

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Two announcements:

On February 5^th, I’ll be speaking about Psychedelics and Seniors at the Psychedelic Salon at the Seattle Town Hall. I’ll send a reminder closer to the date, but for more information on how to attend, live or livestream, here’s a link.

Also, while my book, Psychedelics and the Counterculture of Aging, will only reach bookstores in July, it’s now available for pre-ordering through the following outlets: Simon & Schuster; Simon & Schuster UK; Amazon; Barnes and Noble; Inner Traditions; Books-A-Million (BAM!); Bookshop.org.

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*Beaussant Y, Nigam K. Invited Commentary: Expending Perspectives On The Potential For Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies To Improve The Experience Of Aging. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2023 Jan;31(1):54-57

** Bouchet, L. et al. Older Adults in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Trials: A Systematic Review. Journal of Psychopharmacology. 2024, Vol. 38(1) 33–48.