"While there's growing evidence that psychedelic drugs can effectively treat severe mental health conditions, especially in cases where traditional treatments have failed, they still come with downsides. Their hallucinogenic effects can be scary and overwhelming, with dosing sessions lasting several hours. Good treatment is heavily reliant on the individual's mindset going into a session and the environment in which they receive it. And though it's rare, psychedelics can sometimes worsen existing mental illness."
"Mindstate Design Labs is one of a slate of new companies aiming to make safer psychedelics by removing the classic "trip" associated with them. The company is using AI to help design psychedelic-like drugs that induce specific mental states without hallucinations, and its first compound looks promising. "We created the least psychedelic psychedelic that's psychoactive," says CEO Dillan DiNardo. "It is quite psychoactive, but there are no hallucinations." Founded in 2021 and backed by Y Combinator and the founders of OpenAI, Neuralink, Instacart, Coinbase, and Twitch, Mindstate has built a set of AI models that connect biochemical data from different psychactive drugs to more than 70,000 "trip reports" compiled from a variety of sources-from official clinical trial datasets and drug forums to social media, Reddit, and even the dark web."
"The platform's analysis of how psychedelics produce different effects led to the development of its first drug candidate, MSD-001, a proprietary oral formulation of 5-MeO-MiPT, also known by the street name moxy. In Phase I trial results shared with WIRED, the drug was safe and well tolerated at five different doses in 47 healthy participants. It also produced psychoactive effects without inducing a mind-bending trip, which the company says is a validation of its AI platform."
Psychedelic drugs show growing evidence of treating severe mental health conditions, particularly when traditional treatments fail, but they carry significant downsides. Hallucinogenic effects can be frightening and sessions can last several hours, with outcomes strongly influenced by the individual's mindset and treatment environment; rare cases can worsen existing mental illness. Mindstate Design Labs uses AI to design compounds that induce specific mental states without hallucinations, analyzing biochemical data and over 70,000 trip reports. Its first candidate, MSD-001 (5-MeO-MiPT), completed a Phase I trial in 47 healthy participants showing safety, tolerability, and psychoactive effects without a mind-bending trip.
Read at WIRED
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]