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Building the Blueprint for Scientific Discovery

Aligning Discoveries Across Psychedelic Therapies (ADAPT) brings together a consortium of researchers to establish validated tools and methods that reliably measure the behavioral and biological effects of psychedelics.

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Structuring the Science of Psychedelics

Why Now?

Much attention has been given to the potential of psychedelics to treat a variety of neuropsychiatric conditions including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and addiction. However, much remains unknown about how these substances work and how to measure behavioral and biological effects.

Our Plan of Action

Aligning Discoveries Across Psychedelic Therapies (ADAPT) brings together a consortium of researchers to establish validated tools and methods that reliably measure the behavioral and biological effects of psychedelics. By establishing robust and independently validated research methods, we aim to understand when and for whom psychedelics have therapeutic benefits, uncover psychedelics’ mechanisms, and lay the groundwork for responsible, evidence-based therapies.

Brain Symbol Icon Our Mission

To support rigorous research to better understand how psychedelics could cause lasting changes in thinking and behavior, to advance both preclinical and human research, and enable future clinical applications to ensure safe, effective therapies.

Neutron Symbol Icon Our Vision

A robust, transparent, and collaborative psychedelic research ecosystem that advances discovery and therapeutic potential.

ADAPT’s Research Focus

ADAPT’s research program is structured around two workstreams that will develop validated tools and methods to reliably measure the effects of psychedelics, initially focusing on psilocybin in both preclinical and human studies. By designing and testing rigorous methods, ADAPT’s consortium of researchers is creating standardized protocols to serve as a foundation for current and future research.

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Independent Validation

Using a consortium model, multiple independent groups will replicate and expand upon findings underpinning commonly cited psychedelic studies. The purpose is to determine whether the methods and their results can be verified, validated, and successfully replicated.

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Method Development and Optimization

This work will establish new and better ways to measure the effects of psychedelics including behavioral measures (e.g., creative thinking, rumination, empathy), biological and neural measures (e.g., brain activity), and clinical trial design (e.g., blinding, placebos).

This work is positioned to enable rigorous human clinical studies using the methods validated and/or developed to assess whether there are measurable, robust, and enduring changes following psychedelic administration.

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Our Work is Guided by Four Foundational Principles

  1. Support rigorous research by testing commonly held assumptions about psychedelics and ensuring the reliability of scientific findings.
  2. Generate foundational datasets that are open and accessible to the research community, and embrace the principles of open science.
  3. Establish best practices in the psychedelic research field by setting standards and how-to roadmaps to inform the operational requirements for researchers studying psychedelics.
  4. Encourage strong bidirectional clinical pipelines that build confidence in preclinical models and advance the discovery pipeline for psychedelics.
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