Tag

psychedelics

Enosis & OVID Clinics partner to combine VR & psychedelics for in-clinic psychotherapy

Enosis Therapeutics, a medical technology and psychedelic research company that leverages virtual reality (VR) for the contextual modulation of psychedelic therapy to improve treatment outcomes, has partnered with OVID Clinics and the MIND Foundation to implement an in-clinic application of VR with Psychedelic-Assisted therapy.

OVID Clinics, a Berlin-based healthcare services provider that delivers integration-focused and psychedelic-based psychotherapies through its network of clinics, has begun offering its patients the opportunity to receive psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy integrated with Enosis’ virtual technology protocols.

In June 2022, Enosis collaborated with the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia and announced positive results from its study on the synergistic application of VR in psychedelics. The preliminary results showed that Enosis’ VR scenarios, combined with a guided psychedelic experience, generated high levels of acceptance and satisfaction. Enosis stated that the positive results from this first study have led the company to begin offering VR scenarios with psychedelic-assisted therapy inside OVID Clinics.

“The Enosis team is honored to partner with OVID Clinics and the MIND Foundation to commence the first in-clinic application of our VR protocols as an adjunct to psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy,” said Agnieszka D. Sekula, Co-Founder of Enosis Therapeutics. “Enhancing patient accessibility to our VR experiences remains our top priority and we are excited to bring this novel treatment to patients in need. Together with the OVID team, our focus is to achieve positive patient outcomes and longer-lasting therapeutic benefits for patients battling mental health illnesses.”

Beyond offering the in-clinic protocol in Berlin, Enosis and OVID will be gathering data for a research collaboration aiming to investigate the synergistic effects of psychedelic and digital interventions in the hopes that the results demonstrate better therapeutic patient outcomes and enhance overall patient wellbeing.

“At OVID Clinics, we believe in a personalized, evidence-based, medical & psychotherapeutic approach tailored to the patients’ needs. We recognize the value of Enosis´ VR technologies in the integration process following psychedelic therapy,” said Sergio Pérez Rosal, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of OVID Clinics. “We are convinced that this partnership will help innovate the field by shifting the focus from the psychedelic substance to the psychedelic experience and its integration, supporting patients in every step of the way through their journey into well-being.”

Enosis stated that its partnership with OVID will help to further demonstrate the power of VR as a tool for enhancing mental health and highlights that VR’s capabilities and protocols are gaining increased momentum in psychedelics research and clinical settings. Patient enrollment is in progress now.

To learn more about Enosis and its work to catalyze the mainstream adoption of psychedelic treatment with VR, please visit the company’s website.

Quelle:

https://www.auganix.org/enosis-ovid-clinics-partner-to-combine-vr-psychedelics-for-in-clinic-psychotherapy/

Image / video credit: Enosis / YouTube

8. November 2022 0 comment

Examples

VR Experience Simulates The Feeling Of LSD & Mushrooms

Could virtual psychedelics have a positive impact on our mental health?

Isness-D is a therapeutic VR experience capable of inducing a sense of self-transcendence similar to a medium dose of LSD or magic mushrooms. The app was developed by David Glowacki, a scientist and digital artist who suffered a near-death experience roughly 15 years ago.

During the accident, Glowacki claims that his body transformed into a glowing ball of light which began to merge with the world around him. He reports having felt a sense of genuine peace, a feeling he hopes to share with others via his mind-altering VR experience.

According to a study by Nature Scientific Reports, Isness-D was shown to have the same effect as a medium dose of psilocybin, the primary component of psychedelic mushrooms, or LSD. The experience itself sounds just as trippy as you’d imagine.

Isness-D is a multiperson experience with support for up to four to five people, regardless of their physical locations. Each user is portrayed as a ball of light surrounded by a plume of smoke. Well, that’s how it starts at least.

Participating in a process called “energetic coalescence,” users’ bodies overlap with one another, offering a sense of “oneness” similar to the feeling experienced by Glowacki. A study involving 75 subjects showed that Isness-D offers an experience near indistinguishable from 20 milligrams of psilocybin or 200 micrograms of LSD.

“What happens in VR is that sense of completely forgetting about the existence of the external world,” said Agnieszka Sekula, a PhD candidate at the Centre for Human Psychopharmacology while speaking to MIT Technology Review. “So there is definitely similarity there to this sense of experiencing an alternate reality under psychedelics that feels more real than what’s actually out there.”

Isness-D is currently being utilized as a therapeutic tool for cancer patients as part of a partnership with VR startup aNUma.

Quelle:

VR Experience Simulates The Feeling Of LSD & Mushrooms

Image Credit: David Glowacki

16. August 2022 0 comment

Research

Incannex partners with Monash University to develop treatment for anxiety disorders using Virtual Reality and psychedelics

Incannex Healthcare Limited, a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing medicinal cannabis pharmaceutical products and psychedelic medicine therapies, has this week announced that it has executed a license agreement with Monash University, a public research university based in Melbourne, Australia, to develop a novel treatment that combines virtual reality (VR) and psychedelics. This marks the initiation of a second clinical psychedelic therapy program, according to the company.

Incannex stated that it has executed an exclusive, global license in perpetuity over an immersive therapeutic VR environment that has been developed by BrainPark, a clinical research platform at Monash University’s Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health. The license allows Incannex to investigate the use of the VR therapy tool in combination with a psychedelic drug to develop a new treatment for severe forms of one or more anxiety disorders.

The VR treatment uses an exposure-based approach, providing triggering stimuli in a graded and controlled manner (Exposure and Response Prevention or ERP). Alongside specialized clinical support and the administration of a psychedelic drug, Incannex hopes that its approach may allow for the development of new skills, changes in mental and biological responses to triggering stimuli, and reductions in pathological symptoms and behaviors. The research agreement for this first trial will assess optimal dose, safety, and tolerability of the combination treatment method.

The associated research and development project will be funded by Incannex and undertaken by Monash, led by Dr Paul Liknaitzky (Head, The Clinical Psychedelic Research Lab, Turner Institute and Department of Psychiatry, Monash) and Professor Murat Yücel (Director, BrainPark, Turner Institute, Monash), in collaboration with Professor Suresh Sundram (Head, Department of Psychiatry, Monash) and Dr Rebecca Segrave (Deputy Director, BrainPark, Monash).

CEO and Managing Director of Incannex, Joel Latham, said: “We’re delighted to have commenced this exciting project and to have expanded our partnership with Monash. The combination of psychedelic compounds with an evidence-based VR therapy is a leading edge in the field of mental health treatments. We look forward to providing more detail about the project in due course when clinical trial planning has been finalized.”

For more information on Incannex and its therapies that combine virtual reality and psychedelics, please visit the company’s website.

Quelle:

https://www.auganix.org/incannex-partners-with-monash-university-to-develop-treatment-for-anxiety-disorders-using-virtual-reality-and-psychedelics/

Image credit: BrainPark

8. März 2022 0 comment