SPEAKERS

There is an increased societal trend to engage in microdosing, in which small sub-perceptual amounts of psychedelics are consumed on a regular basis and for a variety of reasons. Following subjective reports that microdosing enhances the experience of nature and art, in the present study we set out to study the effects of psilocybin microdosing on feelings of awe and art perception. We used a double-blind placebo-controlled within-subjects study design (N = 31). Participants either received a psilocybin microdose or a placebo for three consecutive weeks, and following a one-week break the condition assignment was reversed. During each block participants visited the lab twice to measure the acute effects of our experimental manipulation. We used standardized measures of awe, in which participants were presented with immersive videos representing natural scenes, and they observed abstract artworks from different painters. We found that participants felt more awe and reported more positive emotions in response to the artworks in the microdosing compared to the placebo condition. However, these effects turned out to be driven in large part by participants breaking blind and their prior expectations about the alleged effects of microdosing. Our findings suggest that expectancy-effects may be a driving factor underlying the subjective benefits of microdosing. Future studies should systematically investigate the role of prior expectations on both the subjective (i.e., self-report) and objective (i.e., neurophysiological) effects of microdosing.