Home microdoses of LSD lifted mood on dose days, but nothing had changed after six weeks
80 healthy men took 10 micrograms of LSD or a placebo every three days for six weeks, mostly at home. Dose days felt better than non-dose days. By week 6 no mood scale or cognitive task had changed. 4 left the LSD group with anxiety.
Reasonable evidence with real limitations. how we score evidence
Caveat on this rating: Healthy men only; dose-day effects with no change at six weeks. A perceptible drug is hard to blind, and the authors call for active placebos.
A trial built to answer the main criticism of earlier microdosing studies: that a laboratory is not where people actually microdose.
Significant findings
Murphy and colleagues (Biological Psychiatry, 2023) randomised 80 healthy male volunteers to LSD (n = 40) or placebo (n = 40). Each took 14 doses of either 10 micrograms of LSD or an inactive placebo every three days for six weeks. The first dose was supervised in a laboratory; the rest were taken at home.
On the daily questionnaires there was "credible evidence (>99% posterior probability) of improved ratings of creativity, connectedness, energy, happiness, irritability, and wellness on dose days compared with nondose days", and those effects held when the authors controlled for what participants expected beforehand. But "No questionnaire or cognitive task showed a credible change between baseline and 6-week assessment time points." The most notable adverse event was treatment-related anxiety, which led 4 participants to withdraw from the LSD group.
The other direction
The dose-day effects are real in this data and survived an expectancy check, which earlier lab trials did not find. Against that, the authors conclude that microdosing "was not sufficient to promote enduring changes to overall mood or cognition in healthy adults." The sample was healthy men only, so it says nothing direct about women or about people with depression. The authors themselves call for active placebos, because a drug that can be felt is hard to keep blind.
What this does not show
It does not show microdosing treats any condition. It does not show long-term safety. LSD is not approved for any use, and anxiety was the side effect that made people stop.
Worth asking
If I feel better on the day I take something, how would I tell that apart from feeling better over months?
Source
Acute Mood-Elevating Properties of Microdosed Lysergic Acid Diethylamide in Healthy Volunteers: A Home-Administered Randomized Controlled Trial — Murphy RJ, Sumner R, Evans W, Ponton R, Ram S, Godfrey K, Forsyth A, Cavadino A, Krishnamurthy Naga V, Smith T, Hoeh NR, Menkes DB, Muthukumaraswamy S (2023)
Reputable peer-reviewed journal
Read the source: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2023.03.013
DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2023.03.013
How this was scored
- Study design
- Randomised controlled trial
- Funding
- Funding not disclosed
- Published in
- Reputable peer-reviewed journal
- Sample size
- 80
- Preregistered
- not recorded
- Conflicts disclosed
- not recorded
- Independent of proponent
- not recorded
- Retracted
- No
Read the full scoring rubric, including what it can't tell you.
Published October 21, 2026.
Questions
How strong is the evidence behind this?
veisund rates this source "moderate evidence". Reasonable evidence with real limitations. It scores 57 out of 100 on our published rubric. One caveat travels with that badge: Healthy men only; dose-day effects with no change at six weeks. A perceptible drug is hard to blind, and the authors call for active placebos. The score is calculated from recorded facts about the source — study design, funding, publication venue, sample size, preregistration — not typed in by an editor.
What is the source for this?
Acute Mood-Elevating Properties of Microdosed Lysergic Acid Diethylamide in Healthy Volunteers: A Home-Administered Randomized Controlled Trial — Murphy RJ, Sumner R, Evans W, Ponton R, Ram S, Godfrey K, Forsyth A, Cavadino A, Krishnamurthy Naga V, Smith T, Hoeh NR, Menkes DB, Muthukumaraswamy S (2023). Published in: Reputable peer-reviewed journal. DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2023.03.013. The full source is linked on this page so you can read it yourself.
Who paid for this research, and does that matter?
Study design: Randomised controlled trial. Funding: Funding not disclosed. Independence from the proponent is not recorded. Industry sponsorship is one of the most reliably measured biases in medicine, which is why funding carries real weight in the score rather than sitting in a footnote.
Is this medical advice?
This is information to bring to your prescriber, not medical advice and not a reason to change anything on your own. Nothing here is an instruction to stop or reduce a medication. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.
This is information to bring to your prescriber, not medical advice and not a reason to change anything on your own. Nothing here is an instruction to stop or reduce a medication. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.