安慰剂无法模拟 psychedelic 效应： psychedelic 临床试验需要剂量而非模仿

In a recently published Viewpoint, Yang-et-al propose masking high-dose psilocybin trials with a multidrug comparator engineered to reproduce the psychedelic experience. Their objective, restoration of the gold-standard of randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled standard, is well-intentioned, but the proposed approach dissolves the concept it aims to rescue. A placebo permits to understand the impact of expectation because it is inert. Recent neural circuit-level results in mice shows how concretely expectation affects behavior, relying on in-vivo experimentation that separates placebo ef