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Drug Alcohol Depend 2021 12 28;229(Pt B):109139. Epub 2021 Oct 28.

Department of Special Education, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80200, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia; School of Social Work, College for Public Health and Social Justice, Saint Louis University, 1 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63103, United States. Electronic address:

Background: Roughly one in ten American adults have used hallucinogens, and emerging evidence suggests that the prevalence of use is increasing. However, our understanding of the degree to which individuals "specialize" in the use of a particular hallucinogen or are poly-hallucinogen users remains incomplete.

Methods: This study examined data from 6381 individuals reporting past-year hallucinogen use in the 2016-2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Read More

Wilderness Environ Med 2021 Dec 8;32(4):537-544. Epub 2021 Oct 8.

School of Public Health, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, Louisiana. Electronic address:

Because mushroom poisonings are increasing worldwide after ingestions of known, newly described, and formerly considered edible species, the objectives of this review are to describe the global epidemiology of nephrotoxic mushroom poisonings, to identify nephrotoxic mushrooms, to present a toxidromic approach to earlier diagnoses of nephrotoxic mushroom poisonings based on the onset of acute renal failure, and to compare the outcomes of renal replacement management strategies. Internet search engines were queried with the keywords to identify scientific articles on nephrotoxic mushroom poisonings and their management during the period of 1957 to the present. Although hepatotoxic, amatoxin-containing mushrooms cause most mushroom poisonings and fatalities, nephrotoxic mushrooms, most commonly Cortinarius species, can cause acute renal insufficiency and failure. Read More

Anal Methods 2021 09 16;13(35):3954-3962. Epub 2021 Sep 16.

Kobe Pharmaceutical University, 4-19-1, Motoyama-Kitamachi, Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-8558, Japan.

A sensitive immunochemical method for identifying hallucinogenic mushrooms (magic mushrooms) is required for regulating their illicit use. We have previously generated a monoclonal antibody (mAb) that targets psilocin (Psi), the major psychoactive compound in hallucinogenic mushrooms, and developed an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). However, this ELISA failed to achieve the expected low-picomole-range sensitivity, as a result of insufficient affinity of the mAb to Psi. Read More

Molecules 2021 Mar 5;26(5). Epub 2021 Mar 5.

Centro de Investigação em Ciências da Saúde (CICS-UBI), Universidade da Beira Interior, Av. Infante D. Henrique, 6200-506 Covilhã, Portugal.

The consumption of new psychoactive substances (NPSs) has been increasing, and this problem affects several countries worldwide. There is a class of NPSs of natural origin, consisting of plants and fungi, which have a wide range of alkaloids, responsible for causing relaxing, stimulating or hallucinogenic effects. The consumption of some of these substances is prompted by religious beliefs and cultural reasons, making the legislation very variable or even ambiguous. Read More

Mitochondrial DNA B Resour 2021 Mar 18;6(3):1020-1021. Epub 2021 Mar 18.

Forest Biodiversity Division, Korea National Arboretum, Pocheon, South Korea.

, a well-known poisonous mushroom, is distributed worldwide. It contains a hallucinogenic alkaloid psilocybin and several other bioactive compounds. The mitochondrial genome, a circular DNA molecule of 161,145 bp, comprises 15 protein-coding genes, 24 transfer RNA genes, and 2 ribosomal RNA genes. Read More