(Radio Iowa) – University of Iowa researchers are studying whether psychedelic drugs can help to treat alcohol use disorder. Participants who are struggling with alcohol will be given either ketamine or psilocybin. U-I psychiatry professor Peg Nopoulos says research suggests psychedelics have the potential to help those who are being impacted by addiction.

Nopoulos says, “If we find that these drugs are useful for alcohol, they will probably also, I hope, be useful for opioid addiction, or methamphetamine use disorder, or nicotine, whatever.” It’s possible, she says, that psychedelics can influence abnormal brain circuitry that’s associated with addiction.

Nopoulos says there are few medication assistance options available for substance use disorders. “There’s so much more, if you think about in the context of what we can do for things like PTSD or depression,” she says, “We have everything from medications to acetamin to trans-cranial magnetic stimulation to ECT.” That’s electro-convulsive therapy.

The study is still in its early stages, and U-I researchers are actively recruiting participants who have alcohol use disorder.