The Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research advances the scientific understanding of psychedelics and their potential for treating mental health disorders, enhancing well-being, and expanding our understanding of consciousness. After psychedelic research that began in the 1950s and ’60s abruptly ended in the early 1970s due to unfavorable media coverage, resulting in misperceptions of risk and highly restrictive regulations, Founding Director Dr. Roland Griffiths and colleagues became the first to obtain regulatory approval in the United States to reinitiate research with psychedelics in healthy volunteers in 2000. The Center’s 2006 publication on the safety and enduring positive effects of a single dose of psilocybin is widely considered the landmark study that sparked worldwide psychedelic research renewal. Since then, Johns Hopkins has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles, making it the leading U.S. psychedelic research institution. The research investigates therapeutic effects for addiction (smoking, alcohol, other drugs), existential distress from life-threatening disease, major depressive disorder, anorexia nervosa, Post-Treatment Lyme Disease, Alzheimer’s-related depression, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, while studies with healthy volunteers provide insights into neurophysiological mechanisms with implications for understanding consciousness and optimizing therapeutic outcomes. The Center’s mission is to answer the most important questions in psychedelic research, therapy, and clinical education through rigorous trials adhering to highest ethical standards, elucidating mechanisms driving therapeutic efficacy, and providing evidence-based education to clinicians and the broader community.
Why it matters: A 2006 landmark study ended a decades-long research hiatus and demonstrated that rigorous academic institutions could overcome regulatory barriers and media-driven misperceptions to reinitiate legitimate psychedelic science. With over 150 peer-reviewed studies investigating therapeutic effects for conditions from addiction to treatment-resistant depression, the Center provides the scientific foundation necessary for psychedelics to move from stigmatized substances to evidence-based treatments while advancing fundamental understanding of consciousness itself.
