NEWS

19 October 2026

Different effects of low-dose psychedelics on sustained attention in women and men deserve further investigation.

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Gemma Conroy Gemma Conroy is a freelance journalist in Mexico City and editor of Nature Briefing: Careers .

The human brain’s response to psychedelic drugs is intriguing. Credit: Horacio Villalobos/Corbis via Getty

In a small preliminary study, women who received 15 micrograms of the psychedelic drug LSD focused for longer periods and responded faster to a stimulus than did those who were given a placebo. This effect was not observed for male participants.

The study was presented on 12 October at a neuropsychology meeting, the ECNP Congress in Munich, Germany, by psychopharmacologist Iva Totomanova at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and her colleagues. The findings are “very cool”, says Conor Murray, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.…