Who published the first study on psychedelics and chronic pain? It’s not who you think…

It's commonly believed and cited that Dr. Eric Kast's 1964 LSD study on terminal cancer pain was the first research into psychedelics and chronic pain, but that's likely incorrect. A joint research team from Kobe & Kyoto started in 1958, published in 1962.

We've previously alluded to this study, "The Effect of LSD-25 on the Phantomlimb" by Kuromaru et al, in presentations to Psychedelics Today, Wavepaths, and Unlimited Sciences Inner Circle, as well as our course "Integrating Neuromuscular Rehabilitation with Psychedelics", but never before publicly.

This pilot study began in 1958, with eight patients all suffering from phantom-limb pain and sensation. Six of them suffered limb-loss and two of them had suffered strokes. Each was administered 50 micrograms of LSD, some repeatedly over the course of several months. Approximately 50% of the patients went into remission by the end of their first dose. Dr. Joel Castellanos cites the results, though not the study itself (Typo?) in a table in his landmark review paper of psychedelics and chronic pain from May 2020 in a table of previous study outcomes: “Significant and sustained reduction in phantom limb sensation in seven of eight subjects and phantom limb pain in five of six subjects”.

We go into an extended discussion here to give credit to the revolutionary and neurologically insightful work that the team from Kobe medical school and Kyoto University's Dept. of Psychiatry developed nearly 65 years ago, with scientific inferences that hold up to this day.

Prior to one month ago, it was impossible to find on the internet. We originally found it on MAPS online bibliography between March & May of 2020, with only a very faded photocopy of the abstract. The Lancet article was cited in other studies, but was no where to be found online.

Joe Moore of Psychedelics Today and CJ Spotwood were instrumental in pulling a hard copy of The Lancet article more than half a year ago, even though we had also found a very faded copy of original article in Japanese. MAPS now has all three in its extensively growing bibliography as of approximately one month ago.

We go into a longer discussion of the mechanisms involved in the study here on our YouTube channel, including why they chose to use low-dose LSD instead of the commonly higher doses used at the time, their correctly theorizing that the “body-schema”, aka homoncular representations throughout the cortex played a huge role, and why movement during treatment was crucial for resolving both phantom-limb pain and sensation while under the neuroplastic window.

If you would like to read the studies yourself (and we’re sure you do if you love to geek-out on data like we do) here is the 1962 abstract, the 1962 Kuromaru study in the original Japanese, and the 1967 Lancet English-language article.