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Safe Heart

Trauma Under Psychedelics

Extreme events reveal our knowledge gaps about the consequences of disasters and their mitigation. Such gaps were posed by the surprise large-scale terror attack launched by Hamas on Israel on October 7th, 2023. Hamas ruthlessly targeted the 3,500 attendees of the Nova music festival, subjecting them to intense, life-threatening trauma over an extended duration. The attack took place shortly after sunrise, around the peak of the party, while many attendees were under the influence of mind-altering substances like MDMA, LSD, Ketamine, Psilocybin, and Cannabis, plausibly impacting their subjective experience and trauma processing. This unprecedented disaster poses significant challenges for clinicians in providing evidence-based therapy to a population that endured an experience that had never been studied before. Immediately following the event, Prof. Salomon, co-founded the NGO SafeHeart, to assist survivors of the music festival. Over 2,700 survivors have registered, providing a unique opportunity to study trauma processing under psychedelics. Together with Prof. Roee Admon, we have initiated a large-scale interdisciplinary study using behavioral, cognitive, emotional, physiological, and neural measurements to understand the mechanisms of trauma experienced under psychoactive substances and determine effective therapies for the affected community.

Project Timeline

Our Partners

Professor Roee Admon’s Stress & Psychopathology lab

University of Haifa Neuroimaging Research Unit

Professor Rony Paz's Neural Mechanisms of Learning lab

Press

Item In The New York Times (In English)

Item In theliberal Newspaper (In Hebrew) - January 7, 2024. by Yehuda Shochat

Item in Kan 11 (In Hebrew) - November 27, 2023. by Yfat Amiel

Item In Yediot Achronot Newspaper (In Hebrew) - March, 2024.

Item In Haaretz Newspaper (In Hebrew) - October 17, 2023.

Item In Calcalist Newspaper (In Hebrew) - November 2, 2023. by Roni Dori

Item In N12 podcast (Hebrew) - March 13, 20234.

  • Publications
Trauma Under Psychedelics: MDMA Shows Protective Effects During the Peritraumatic Period
Ophir Netzer, Noa Magal, Yonatan Stern, Tzuk Polinsky, Raz Gross, Roee Admon, Roy Salomon doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.28.587237