2C-B Vs. Psilocybin: New Study Shares Insightful Trial Results On The Mescaline-Derived Psychedelic's Effects

A new clinical trial assessed the immediate acute effects of 2C-B hallucinogenic phenethylamine compared to psilocybin on subjective experience, mood and cognition.

The study, conducted by Netherlands’ University of Maastricht, had a total of 22 psychedelic-experienced volunteers divided into three cohorts: one administered 20 milligrams of 2C-B, another 15 milligrams of psilocybin, and a third placebo.

Both 2C-B and psilocybin’s effects in participants included dysphoria, subjective impairment, auditory alterations and affective elements of ego dissolution, and yet the duration of 2C-B’s effects was, according to participants’ self-reports, shorter (six hours total).

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Measurements revealed similarities between both compounds vis-a-vis placebo, including:

• Psychomotor slowing and spatial memory impairments

• Increased ratings of happiness and creativity.

• Tolerability, with no serious adverse events arising throughout the study.

• Increased subjective ratings of dissociation, with feelings of derealisation exhibiting the largest magnitude of change. 

• Higher real-time scores of internal and external perception. 

• No clear immediate changes to trait empathy.

• Impairments in global cognitive function, yet no identified effect on general accuracy.

• No observed clear differences in heart rate. 2C-B produced a greater rate of pressure compared to the placebo, but this did not significantly differ between otherwise active conditions, suggesting a similar myocardial outcome. 

Some of the differences observed between 2C-B and psilocybin included:

• Psilocybin alone induced greater reductions in concentration compared to placebo, and showed greater increases in speed of time than 2C-B and placebo. 

• Mood measured hourly revealed a greater degree of emotional liability under psilocybin. While both increased levels across all negative mood subscales (total mood disturbance, tense, anger, fatigue, depression, confusion), levels of depression were noticeably greater for psilocybin than 2C-B.

• 2C-B generated increases for the tense and confusion subscales compared to placebo, yet also increases in markers of positive affect (vigor, elation, friendliness) compared to placebo, with total positive mood scale being larger than that of psilocybin. 

• Psilocybin reports included a propensity for affective qualities of altered self-experience as well as impairment. 

Globally, 2C-B produced a range of subjective effects consistent with classical psychedelics. And yet, although it elicited elevations across most scales outside auditory alterations, disembodiment, and spiritual experience, the overall intensity of the experience was markedly lesser than that of psilocybin. 

These findings support descriptions of 2C-B being non-ego threatening in nature, working more on the visual and tactile domains, entering the categorization of a psychedelic with some entactogenic properties.

Subtle pharmacodynamic (PD) differences observed between psilocybin and 2C-B may arise due to differing receptor-binding profiles, or also lie in differing pharmacokinetics such as duration or dosage. 

Yet 2C-B’s effects have previously been described as a “candy flip,” such as MDMA and LSD — all of which by nature of their action as monoamine reuptake inhibitors — are less likely to induce susceptibility to negative mood states.

The findings highlight considerations for a potential clinical pathway: if consistently producing positive mood changes analog to classical psychedelics, novel analogs like 2C-B may elicit a mentally “clearer” subjective state and would then likely be more scalable to implement at a clinic.

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