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In 2018, volunteers with an interest in microdosing – regularly taking tiny amounts of psychedelic drugs such as LSD – began taking part in an unusual experiment. For four weeks, researchers at Imperial College London asked them to swap some of their drugs with empty capsules – placebos – so that when they took them, they didn’t know if they were microdosing or not. They then completed online surveys and cognitive tasks at regular intervals, aimed at gauging their mental wellbeing and cognitive abilities. The idea: to explore if microdosing produces the benefits to mood and brain function that some people claim.