DMT research today: who is studying DMT, how, and what they still don’t know

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Registered human DMT trials were rare until around 2020; since then their number has grown (Stojanović et al., 2026). For how the field got here, see the history of DMT. This guide maps who is doing the work, how their studies are designed, and what the field has not yet answered. It describes study designs and registry records as they stood on 20 October 2026. It does not report efficacy results, and nothing here suggests DMT treats anything.

How much DMT research is there? The 26 registered trials

The best snapshot is a 2026 scoping review in Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics. Its authors searched ClinicalTrials.gov on 14 July 2025 and found 26 eligible registered interventional trials of DMT, ayahuasca, or DMT given together with an MAO-inhibiting compound (Stojanović et al., 2026). The landscape expanded after 2020–2021. Key figures from the review’s full text:

• 22 of 26 trials (84.6%) were phase I; 3 (11.5%) were phase II. Trials registered as phase I/II were counted at the earlier phase.
• 19 (73.1%) tested DMT alone, 4 (15.4%) DMT with another compound and 3 (11.5%) ayahuasca.
• 15 (57.7%) were marked completed at the time of the search; 5 were recruiting.
• 17 (65.4%) were led by academic or hospital sponsors, 7 (26.9%) by industry.
• 14 (51.9%) enrolled healthy volunteers and 9 (33.3%) people with major depressive disorder.
• 20 of 26 used randomized designs; sites were concentrated in the United States and Switzerland, with Brazil the only emerging economy with multiple trials.

The review’s own summary: the field is “active and maturing”, has generated foundational safety and regimen knowledge, and remains constrained by few programmes aimed at specific conditions beyond depression (Stojanović et al., 2026). Our own ClinicalTrials.gov query on 20 October 2026 turned up newer registrations, including some described below, so the count has grown since the review’s search. Evidence: established.

Why are most DMT trials phase I?

Drug trials move through phases. According to the US Food and Drug Administration, phase 1 studies look at safety and dosage, usually in 20 to 100 healthy volunteers or people with the condition; phase 2 looks at efficacy and side effects in up to several hundred people with the condition; phase 3 involves 300 to 3,000 people and watches for rarer or longer-term side effects (FDA). Each phase normally waits on the one before.

DMT’s modern clinical development only restarted recently, so much of the work is still at the first step. The review found conservative eligibility rules, with extensive cardiovascular and psychiatric exclusions, and primary outcomes that prioritised acute safety, physiological monitoring and describing the altered state, while condition-specific symptom outcomes were less often primary (Stojanović et al., 2026). There is also a practical reason: routes and regimens are still being worked out, from single injections to continuous infusions to inhalation devices. A 2025 systematic review of safety and tolerability could find only 5 early-phase trials to include, and called for larger, well-controlled studies (Swieczkowski et al., 2025). Evidence: established.

Who studies DMT now, and what are they asking?

Imperial College London

Imperial’s Centre for Psychedelic Research, where a dedicated DMT research group is based, has focused on the brain and the experience. Its EEG-fMRI study (combining brain-wave recording with brain scanning) scanned 20 healthy volunteers before, during and after intravenous DMT and, separately, placebo, in a within-subjects, placebo-controlled design (Timmermann et al., 2023). Evidence: established for the design.

A 2026 study used micro-phenomenology, a structured interview method, with 23 participants after DMT given during simultaneous fMRI-EEG, to map how the experience unfolds moment by moment (Sanders et al., 2026). The team also tested extending the DMT state with a starting injection plus a 30-minute infusion in 11 volunteers, in a single-blind, placebo-controlled design (Luan et al., 2024). Evidence: established for the designs.

On the clinical side, Imperial researchers are among the authors of a phase IIa, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial in adults with moderate-to-severe major depressive disorder: 34 participants received one intravenous infusion of DMT or placebo with psychological support, with the change in a depression rating scale (MADRS) at 2 weeks as the primary outcome, followed by an open-label phase offering everyone a dose (Erritzoe et al., 2026). It was registered by a company sponsor, with sites in London and Liverpool (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04673383). We describe its design here; for what it found and its limits, see DMT therapy research. Evidence: established for the designs.

University Hospital Basel (Switzerland)

Basel’s clinical pharmacology group has run a series of double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled crossover studies in healthy volunteers: 27 people received different intravenous regimens with and without a starting injection (Vogt et al., 2023), and 22 people received 2-hour infusions at several levels, followed by a final session in which they adjusted the level themselves (Erne et al., 2025). These designs rely on DMT switching off quickly: in one study, effects subsided within 15 minutes of stopping an infusion (Vogt et al., 2023). Evidence: established for the designs.

Its main registered clinical study is DMT4D. In a 2×2 factorial design, 112 adults with major depression (target) are randomized to DMT or placebo, each with or without propofol sedation, “to elucidate if the anti-depressive effect” depends on biological mechanisms or on the subjective experience. It is quadruple-masked, the primary outcome is MADRS at day 14, it began recruiting in August 2025 and its estimated completion is March 2029 (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT06927076). Evidence: established for the design.

A second Basel study compares LSD, psilocybin and DMT in 24 healthy people (target), giving DMT as an infusion that mimics the other two drugs’ time course and ending all three with a 5-HT2A blocker so they can be compared at equal duration; its record still read “recruiting” on 20 October 2026 but had not been updated since March 2025 (NCT06899334). Evidence: established for the designs.

UC San Diego (United States)

A phase 1, randomized, double-masked crossover study registered at UC San Diego’s Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute plans to scan 20 healthy participants with fMRI during 60-minute continuous DMT infusions. Its secondary measures include ratings of “entity phenomena” and an Autonomous Entity Questionnaire. On 20 October 2026 it was listed as not yet recruiting, with a planned start of September 2026 (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT07693257). Evidence: established for the design.

Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil)

The Natal group’s DMT trials use inhaled DMT as their study design. Its earlier phase 2a trial was open-label and fixed-order, with 14 patients with treatment-resistant depression, so it had no placebo group (Falchi-Carvalho et al., 2025). Its new trial is a randomized, quadruple-masked phase IIb trial in 140 adults with major depressive disorder (target), comparing a higher dose with a low-dose active comparator across five Brazilian sites, with MADRS at day 7 as the primary outcome; non-remitters can enter an open-label extension. It has been recruiting since August 2026 (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT07562191). Evidence: established for the designs.

Yale University (United States)

Yale researchers ran an open-label, fixed-order exploratory phase 1 study of intravenous DMT in 7 people with treatment-resistant depression and 3 healthy controls, in a hospital setting (D’Souza et al., 2022). Evidence: established for the design.

Two newer Yale trials are recruiting. One is a phase 1, triple-masked, randomized crossover study in 60 people with depression and healthy controls (target), comparing DMT given as an injection plus 55-minute infusion with an active comparator and placebo, with safety, psychedelic effects and EEG among its outcomes (NCT06671977). The other, funded with the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, is a phase 1, double-masked trial in 63 people with alcohol use disorder (target), comparing an injection alone, an injection plus infusion, and an active placebo, alongside psychotherapy (NCT06070649). Evidence: established for the designs.

Johns Hopkins University (United States)

Johns Hopkins’ Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research has registered a phase 1, triple-masked, placebo-controlled study in 50 healthy volunteers (target) asking whether other psychoactive substances, DMT among them, produce experiences like those of classic psychedelics. Psilocybin is the active comparator, and the primary outcome is the Mystical Experience Questionnaire. It has been recruiting since February 2025 (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT06772753). Evidence: established for the design.

What are the open questions?

1. Does the experience matter? Nobody knows whether any lasting change depends on the subjective state. DMT4D’s stated aim is to find out, by masking the experience with sedation; its estimated completion is 2029 (unresolved).
2. Can blinding work? DMT’s effects are obvious, so participants may guess what they received. The UFRN trial uses a low active dose and the Yale trials use active comparators, designs that may help (unresolved).
3. What happens over longer infusions? In the studies described here, extended DMT has been given only to small groups of healthy volunteers, for up to about two hours (unresolved).
4. Beyond depression? Registered programmes for other conditions are few; alcohol use disorder at Yale is one exception (unresolved).
5. Who is studied? Most participants are screened, healthy adults, so results may not apply to people excluded for heart or mental-health conditions (established as a limit).
6. What does DMT do in the brain? Imaging studies are small, and the UC San Diego and Imperial work aims to link brain signals to specific features of the experience (unresolved).

The fair summary: DMT research is moving quickly but is still early. Most registered trials ask whether DMT can be given safely and predictably, a handful test it in depression or alcohol use, and the biggest conceptual question, whether the experience itself matters, is being tested in a trial that will not finish until 2029. For background, start with what is DMT; for the clinical findings so far, read DMT therapy research.

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