Michael Bogenschutz is a Professor of Psychiatry at NYU Langone Health and a leading investigator of psilocybin for alcohol use disorder. His 2022 JAMA Psychiatry trial (n=93) is the largest randomized controlled trial of psilocybin for AUD to date, showing an 83% reduction in heavy drinking days vs. 51% for placebo at 32 weeks. He has been instrumental in establishing evidence-based protocols for psilocybin-assisted therapy in substance use contexts and serves on multiple advisory boards for psychedelic medicine policy.
Bogenschutz trained as both a physician and researcher, developing particular expertise in the pharmacological treatment of substance use disorders before pivoting to psilocybin research. His clinical work with addiction populations gave him intimate knowledge of the failure modes of conventional treatment — the relapse rates, the patient hopelessness, the limited pharmacological options — that motivated his interest in a mechanistically distinct approach.
His pilot study of psilocybin for alcohol use disorder (published in 2015) was one of the first controlled investigations of a psychedelic for any addictive disorder in the modern evidence era. The study showed significant reductions in drinking and increased abstinence in a population that had failed conventional treatment. The effect sizes were large enough to justify a full Phase 2 randomized controlled trial, which Bogenschutz subsequently completed — one of only two completed RCTs of psilocybin for alcohol use disorder as of 2024, and the larger of the two.
As Director of the Psychedelic Medicine Program at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, he oversees a research portfolio that includes alcohol use disorder, depression, and end-of-life distress. His methodological contributions to clinical trial design — including work on optimal dosing regimens, the role of therapeutic alliance, and appropriate patient selection criteria — are shaping the Phase 3 trials that will determine regulatory outcomes for the entire field.