Lea Mertens
Clinical Researcher in Psychedelic Psychiatry
Papers
Trials
Key Impact
Notable for contributing to clinical and translational psilocybin research, including trial design for treatment-resistant depression, mechanistic neuroimaging studies, development of psychometric tools, and preclinical investigations of psychedelic effects.
Background & Research
L. J. Mertens is an active researcher in contemporary psychedelic science with a focus on the clinical application and mechanistic study of psilocybin. Their work, represented across multiple papers and trial protocols, spans the design and rationale of randomised clinical trials for treatment‑resistant major depression (EPIsoDE), investigation of psychological processes that mediate therapeutic change (for example, reductions in experiential avoidance associated with decreased depression severity and suicidal ideation), and exploration of neural mechanisms (changes in amygdala–prefrontal functional connectivity during emotional processing following psilocybin treatment).
Mertens has also contributed to psychometric methodology through involvement in the development and validation of the Watts Connectedness Scale, and pursued translational preclinical questions such as the effects of psilocybin and LSD in animal models of alcohol relapse. Collectively, their contributions emphasise methodological rigour in trial design, measurement of psychological and neurobiological mechanisms of action, and bridging clinical and preclinical domains in psychedelic research. Publications and protocols list the author as L. J. Mertens; institutional affiliation and full given name were not available in the provided dataset.