According to researchers at Yale University, United States, psilocybin could help fight depressive disorders. The latter have indeed carried out a study on this substance contained in certain hallucinogenic mushrooms, reports Futura-Sciences, Wednesday July 7.
The researchers then found that a single dose of psilocybin given to mice resulted in an increase “Immediate and lasting connections between neurons at the level of the spine and the median frontal cortex”, according to the results published in the journal Cell-Neuron. However, previous studies had shown a reduction in the number of neuronal connections in human patients suffering from depression or stress chronicle, write our colleagues.
Scientists remain cautious
The effects caused by psilocybin could thus improve the transmission of information between neurons and especially improve a person’s condition. depressed. “We not only saw a 10% increase in the number of neural connections, but they were also on average around 10% larger, so the connections were also stronger.”explained Alex Kwan, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Yale and lead author of the study.
In addition, these changes appear to be durable over time. However, scientists prefer to remain cautious about the benefits of psilocybin for humans and say it is not yet possible to know if these results can be extrapolated to humans, says. Futura-Sciences.
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