Home » Health » An ingredient in “magic mushrooms” can be a mental health remedy

An ingredient in “magic mushrooms” can be a mental health remedy

Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – Magic mushrooms are known for their hallucinogenic effects, but they may also have a role in some mental health treatments.

Oregon became the first US state to manufacture psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound in magic mushrooms, which is legal for mental health treatment in supervised settings.

And a new small study of 24 adults with major depression, published this week in the journal “JAMA Psychiatry”, showed that two doses of psilocybin led to a significant reduction in depressive symptoms.

“The size of the effect we saw was about four times greater than what clinical trials of conventional antidepressants have shown on the market,” said Alan Davis, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

He added that “since most other depression treatments take weeks or months to work and may have undesirable effects, this could be a game-changer if these results hold up in clinical trials.”

Other studies have suggested that the compound may help treat anorexia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and addiction.

Participants in the Johns Hopkins study suffered from depression for about two years before being included in the study, and had to forgo available antidepressants. Thirteen participants received treatment with psilocybin immediately upon registration, and 11 participants were placed on a waiting list, and received the same treatment after an eight-week delay.

David Natt, professor and director of the Psychopharmacology and Neuropharmacology unit in the Department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London, said the study provided more evidence of the “rapid and powerful effect of psilocybin”. Nat, who was not involved in the research, added that the results may have been skewed due to the fact that patients knew they would be receiving the drug, with expectations likely to increase the size of the effect.

A 2016 study by some Johns Hopkins researchers found that psilocybin can relieve depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer.

“Given that there are several types of major depressive disorders that may result in variation in how people respond to treatment, I was surprised that most of the participants in our study found psilocybin treatment effective,” said Roland Griffiths, author of the new study.

The study showed that psilocybin can produce visual and auditory hallucinations, and profound changes in consciousness over a few hours after taking it.

In the United States, possession of the compound is a felony, as it is classified as a Schedule I substance.

How might it affect the brain?

How psilocybin affects the brain is still not fully understood, but Nat from Imperial College said the compound appears to disrupt negative thinking circuits through the “5HT2Z” receptor in the brain.

“Standard antidepressants protect against the stressors that lead to depression, but they do not directly reach and address the biological, psychological and social underlying causes,” Natt wrote in a paper he co-authored and published earlier this year.

Nat added, “In contrast, anesthetic therapy uses a therapeutic window that the brain opens through the effects of drugs to facilitate insight and emotional release,” explaining that the substance tends to work with “internal disorders” such as depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Jay Goodwin, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Oxford, said the other explanation could be more pharmacologically straightforward. Serotonin is a chemical and neurotransmitter in the digestive system, brain, and blood system that regulates mood, social behavior, appetite, sleep, memory, and sexual function.

Goodwin, who was not involved in the research, added that the main limitation of the Johns Hopkins study was the lack of long-term follow-up. For many people, depression is a long-term condition. Determining whether a treatment has lasting effects is the key missing factor.

Moreover, with studies such as these, Goodwin said, it can be difficult to extract the effects of a drug from its administration process.

Study participants received approximately 11 hours of psychotherapy, and received medication under the care of trained professionals, in an environment designed to calm the patient.

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