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Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – Magic mushrooms are known for their hallucinogenic effects, but they may also play 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 the treatment of mental health in supervised settings.
And a new small study of 24 adults with major depression, published this week in the journal “JAMA Psychiatry,” found that two doses of psilocybin resulted in a significant reduction in depressive symptoms.
“The magnitude of the effect that we found was about four times greater than what clinical trials with conventional antidepressants have shown in the market,” said Alan Davis, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
“Since most other treatments for depression take weeks or months to work and can have unwanted effects, this could be a game-changer if these results hold up in clinical trials,” he added.
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 psilocybin treatment immediately after enrollment, and 11 participants were placed on a waiting list and received the same treatment after eight weeks.
David Natt, professor and director of the Psychopharmacology and Neuropharmacology Unit of the Brain Sciences Department at Imperial College London, said the study provided more evidence for “the rapid and potent effect of psilocybin. “. Nat, who was not involved in the research, added that the results may have been skewed due to patients knowing 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.
“Since there are several types of major depressive disorder that can cause variations in the way people respond to treatment, I was surprised that most of the participants in our study found psilocybin treatment to be 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 within hours of taking it.
In the United States, possession of the compound is a felony because it is classified as a Schedule I substance.
How could this affect the brain?
How psilocybin affects the brain is not yet fully understood, but Nat of Imperial College said the compound appears to disrupt negative thought circuits through the “5HT2Z” receptor in the brain.
“Standard antidepressants protect against stressors that lead to depression, but they do not directly affect the underlying biological, psychological and social causes,” Natt wrote in an article 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 understanding 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 a pharmacologically simpler one. Serotonin is a chemical and neurotransmitter in the digestive system, brain, and bloodstream 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. Depression is considered a long term illness for many people. Determining whether a treatment has lasting effects is the main missing factor.
Plus, with studies like this, Goodwin said, it can be difficult to extract the effects of a drug from its administration process.
The study participants received approximately 11 hours of psychotherapy and were given medication under the care of trained professionals, in an environment designed to calm the patient.
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