Why are people not? with depression magic champions prescribed instead of Zoloft or Prozac?
The first antidepressants were invented in the 1950s. Meanwhile, psilocybin – the naturally occurring psychedelic compound – was heavily researched for the treatment of depression in the 1960s until the federal government declared a Schedule 1 drug in the 1970s.
But there is a chance that psilocybin could re-enter the mainstream. Over the past decade, a scientific renaissance has taken place around the therapeutic use of psychedelics in combination with therapy.
The most recent progress is a study published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine.
What has been discovered – Volunteers with moderate to severe depression received two high doses of psilocybine and a placebo or a very low dose of psilocybine and six weeks daily escitalopram, an antidepressant under the brand name Lexapro. Everyone in the study also did talk therapy.
The results suggest that both methods were equally good at reducing depressive symptoms. But it is possible that psilocybin performed better than Lexapro by some measurements.
Unfortunately, the way the study is designed makes it difficult to confirm some promising signs. According to the authors of the study, psilocybin worked faster than Lexapro, it is well tolerated and has few adverse effects.
“… psilocybin therapy may have benefits over the current standard of care. ”
Although the study does not report on the sensations the participants felt while using psilocybin, previous research suggests that it is a dose-dependent subjective experience that includes the experience of a euphoric state, changes in visual perception, and the so-called ego- dissolution can involve – removing one’s idea about themselves. Previous studies have identified mild adverse effects such as nausea or headache after treatment. It is critical that all subjects are trained by experienced therapists during psilocibin-assisted therapy. Not so for every Lexapro user – although all participants in this study received therapy.
“The main message conveyed in the data is that psilocybin therapy may have benefits beyond the current standard of care and that over time it may be a licensed option for clinicians treating and patients suffering from depression,” says first author Robin Carhart -Harris. Reverse.
Carhart-Harris is Head of the Center for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London and a leading expert in the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs.
“Psilocybine therapy not only reduced depressive symptoms, but also improved the quality of life and functioning of patients more generally,” he says. “Their sense of well-being and life satisfaction, for example, has increased to a significantly greater extent.”
The experiment – Over the course of six weeks, 59 people (66 percent male and 88 percent white) were enrolled for the randomized controlled trial. One group received placebo pills daily and two heavy doses (both doses were 25 milligrams) patented psilocybin named COMP360. The other group received antidepressants and 1 mg psilocybin daily – a dose so low that it was considered inactive.
Depression was evaluated using a standard self-reported measuring instrument called QIDS-SR-16. Prior to the study, the psilocibin group achieved an average of 14.5. At the end of the study, the mean was 6.5.
The conclusions of this study are limited because it does not include a straightforward placebo group, but the signs are encouraging. While some people with major depression do respond to antidepressants, about 10 to 30 percent do not respond. As a result, experts say there is an urgent need for new forms of treatment, and some are on the hunt.
In turn, scientists like Cahart-Harris return to methods that were only evaluated 60 years ago, and are eager to unlock the potential of psychedelic substances. In 2020, for example, a team of international researchers built a model of the brain and found that psilocybin causes the brain to create a feedback loop of neuronactivity and neurotransmitter release, suggesting that the compound acts as a reset button.
The future of psilocybin therapy – This new study, meanwhile, is the first to put psilocybin and antidepressants against humans. Both activate the serotonin system, but in different ways, Cahart-Harris explains. “The psychedelic drug is more specific in its action, and directly stimulates an aspect of the serotonin system that deals with plasticity or change,” he says.
Now that this article is published, he hopes the information will inspire other scientists to do more research on psilocybin therapy, funders to support relevant research, and medical developers to increase it. “
In the background of all this is a discussion about the legal status of psilocybin. It is increasingly understood that categorizing it as a Schedule 1 remedy was a “war on drugs” attempt to endanger certain communities. (Read it for a deeper dive).
To qualify as Schedule 1, a drug must be considered as having the greatest potential for abuse and dependence and of no medical value. Meanwhile, an increasing number of studies have associated psilocybin with a very low risk of abuse and dependence, and that it does have medical value as well as therapeutic. Consequently, some medical experts and activists are calling for its reclassification. (In 2020, Oregon became the first state to legalize psilocybin.)
Laboratory work continues: Cahart-Harris and colleagues have just begun recruiting for a clinical trial evaluating the use of psilocybin therapy for anorexia. “We hope to answer whether psilocybin therapy is a safe and potentially effective treatment for this often tragic condition,” he says.