Magic Mushroom Psilocybin May Improve Depression, Study Finds
The magic mushroom drug psilocybin may lead to long-term improvements in the severity of symptoms of depression, a small study has found.
The study, conducted by Imperial College London, looked at brain scans of 60 participants and combines two trials where psilocybin was administered.
In the first trial, everyone received psilocybin, and in the second, some received psilocybin and others took another type of antidepressant. The peer-reviewed research was published Monday in Nature Medicine.
“In both trials, the antidepressant response to psilocybin was rapid, sustained, and correlated with decreases in fMRI brain network modularity, implying that the antidepressant action of psilocybin may depend on an overall increase in ‘integration of the brain network,’ the study says.
This means that the brain’s functional networks became more interconnected and flexible after psilocybin treatment.
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Study shows psilocybin therapy’s potential to treat depression, but study researchers say its therapeutic benefits are not yet fully understood and a person with depression should not self-administer it even this medicine.
The trial was conducted alongside therapy with mental health professionals and brain scans.
This isn’t the first trial to experiment with psilocybin. According to the study, over the past 15 years, at least six separate clinical trials have reported impressive improvements in depressive symptoms with psilocybin therapy.
USA Today
