RESEARCH + NEWS
It is an exciting time for psychedelic research, with new fascinating studies being conducted all over the world. Because psychedelic research is just beginning to re-emerge, many of the studies being done are somewhat preliminary in regard to how psilocybin affects the brain and body. Please always do your own research when making decisions about your health.
I have posted below some of my favorite studies and articles related to psilocybin.
Research​
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Evaluating the Potential Use of Psychedelics in Autism Spectrum Disorder
"Due to the limited treatment options for ASD, the development of novel therapies is warranted. Clinical and preclinical trials suggest that psychedelics may improve social behaviour and decrease the burden of co-occurring diagnoses in ASD by targeting synaptic function, serotonin signaling, PFC activity, and thalamocortical signaling. Early clinical trials in childhood ASD suggest that psychedelics might hold therapeutic potential; however, the side effects encountered represent potential limitations to this treatment. It is possible that psychedelics may alleviate a few core social-behavioural features in individuals with ASD, such as social anxiety, but carefully performing a risk-to-benefit assessment is crucial due to the severity of their potential side effects."
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Can Psilocybin Help Smokers Quit? This Clinical Trial Aims to Find Out
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"Psilocybin has been being investigated as a potential smoking cessation aid for several years. In 2014, a psilocybin-facilitated smoking cessation study from Dr Johnson and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University showed an 80 percent abstinence rate six months after receiving a course of psilocybin-assisted therapy, falling only marginally to 60 percent after 12 months. Johns Hopkins researchers are currently working on another clinical trial comparing the efficacies of transdermal nicotine patches with cognitive therapy treatment versus psilocybin with cognitive therapy, with the early results showing good promise for psilocybin treatment."
"Mydecine Innovations Group, a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in psychedelic therapeutics for mental health and addiction treatment, has announced its partnership with the renowned psychedelic science researcher Dr Matthew Johnson of Johns Hopkins University to carry out a clinical trial on Mydecine’s purified psilocybin drug MYCO-001 in a structured smoking cessation treatment program. The team anticipates that the seamless trial could be completed by the end of 2022."
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UNC Research Reveals Role of Genetic Variants on Psychedelics’ Therapeutic Effects
Study: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acschemneuro.1c00815
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“UNC School of Medicine researchers led by Bryan Roth, MD, PhD, the Michael Hooker Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology, report that one reason for treatment disparity could be common genetic variations in one serotonin receptor.”
“Published in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience, the lab research in cells shows that seven variants uniquely and differentially impact the receptor’s response to four psychedelic drugs — psilocin, LSD, 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT) and mescaline.”
“Based on our study, we expect that patients with different genetic variations will react differently to psychedelic-assisted treatments,” said Roth, who leads the NIH Psychotropic Drug Screening Program. “We think physicians should consider the genetics of a patient’s serotonin receptors to identify which psychedelic compound is likely to be the most effective treatment in future clinical trials.”
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“The effects of psilocybin were studied in 51 cancer patients with life-threatening diagnoses and symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. This randomized, double-blind, cross-over trial investigated the effects of a very low (placebo-like) dose (1 or 3 mg/70 kg) vs. a high dose (22 or 30 mg/70 kg) of psilocybin administered in counterbalanced sequence with 5 weeks between sessions and a 6-month follow-up. Instructions to participants and staff minimized expectancy effects. Participants, staff, and community observers rated participant moods, attitudes, and behaviors throughout the study. High-dose psilocybin produced large decreases in clinician- and self-rated measures of depressed mood and anxiety, along with increases in quality of life, life meaning, and optimism, and decreases in death anxiety.”
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Articles​
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How Fungi Can Support Life in Space
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“As one can imagine, decomposing space stations are less than ideal, and although NASA asserted these fungal stowaways were of Earthly origin, their presence in space offered our first opportunity to examine astromycology – the study of earth-derived mushrooms in space – up close and personal.”
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How an NHL Enforcer Broke His Body — and Turned to Psychedelics to Heal His Brain
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"In Cote’s case, the identity he’d spent so long forging for himself with blood and terror, “jacking up” his emotions to punch people he didn’t hate and often admired, lifted off his shoulders during that first trip like he was “shedding his skin” with no more importance or difficulty than he would remove a coat. “I felt … free,” he says."
"Dr. Julie Holland, a practicing New York psychiatrist and psychedelics expert, says the application of psychedelics to sports medicine is new, but makes sense based on the current scientific literature. “We know that many psychedelics have really potent anti-inflammatory effects,” says Holland, who is also a longtime medical adviser for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS. “The other thing is, they’re being explored for treating neurodegenerative disorders, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy. These athletes that get multiple blows to the head [represent] a case where you really need not only anti-inflammatory effects, but this purported neuroplasticity that comes with psychedelics.”
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After Six-Decade Hiatus, Experimental Psychedelic Therapy Returns to the V.A.
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A series of clinical trials using MDMA and psilocybin mushrooms represent a resurrection of promising research abandoned in the 1960’s.
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Two Cancer Patients Battle to Make Psilocybin Accessible for Palliative Care
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“Although psilocybin therapy has shown compelling results for addressing depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer, the treatment remains investigational and has yet to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration for any purpose.”
“The most frustrating part of the experience, Baldeschwiler says, is “knowing there are substances out there that can help but that they’re being taken off the table by some third-party agency that’s making my choice for me.”
“The sense of unfairness, punishment, helplessness and uncertainty is particularly extreme with cancer, but there’s something about that existential distress that psilocybin really seems to get at the heart of,” says Johnson, who co-authored the 2016 paper. “It helps a lot of people and not just trivially.”