Magic mushrooms (Psilocybe semilanceata)WIKIMEDIA, SCIENCEMAN71So-called magic mushrooms may have medicinal uses. Researchers at Imperial College London gave psilocybin, the active ingredient in the hallucinogenic fungi, to 12 people with treatment-resistant depression. All 12 patients saw improvement in their symptoms, and five of them were still in complete remission three months after treatment, according to a study published today (May 17) in The Lancet Psychiatry.
“That is pretty remarkable in the context of currently available treatments,” study coauthor Robin Carhart-Harris of Imperial College told Nature News. “We can give psilocybin to depressed patients, they can tolerate it, and it is safe. This gives us an initial impression of the effectiveness of the treatment.”
Carhart-Harris and colleagues gave six men and six women with unipolar treatment-resistant major depression two oral doses of psilocybin (one low-dose and one high-dose) seven days apart, in a “supportive setting.” The patients provided self-reports on the intensity of the drug’s effects, and were monitored for negative reactions. The researchers assessed depressive symptoms one week to three months after the end of treatment.
None of the patients reported experiencing serious adverse outcomes. Some said they experienced side ...
