For years, some researchers have looked to psychedelic drugs, including psilocybin (the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms), as a potential treatment for some psychiatric conditions. The largest trial to date of psilocybin for depression, published today (November 3) in the New England Journal of Medicine, finds that a dose of synthetic psilocybin combined with counseling did alleviate symptoms for some patients. But for some participants who did respond, the effects wore off within 12 weeks of the treatment.
“It’s a big step forward for the field of psychedelic research and depression treatment,” Jimmy Potash, who oversees psychedelics research at Johns Hopkins but was not involved in the study, tells STAT. The durability of the response is “not as good as you’d like, but it’s still quite good,” he adds.
The Phase 2 clinical trial, funded in part by the mental health care startup Compass Pathways, which makes the synthetic ...
