How magic mushroom ingredient psilocybin helps patients with depression or PTSD change how they feel, by rewiring the brain with more connections
- Psilocybin can help patients relive repressed traumatic experiences and make depressed users feel better about themselves
- Psychedelics can promote feelings of love and compassion for self and others, a good treatment for depression, researcher says
The use of psychedelic drugs such as LSD and psilocybin was a legitimate field of medical research in the 1940s and 1950s, and LSD was even employed as a psychiatric medicine. But such research stopped in the mid-1960s when they were declared Schedule 1 illegal drugs in the United States.
Over the past decade, however, researchers have returned to studying the therapeutic uses of psychedelics to treat depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and as part of palliative care for those suffering from terminal cancer.
Fresh research suggests that psilocybin, the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms”, can be a treatment for depression.
“Humans have been using magic mushrooms for thousands of years, and indigenous societies have long used them in rituals,” says Bruna Giribaldi, clinical trial manager at the Centres for Psychedelic Research and Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London.
