In a new study from Johns Hopkins Medicine, researchers found that psychedelic treatment with psilocybin relieved major depressive disorder symptoms in adults for at least a year.
The findings add to evidence that, under carefully controlled conditions, this is a promising therapeutic approach that can lead to significant and durable improvements in depression.
Over the last 20 years, there has been a growing renaissance of research with classic psychedelics—the pharmacological class of compounds that include psilocybin, an ingredient found in so-called magic mushrooms.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, psilocybin can produce perceptual changes, altering a person’s awareness of their surroundings and of their thoughts and feelings.
Treatment with psilocybin has shown promise in research settings for treating a range of mental health disorders and addictions.
In this study, the researchers recruited 27 participants with a long-term history of depression, most of whom had been experiencing depressive symptoms for approximately two years before recruitment.
After screening, participants were assigned into one of two groups in which they received the intervention either immediately, or after an eight-week waiting period.
At the time of treatment, all participants were provided with six to eight hours of preparatory meetings with two treatment facilitators.
Following preparation, participants received two doses of psilocybin, given approximately two weeks apart between August 2017 and April 2019.
The researchers found that psilocybin treatment in both groups produced large decreases in depression and that depression severity remained low one, three, six, and 12 months after treatment.
Participants had stable rates of response to the treatment and remission of symptoms throughout the follow-up period, with 75% response and 58% remission at 12 months.
The team says psilocybin not only produces significant and immediate effects, it also has a long duration, which suggests that it may be a uniquely useful new treatment for depression.
Compared to standard antidepressants, which must be taken for long stretches of time, psilocybin has the potential to enduringly relieve the symptoms of depression with one or two treatments.
If you care about depression, please read studies that Stanford scientists rapidly reduce depression with this treatment, and antibiotics could be repurposed as a treatment for depression.
For more information about mental health, please see recent studies that cannabis could offer immediate relief from depression, and results showing how to help someone you live with who has depression.
The study is published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology and was conducted by Natalie Gukasyan et al.
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