Magic mushrooms may help treat depression: How?

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(CBS) Feeling blue? Two new studies suggest taking a trip might help - but we're not talking vacations.

PICTURES - Depression nation: 16 saddest states

Tripping on "magic mushrooms" appears to change the brain in ways similar to antidepressants, the study found.

"We're not saying go out there and eat magic mushrooms," Professor David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacology researcher at Imperial College London and senior author of both studies, told Reuters. "But...this drug has such a fundamental impact on the brain that it's got to be meaningful - it's got to be telling us something about how the brain works."

The first of these studies, published in the Jan. 23 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, took 30 healthy volunteers and infused the shrooms' active ingredient - called psilocybin - into their bloodstreams while they were lying in an MRI machine. The researchers looked at the volunteers' brain scans, which showed decreased levels of activity in "hub" regions of the brain that connect areas responsible for consciousness, self-identity, and organizing sensory information that constantly floods the brain.

The second study - to be published in the Jan. 25 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry - gave 10 volunteers in MRI machines written cues to look at that would prompt them to think about their memories. Then the researchers gave the volunteers psilocybin, and found it enhanced their recollections of personal memories. Their brain scans also reflected these changes in areas of the brain that process vision and sensory information

The researchers say psilocybin might be an effective supplement to psychotherapy.

"Psychedelics are thought of as 'mind-expanding' drugs so it has commonly been assumed that they work by increasing brain activity, but surprisingly, we found that psilocybin actually caused activity to decrease in areas that have the densest connections with other areas," Nutt said in a written statement. "These hubs constrain our experience of the world and keep it orderly. We now know that deactivating these regions leads to a state in which the world is experienced as strange."

The study raises several questions - aside from who would want to volunteer to go in an MRI machine while on magic mushrooms. Can psychedelic mushrooms conceivably be used to treat people's depression?

The researchers said the brain's biology might provide some clues. One of the brain hubs that were shown to be affected in the study - the medial prefrontal cortex - is found to be hyperactive in people with depression. So psilocybin's affects on this area could cause mimic antidepressants' effects. Also, psilocybin was found to slow blood flow to the brain's hypothalamus. When blood flow is increased to the hypothalamus, people typically experience cluster headaches, so this might explain why some volunteers reported feeling better after "shrooming."

In 2011, a study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology showed people taking psychedelic mushrooms experienced personality changes that reflected increased "openness" to other senses and emotions, according to HealthPop. Some participants in that study also experienced more anxiety, however.

''This is a research tool which may give us insights into how to treat depression,'' Nutt told The Telegraph. But he warned, ''I would strongly resist people self-medicating.''

The cops would agree with Nutt on that point. According to the U.S. Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center, psilocybin is an illegal drug, classified as a Schedule I substance, along with heroin and LSD.

17 Photos

Depression nation: 16 saddest states

[dj-delphi]

So true! That's why I created a petition to the United States Federal Government to re-evaluate scientific studies of psychedelics as medicines. Check it out at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/legalize-psychedelic-research-science-has-clearly-demonstrated-it-necessary-re-evaluate-perceptions/PKGDCH7B

[dj-delphi]

Personally, I struggle with horrendous pain from my lungs being ripped apart from coccidiodomycosis (Valley Fever, common throughout AZ, certain parts of California, New Mexico, and Texas) and mushrooms have been more helpful in healing not only the depression caused by that pain, but also the actual pleurisy that is causing my pain - more so than any medicines that doctors have given me (I was on 800mg of diflucan aka fluconazole, which is so toxic, its almost like a chemo-therapy treatment). Originally I had a lesion in my left lung, which we first found in 2008 from a CT scan at the U of A hospital in Tucson, AZ, but through eating healthy, exercising, and occasional use of psychedelics like mushroom (which I haven't taken for over 2 years) my lesion has shrunk literally 200% according to the last CT scan I had in November. It's odd though - doctors want me to keep having CT scans, even though it's scientifically proven that too many CT scans can create DNA damage and lead to cancer (I have a BA degree in Biochemistry & Philosophy, with a specific emphasis on neuroscience and pharmacology, so I've spent a lot of time studying this). How funny that as a society, so many people are stigmatized against medicines like psychedelics, yet are OK with CT scans (I've had ~15 in my life, and I'm only 27), or using fossil fuels, yet, despite scientific evidence like this, people refuse to accept the scientific truth that things like mushrooms have true, scientifically validated medical benefits. To address this, I've created a petition - check it out at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/legalize-psychedelic-research-science-has-clearly-demonstrated-it-necessary-re-evaluate-perceptions/PKGDCH7B

[magicmushroomsbestellen]

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[magicmushroomsbestellen]

Hi,

i found a blog where they say, that it is an upcoming trend in germany.
they say it's really good against depressions. If u like to translate your'self you can read it on http://magicmushroomsbestellen.edublogs.org/magic-mushrooms-

[train99]

You see Demi Moore gets sent to the hospital for using something called "whippits".
Whippits.
That's where we are now with this and other trashy drugs, being used because good drugs like the psychedelics - mind -opening drugs that could really help people - were pushed out. Ask yourself, why? Why these were pushed out and garbage was let in.

[barrybanana]

Because pharmaceutical companies want us to use their chemicals, not things that grow naturally.

[mike122345]

I believe this article to be true. Ecstasy was once touted as a psychologist in a pill. One hit was equal to 10 hours of therapy.

[Dgunner]

My tribe has used mescaline for over two hundred years and is the only tribe allowed to do so as religous act.Tripping as you people call it is way too much in your system.two eye drops of mescaline will do more for your open mind that four hits of LSD. You do not build a tolerance to mescaline . One thing you do is learn to respect it. You can die from too much it will stop you from breathing because you involuntary muscles don't receive the signal.So careful as he goes!

[tmittelstaed]

The question isn't "does it work" the question is "does it produce damaging side effects"

Anyone with any sense should be concerned about a drug that REDUCES blood flow to any part of the brain.

You can alter your perception by hyperventilating into a paper bag or by hitting yourself on the head with a 2X4.

My question would be, does Marijuana produce the same results in the depressed? If so, use it not shrooms. Many years of clinical studies have proven no long term damage with pot use, not even lung cancer. We have no comparative studies for shrooms.

[foolie89]

The fact that blood flow to certain regions is reduced is not something to be scared of. The brain is vastly more complex than our comprehension of it; more blood flow does not necessarily mean better thought. All it says is that different parts of the brain are communicating than normally do. The MRI the researchers used is not a perfect, comprehensive instrument either. In other words we don't have the full story on what this drug does to the brain, possibly because most research on it and similar substances has been shunned for decades.

We have no comprehensive studies on mushroom usage, that's true. But on a purely anecdotal basis, can anyone point to people who became addicted or burnt out primarily on mushrooms? It's difficult to conflate it with heroine or alcohol as a drug of abuse, like many people assume simply because it's illegal.

[Sam_Pappy]

I fail to see the word debilitating. Why aren't more popular articles at least with the deterrant effort on an illegal drug? Misleading information on the old adrenaline dare is easy to take advantage of. Please include the word "debilitating" with illegal substances.

[rwsmith29456]

Does the effect last after you come down or do you have to stay high all the time? Do you get bum rides on mushrooms like sometimes happens with LSD??