Posted on 02/15/2022 9:45:02 AM PST by Red Badger
Previous studies by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers showed that psychedelic treatment with psilocybin relieved major depressive disorder symptoms in adults for up to a month. Now, in a follow-up study of those participants, the researchers report that the substantial antidepressant effects of psilocybin-assisted therapy, given with supportive psychotherapy, may last at least a year for some patients.
A report on the new study was published on Feb. 15, 2022 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
"Our 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," says Natalie Gukasyan, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She cautions, however, that "the results we see are in a research setting and require quite a lot of preparation and structured support from trained clinicians and therapists, and people should not attempt to try it on their own."
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.
For 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. The average age of participants was 40, 19 were women, and 25 identified as white, one as African American and one as Asian. Eighty-eight percent of the participants had previously been treated with standard antidepressant medications, and 58% reported using antidepressants in their current depressive episodes.
After screening, participants were randomized 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 at the Behavioral Biology Research Center at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Participants returned for follow-up one day and one week after each session, and then at one, three, six and 12 months following the second session; 24 participants completed both psilocybin sessions and all follow-up assessment visits.
The researchers reported 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. Depressive symptoms were measured before and after treatment using the GRID-Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, a standard depression assessment tool, in which a score of 24 or more indicates severe depression, 17–23 moderate depression, 8–16 mild depression and 7 or less no depression. For most participants, scores for the overall treatment decreased from 22.8 at pretreatment to 8.7 at one week, 8.9 at four weeks, 9.3 at three months, 7 at six months and 7.7 at 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.
"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," says Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., the Oliver Lee McCabe III, Ph.D., Professor in the Neuropsychopharmacology of Consciousness at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. "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."
The researchers emphasize that further research is needed to explore the possibility that the efficacy of psilocybin treatment may be substantially longer than 12 months. Johns Hopkins is one of the sites of a national multisite randomized, placebo-controlled trial of psilocybin for major depressive disorder.
Explore further
Psychedelic treatment with psilocybin relieves major depression, study shows
More information:
Natalie Gukasyan et al, Efficacy and safety of psilocybin-assisted treatment for major depressive disorder: Prospective 12-month follow-up, Journal of Psychopharmacology (2022).
DOI: 10.1177/02698811211073759
Journal information: Journal of Psychopharmacology
Provided by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Same old snake oil sold since late 50’s
Carlos Casteneda approves of this message.
I’d do ‘shrooms before taking Covid vax.
Yeah - depression is so overrated, all the current remedies do such a good job. Lets make sure we condemn all possible alternatives to SSRPs.
As someone with treatment-resistant depression which has been helped tremendously by microdosing magic mushrooms, I can say from personal experience this treatment does work and cost pennies on the dollar. What snake oil is this, or do you want to just sound like a total ignoramus here?
lol. Ain’t that the truth! :D
Microdosing is the key. Researchers and therapies using this aren’t sending people on ‘trips’.
My only experience is from the teen tears when a few of us simmered some in a sauce pan, draining off the juuce, adding sugar, drinking, and the laughing non stop for the next 6 hours. So what happens when you only microdose?
Yup. A small capsule full of mushrooms will not get one very high.
Tell Brandon to forget my free crack pipe, I want some psilocybin .
Come to Oregon. It’s legal here:
“Could any symbol be any more appropriate of the ambiguity of human transformation? What mushroom is it that grows at the end of history? Is it Stropharia cubensis, or is it the creation of Edward Teller? This is an unresolved problem.”
-Terence McKenna
I’m not aware of anyone who has actually undergone this, only of some research studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6364961/
I did it in Japan (shrooms were legal until 2004) and you just take one bite.
It’s hard to describe other than your senses are crisper, you’re more positively analytical about what you’re doing, and you really care less about outside opinion.
Life seems like a straight-ahead path to something better.
Shroom boom, baby. Yeah, I’ll check in and drop out again, blah, blah…
I try quoting Terence McKenna from time to time around here.
The guy was off the charts brilliant—not just ahead of his time, but way ahead of our time.
One of the problems with being a true genius is that it may take centuries to be appreciated.
;-)
You gotta be kidding me. 2.5gm, some Ronrico, and a spliff of Acapulco will get us toasted for at least 10 hours.
Hate to break it to you FRiend....
These days Acapulco Gold is considered “mexican ditch weed” and Maui Wowee is for lightweights.
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