New study provides further support for psilocybin’s potential to treat depressive symptoms

High doses of psilocybin—the lively ingredient in magic mushrooms—seems to have the same impact on depressive signs because the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drug escitalopram, suggests a scientific evaluate and meta-analysis printed in The BMJ right now.

The findings present that sufferers handled with excessive dose psilocybin confirmed higher responses than these handled with placebo in antidepressant trials, though the impact dimension was small.

The researchers level out that flaws in research designs could have overestimated the effectiveness of psychedelics, however say excessive dose psilocybin “appeared to have the potential to deal with depressive signs.”

Psychedelic remedy has proven promise in decreasing depressive signs. However, just one randomized managed trial has to date immediately in contrast a psychedelic drug (psilocybin) with an antidepressant drug (escitalopram) for sufferers with main depressive dysfunction.

What’s extra, the subjective results of psychedelic substances can compromise blinding, resulting in overestimation of remedy results in contrast with placebo. Psychedelic remedy can also be normally given with psychological assist which makes isolating the direct results of psychedelics troublesome.

To attempt to deal with these points, the researchers trawled scientific databases to determine randomized managed trials printed as much as 12 October 2023 that assessed the results of psychedelics or escitalopram in adults with acute depressive signs.

To be eligible, psychedelic remedy (together with MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, or ayahuasca) needed to be given orally with no further use of antidepressants, whereas escitalopram trials needed to evaluate at the least two completely different oral doses (most 20 mg/day) with placebo. Trials evaluating psychedelic remedy immediately with escitalopram had been additionally included.

Overall, 811 individuals (common age 42; 54% girls) had been included in 15 psychedelic trials and 1,968 individuals (common age 39; 63% girls) had been included in 5 escitalopram trials.

Effect dimension was expressed as a standardized imply distinction (0.2–0.5 signifies a small impact, 0.5–0.8 a average impact, and 0.8 or extra a big impact).

The researchers discovered that placebo responses in psychedelic trials had been decrease than in escitalopram trials. As a end result, whereas most psychedelics carried out higher than placebo in psychedelic trials on the 17 merchandise Hamilton despair ranking scale (HAMD-17), solely excessive dose psilocybin carried out higher than placebo in escitalopram trials on the HAMD-17 scale, displaying a small impact dimension (standardized imply distinction 0.3), which has similarities to that of present antidepressant medication.

None of the interventions was related to the next fee of extreme hostile occasions (together with dying, admission to hospital, or suicide try) or discontinuation than placebo.

The authors acknowledge a number of research limitations, together with that solely acute results of the interventions had been assessed and that the long run results of psychedelics and escitalopram stay unclear. The pattern dimension of the psychedelic trials was small, they add, and the results of excessive dose psilocybin could have been barely overestimated in contrast with different remedies.

Nevertheless, they conclude, “Serotonergic psychedelics, particularly excessive dose psilocybin, appeared to have the potential to deal with depressive signs. Our evaluation instructed that the standardized imply distinction of excessive dose psilocybin was just like that of present antidepressant medication, displaying a small impact dimension.”

They add, “Improved blinding strategies and standardized psychotherapies may also help researchers to higher estimate the efficacy of psychedelics for depressive signs and different psychiatric circumstances.”