From RT’s program description:
On tonight’s Geeky Science segment…We all know how magic mushrooms made the 1960′s a big colorful blur. But what is new research showing us about their possible beneficial effects? A new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science suggests that the key ingredient in magic mushrooms, psilocybin, may be the perfect aid for certain mental disorders.
Okay, but we could have done without the Timothy Leary bit. But don’t let the references to Pitifully Weary distract from the stunning nature of the findings.
So how does it work? Well, consider the last line [emphasis added] from this excerpt of recently published findings by British and Danish researchers [more here]:
As predicted, profound changes in consciousness were observed after psilocybin, but surprisingly, only decreases in cerebral blood flow and BOLD signal were seen, and these were maximal in hub regions, such as the thalamus and anterior and posterior cingulate cortex (ACC and PCC). Decreased activity in the ACC/medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) was a consistent finding and the magnitude of this decrease predicted the intensity of the subjective effects. Based on these results, a seed-based pharmaco-physiological interaction/functional connectivity analysis was performed using a medial prefrontal seed. Psilocybin caused a significant decrease in the positive coupling between the mPFC and PCC. These results strongly imply that the subjective effects of psychedelic drugs are caused by decreased activity and connectivity in the brain’s key connector hubs, enabling a state of unconstrained cognition.
The BBC’s Pallab Ghosh reports the remarks of one of the British researchers:
Former government drugs adviser Prof David Nutt has said that regulations should be relaxed to enable researchers to experiment on mind-altering drugs.
Prof Nutt told BBC News that magic mushrooms, LSD, ecstasy, cannabis and mephedrone all have potential therapeutic applications.
However, he said they were not being studied because of the restrictions placed on researching illegal drugs.
He said the regulations were “overwhelming”.
His comments followed the publication of new research by his group in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which suggests that the active ingredient in magic mushrooms could be used to treat depression.
“I feel quite passionately that these drugs are profound drugs; they change the brain in a way that no other drugs do. And I find it bizarre that no-one has studied them before and they haven’t because it’s hard and illegal,” he said.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Home Office licensing regime already enables research to take place through a system of controlled drug possession licences, allowing bona fide institutions to carry out scientific research.
“This regime recognises the importance of such research and enables that to take place in an appropriate environment, ensuring the necessary safeguards are in place.”
Prof Nutt was sacked by the home secretary from his government advisory role three years ago for saying that ecstasy and LSD were less harmful than alcohol.
He says his new research indicated that there were no “untoward effects” from taking magic mushrooms and that it should not be illegal to possess them.
And more research is about to be published, reports WebMD’s Charles J. DeNoon:
A study to be published this week suggests the drug improves people’s sense of wellbeing, and might be a useful treatment for clinical depression.
In the study, 10 volunteers looked at written cues that spurred memories linked to strong positive emotions. These memories were, as you might expect, far more vivid when the volunteers were given psilocybin than when they were given placebos.
Two weeks later, the volunteers who had the most vivid memories while on psilocybin had the greatest sense of wellbeing.
“Our findings support the idea that psilocybin facilitates access to personal memories and emotions,” Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD, the study’s lead author, said in a news release.
Earlier studies, some going back to the 1950s, suggest that psilocybin can reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and cluster headaches. The new findings support recent studies in which volunteers given psilocybin underwent long-lasting positive changes in personality and rated the experience as one of the most spiritually significant in their lives.
Finally, here’s a clip from Roslyn Dauber’ documentary The Medicine – Medical Research on Psychedelics, featuring an interview with a terminal ovarian cancer patient whose life was profoundly changed for the better during her participation in an experimental psilocybin treatment program at UCLA Harbor Medical Center in Los Angeles:
