Opinion – Psychedelic Turn: Mushroom substance maintains antidepressant effect for a year

The building under construction to house the “magic” mushroom psilocybin in the field of antidepressants gained a new floor last Tuesday (15). A study by Johns Hopkins University found that the effect lasts for up to 12 months.

It was already known that the fungal psychoactive Psilocybe can act quickly to fight depression, as well as the DMT from ayahuasca. The novelty is in the prolonged effect.

JHU, as it appears in the abbreviation in English, has a tradition in psilocybin research. Roland Griffiths’ group was one of the first to resume the study of psychedelics, at the turn of the century, and to indicate the role of the mystical experiences induced by them.

Griffiths has administered psilocybin to more than 600 volunteers in his trials. Now there were 24 participants with depression, the results being reported in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

The protocol involved several psychotherapy sessions, including two with psilocybin. Follow-up using a standard questionnaire to measure depression (GRID-HAMD) occurred after 1 month, 3 months, 6 months and 12 months.

The criterion of good response to treatment was established in the reduction of at least 50% in the scores. After one year, three-quarters were still improving, and 58% were in remission, barely scoring enough responses to diagnose depression.

“Psilocybin not only produces significant and immediate effects, it also has a long duration, which suggests that it could be a particularly useful new treatment for depression,” says Griffiths in a JHU statement.

“Compared to standard antidepressants, which need to be taken for longer periods of time, psilocybin has the potential to alleviate symptoms of depression lastingly with one or two doses.”

It will take time for the drug to become an approved drug, as clinical trials are still in phase 2 (there are two ongoing, by Compass and Instituto Usona). The costly phase 3 trials with hundreds of participants are missing, but it is possible that the US FDA will grant the license in 2023 or 2024.

In the next month of January, however, the therapy with fungi psilocybe may now be offered in Oregon. Voters in the northwestern US state passed Measure 109 in 2020, which legalized treatment and gave a two-year deadline for a committee to regulate the accreditation of practitioners and providers.

Draft guidelines for training and production are in the final stages of review. Only one species of about 200 in the genus psilocybe may be used, P. cubensiswhich has a long history of security.

The training of accredited “facilitators” to administer the mushrooms to people over 21, even without a prescription, will have a minimum of 120 hours. The rules under discussion spell out mandatory content in detail, for example limits on physical contact.

Whether through this Oregon community route, outside the canons of biomedicine, or through the usual route of patented drugs controlled by national agencies, initiatives for the use of psychedelics in mental disorders arise in several countries. Australia is one of them.

The Ministry of Health has approved a budget of 14.8 million Australian dollars (R$ 54 million) to fund seven clinical trials with psilocybin, MDMA, DMT and CBD as innovative mental health therapies.

The biggest funding (A$ 3.8 million, or R$ 14 million) will go to a study by the University of Melbourne with MDMA (ecstasy, bullet or molly) for social anxiety in young people with autistic spectrum disease.

Another university survey, awarded A$1.98 million (R$7.3 million), has a strong connection to Brazil. Not only because the psychedelic dimethyltryptamine (DMT) present in ayahuasca will be on the screen, but also because researcher Nicole Galvão-Coelho, from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) participates in it.

Galvão-Coelho participated in a pioneering research by UFRN on ayahuasca and depression and has appeared several times on this blog. The last one, in a post about ayahuasca, alcohol and drugs, was last August.

Depression, alcohol and DMT are precisely in the crosshairs of the Melbourne clinical trial, under the direction of Jerome Sarris. The placebo-controlled trial will bring together 180 participants in three situations: severe depression, alcohol abuse and dual diagnosis (depression and alcohol).

Volunteers will receive capsules with psychoactive ayahuasca tea (DMT and beta-carbolines) in the course of 9 psychotherapy sessions over 12 weeks. They will be monitored over 24 weeks to check for improvement in depression and addiction and to measure biological markers of these conditions, such as levels of cortisol, BDNF and C-reactive protein (an indicator of inflammation).

These substances are related to two hypotheses to explain the antidepressant action of DMT and ayahuasca: anti-inflammatory action and neuroplasticity. Brain inflammation is correlated with depression, although its cause and effect is not known, and the formation of new neuronal connections may be at the root of the improvement obtained with the interruption of ruminations of negative thoughts.

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To learn more about the history and new developments of science in this area, including in Brazil, look for my book “Psiconautas – Travels with Brazilian Psychedelic Science”