Connect with us

Research

Improvements in mood and mental health after psilocybin microdosing

Research has demonstrated efficacy up to one month compared to non-microdosing controls.

Published

on

SRI non-SRI patients similar antidepressant effects psychedelics

Results from the largest longitudinal study investigating the practice of microdosing psilocybin for mental health, and one of the few to use a control group, have now been published.

Anecdotal evidence claims that microdosng psychedelic substances, such as psilocybin or LSD, could hold potential benefits for mental health. Whilst a few studies have investigated these claims, there is still much to be learned about the potential efficacy of microdosing.

Contributing to the growing literature on the practice, new research, published in Nature Portfolio, has demonstrated that microdosing psilocybin showed observed improvements in mood and mental health at one month, relative to non-microdosing controls.

See also  Does microdosing LSD work? 

The research has been carried out by Joseph M. Rootman, Maggie Kiraga, Pamela Kryskow, Kalin Harvey, Paul Stamets, Eesmyal Santos-Brault, Kim P. C. Kuypers and Zach Walsh, who highlight that “public uptake of microdosing has outpaced evidence, mandating further prospective research”.

Improvements in mental health

The study, which followed psilocybin microdosers and non-microdosing comparators for approximately 30 days, identified small- to medium-sized improvements in mood and mental health of participants.

The authors state the improvements were generally consistent across gender, age, presence of mental health concerns and psychomotor performance that were specific to older adults. 

In comparisons of microdosers to non-microdosers, the findings demonstrated greater improvements among microdosers across the depression anxiety stress scale (DASS) domains, and that the effect of microdosing over time was found to be moderated by gender in DASS depression.

See also  Microdosing: separating fact from fiction

The authors stated: “Specifically, microdose-related reductions in depression were stronger among females than among males.”

The paper highlights that among microdosers with mental health concerns, scores on depression changed from 18.85 (at baseline to 11.73 at month one; for anxiety, 11.04 at baseline to 7.46 at month one; and for stress, 19.93 at baseline to 13.91 at month one. 

Among respondents without a history of mental health concerns, the paper notes, scores on depression changed from 10.40 at baseline to 6.65 at month one; for anxiety, 6.53 at baseline to 4.81 at month one; and for stress, 13.96 at baseline to 9.78 at month one.

Regarding mood, the results showed that, relative to non-microdosers, microdosers exhibited greater increases in positive mood from baseline to month one.

Stacking

The paper also highlights the practice of “stacking”, whereby microdoses of psilocybin are combined with the Hericium erinaceus fungus, also known as Lion’s mane, and sometimes with niacin (vitamin-B3).

The study highlights that this practice has been gaining increasing interest for its proposed treatment of depression and mild cognitive impairment, as well as preclinical evidence of facilitation of neurogenesis with implications for treating neurodegenerative disorders.

The authors state: “A cross-sectional survey of over 4000 microdosers, which used a sample that partially overlaps with that of the present study, found that over 50 per cent of psilocybin microdosers combined psilocybin with diverse substances, and that HE [Hericium erinaceus] was the most prevalent addition followed by a combination of niacin (vitamin-B3) and HE8. 

See also  Microdosing could be a tool for improving mental health, shows new study

“As this is the lone study to report on stacking, the generalizability of these results is unknown.”

And that: “Supplementary analyses indicated that combining psilocybin with HE and B3 did not impact changes in mood and mental health. However, among older microdosers combining psilocybin, HE and B3 was associated with psychomotor improvements relative to psilocybin alone and psilocybin and HE.”

The researchers highlight that these results are novel, and further research is needed in order to confirm and elucidate these effects.

Microdosing research

Poor mental health, such as depression and anxiety, affects nearly one billion people across the globe. This crisis has been compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has seen many more people seeking treatment for mental health disorders.

Whilst current treatment regimens, such as SSRI’s and talking therapies, can be helpful for some, a large number people live with treatment-resistant depression, underlining the need for innovation in the field of mental health treatment. 

Research into psychedelic medicines is one area that many people believe could provide a new type of treatment across the fields of pharmacology and psychology – combining psychedelic treatments with psychotherapy, for example. 

Macrodoses of psychedelics, however, pose a number of challenges when it comes to incorporating them into mental health care – from scaling up, to having trained practitioners and therapists, to the length of time it takes to provide a therapy session, which can last between four and eight hours.

If efficacious, microdosing could provide a form of treatment that may be implemented into mental health care much more easily. 

The researchers highlight that more research is needed on the practice of microdosing, stating: “Considering the tremendous health costs and ubiquity of depression, as well as the sizable proportion of patients who do not respond to extant treatments, the potential for another approach to addressing this deadly disorder warrants substantial consideration. 

“The potential that psilocybin microdosing may provide a means to improve depression and anxiety clearly points to the need for further research to more firmly establish the nature of the relationship between microdosing, mood and mental health, and the extent to which these effects are directly attributable to psilocybin.

“A potential contribution of future research with placebo-controlled designs would be the capacity to disaggregate the contributions of positive expectancies and placebo effects.”

For this study, 80 per cent of participants reported prior experience using psychedelics, which the authors state, “makes it likely that scores on the expectancies measure were influenced by past experiences of direct drug effects.”

They also note a limitation of the study is that both micro and macrodosing participants were aware of their status from the onset of the study, “making it impossible to rule out the contributions of greater expectancies among the microdosing versus non-microdosing group.”

Further limitations include that the study was not a double-blind study, and the sample of microdosing participants was 953 compared to 180 non-macrodosing participants. 

[activecampaign form=52]

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Research

Landmark UK trial to investigate psilocybin for opioid addiction relapse

Published

on

For the first time, a government-funded UK trial will investigate psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for targetting relapses associated with opioid addiction, aiming to bring an innovative new therapy to the NHS if successful. 

Research shows that the UK had the world’s highest rate of opioid consumption in 2019, amounting to a serious public health concern. Further, figures show that around 140,000 people are accessing treatment for opioid dependence in the country. Despite the prevalence of opioid addiction, there are currently limited medicines to help prevent relapses during recovery.

Led by Imperial College London, the new study will use psilocybin combined with psychological support in people who have recently undergone detoxification from opioids such as heroin, methadone or buprenorphine.

While previous research into psilocybin has shown its potential as a treatment for conditions such as depression, anxiety PTSD and addiction, this is the first trial looking at the medicine for addiction relapse.

See also  Compass Pathways launches Phase 3 psilocybin trial in UK

The study is one of four projects focused on reducing drug deaths that have been funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) as part of the Addiction Healthcare Goals programme, led by the Office for Life Science (OLS). 

According to the NHIR, the programme forms part of the Department of Health and Social Care’s plan to deliver a world-class treatment and recovery system for people experiencing drug and alcohol addictions.

Dr David Erritzoe, Clinical Director and Deputy Head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London, project co-lead, said in a press statement: “We know that up to 90% of people relapse back to opioid use within 12 months of finishing detox, so finding new and effective treatments is essential. 

“If this trial is successful, it offers hope for a new type of treatment that could make a significant difference to this group of people.

“If our initial trial is successful, we will work to enable the development of further clinical trials in larger populations, to bring a new treatment to patients and the NHS.”

Participants will attend Imperial’s NIHR Clinical Research Facility at Hammersmith Hospital campus to receive psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy and will receive functional MRI brain scans to enable investigation of the mechanisms of psilocybin in the brain.

Imperial has confirmed that participants will be monitored for up to six months following dosing to track any changes to their opioid use, cravings, mental health outcomes and psychological wellbeing. 

Study co-lead Dr Louise Paterson said in a press statement: “This trial will examine whether we can improve recovery in a severely under-served group of people – namely, those with opioid dependence during their most vulnerable post-detox phase. 

“Clinical studies, including those in our Centre for Psychedelic Research, have shown great promise for this type of treatment in other mental health conditions. We want to see if it works equally well for opioid use disorder.”

Professor Anne Lingford-Hughes, Chair of the Addiction Healthcare Goals, and who is also a Professor of Addiction Biology at Imperial, added: “New approaches to treat drug addiction and reduce drug-related deaths, particularly from overdose, are urgently needed. 

“The Addiction Healthcare Goals programme is pleased to fund promising innovations that have brought together partnerships between industry, academia and organisations involved in delivering treatment and care for those experiencing drug addictions.” 

Recruitment is expected to begin in Spring 2025.

Continue Reading

Research

Psilocybin versus escitalopram for depression shows positive results

Published

on

Compass Pathways launches Phase 3 psilocybin trial in UK

A six-month follow-up study of a Phase 2 clinical trial investigating psilocybin versus escitalopram for the treatment of major depressive disorder has shown positive results.

Around 30% of people living with depression in the UK are resistant to current treatments, highlighting an urgent need for new therapies. As the researchers of this study highlight, even for patients who have had their depression successfully treated, there is a high risk of relapse, with one in three patients relapsing within the year.

Equally, SSRI treatments often include side effects such as sexual dysfunction, weight gain, fatigue, and emotional blunting.

The authors note that a key consideration of any treatment of major depressive disorder “is its capacity to produce sustained antidepressant response or remission.”

Mounting evidence is increasingly pointing to psilocybin-assisted therapy as an innovative new treatment for the condition, with clinical trials showing that the therapy is capable of producing rapid and long-lasting antidepressant effects.

However, while clinical trials have investigated the treatment itself, they have not compared the treatment to the current gold standard in depression medications or looked at the long-term effects of the treatment.

This Phase 2 trial is the first to compare the long-term antidepressant effects of these two treatments alongside mental health measures including work and social functioning, connectedness, and meaning in life. 

In the trial, patients with major depressive disorder recruited from a UK hospital were administered either two doses of 25mg of psilocybin along with psychological support, or a six-week course of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) escitalopram in combination with psychological support.

The findings, published in eClinicalMedicine, revealed that both administered treatments saw sustained improvements in depressive symptoms, however, patients who were administered psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy saw greater lasting improvements. 

These improvements included psychosocial functioning, meaning in life, and psychological connectedness.

Dr James Rucker, Consultant Psychiatrist & Senior Clinical Lecturer in Psychopharmacology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, said: “The authors have tended to attribute differences observed in this study to comparative differences between the drugs themselves, however, it is also possible that the results reflect biased reporting between groups. 

“This is more likely here because A) studies involving psilocybin tend to attract those with positive preconceptions about psilocybin and negative preconceptions about conventional antidepressants, and B) study participants were unblinded during the long-term follow-up phase that is reported in the paper, so knew which condition they were allocated to.

“This said, the nature of depression varies hugely between individuals, and this calls for the development of a similarly varied suite of treatment paradigms. Psilocybin therapy is certainly a different paradigm of treatment to escitalopram. 

“The observation of similar levels of effectiveness to antidepressants here is encouraging to see alongside the much larger trials of psilocybin currently underway here in the UK, Europe and the US.”

The authors write: “Key limitations of the study include its suboptimal power to detect small but meaningful differences between treatments, missing data, the potential use of additional interventions during the follow-up period, and reliance on self-reported treatment assessments. 

“These factors may affect the interpretation of the study findings and should be considered when evaluating the results.”

With these considerations in mind, the researchers suggest that the findings warrant further investigation into psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of depression.

Continue Reading

Research

Shortwave Life Sciences psilocybin drug shows positive results in anorexia trial

Published

on

Shortwave Life Sciences psilocybin drug positive results anorexia trial

Shortwave Life Sciences has announced it has achieved a significant breakthrough in its ambitions to transform eating disorder care with positive pre-clinical results from its latest pharmacodynamics study, demonstrating the safety of its psilocybin-based drug combination for the treatment of anorexia nervosa.

Anorexia nervosa has one of the highest fatality rates. The condition is a complex mental health condition as well as a metabolic disease, yet no FDA-approved pharmacological treatments are currently available for the condition.

Shortwave Life Sciences in collaboration with Science in Action, an expert pre-clinical GLP-certified lab in Israel, has now tested the safety of buccal administration of Shortwave’s combination drug comprised of psilocybin and a beta-carboline.

The company says this novel treatment provides an expanded mechanism of action and a therapeutic effect superior to psilocybin alone, impacting more than one group of receptors in the brain.

For the study, three groups of rats were given varying doses of the combination drug (0.23ml, 0.5ml, and 1ml), with results showing no adverse effects, weight changes, or behavioural changes following the psychedelic effects.

See also  Short Wave Pharma: innovating eating disorder care with psychedelics

“This is a monumental step forward for Shortwave. Our relentless pursuit of breakthrough mental health treatments comes with the responsibility of ensuring safety at every stage,” commented Shortwave Life Sciences CEO Rivki Stern Youdkevich.

“We are proud of the positive outcomes from this rigorous pre-clinical trial, further validating our patent-pending drug combination and buccal delivery system.

“With this success, we are reaffirmed in our approach to addressing the global mental health crisis.”

In the pre-clinical pharmacodynamics study, all subjects remained healthy and unaffected during the trial, which Shortwave has stated marks a strong foundation for future clinical development.

Furthermore, no adverse events or vital sign changes were reported across all groups, and the results confirmed the safety profile for the psilocybin-based combination drug at elevated doses.

This achievement comes on the heels of the International PCT Examining Committee’s recent acknowledgment of Shortwave’s patent claims for its novel, non-obvious, and industrially applicable mucoadhesive buccal film.

Designed for rapid absorption and bypassing liver and gut degradation, the platform holds transformative potential for patients facing metabolic and psychiatric challenges. This method of administration is designed to be sensitive to patient needs, who may not want to swallow the medicine, and also provides higher bioavailability.

Continue Reading

Trending

Psychedelic Health is a journalist-led news site. Any views expressed by interviewees or commentators do not reflect our own. We do not provide medical advice or promote the personal use of psychedelic compounds. Please seek professional medical advice if you are concerned about any of the issues raised.

Copyright © 2023 Psych Capital Plc