Hallucinogenic Psilocybin from Mushrooms Potential Treatment for Depression, Headaches
“A new imaging study supports a growing body of evidence that the hallucinogen psilocybin, the active ingredient in ‘magic mushrooms’, may have potential in the treatment of depression, anxiety, and possibly cluster headaches.
A study of 30 healthy volunteers showed decreased brain blood flow and venous oxygenation in the cingulate cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex after the participants received intravenous injections of psilocybin.
‘We were surprised because we thought that psilocybin was going to increase brain activity in regions like the visual cortex, which would explain the visual changes. But it actually switched off certain areas,’ coinvestigator David J. Nutt, FMedSci, psychiatrist and professor of neuropsychopharmacology at the Imperial College London, told Medscape Medical News.
‘Remarkably, the decreases were localized to important connector hubs in the brain that serve as key junctions for information transfers. Knocking out these key hubs with psilocybin appears to allow information to travel more freely, probably explaining why people’s imaginations become more vivid and animated and the world is experienced as unusual,’ added lead author Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD, also from the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit at Imperial College London.
He noted that these areas of the brain are known to be overactive in patients with depression and that antidepressants, psychotherapy, and even meditation are used to bring the activity in these regions ‘back to normal.’
