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Psilocybin lit up the brains of people with severe depression in small study

By Brian Buntz | April 12, 2022

Psilocybin

Psilocybin image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

A British study enrolling 43 people with severe depression found that the magic mushroom compound psilocybin bested the antidepressant Lexapro (escitalopram).

The blinded study published in Nature tracked patients’ symptoms and used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the brain’s metabolic function.

Those who received psilocybin showed significant and sustained reductions in depressive symptoms, while fMRI scans showed prominent neural activity throughout the brain that lasted three weeks. In addition, the brain activity of psilocybin recipients was similar to that of a healthy brain.

Conversely, those who received Lexapro had a slight improvement in symptoms and neural activity that continued to be limited to defined brain regions.

Last year, a small Phase 2 study published in NEJM found that psilocybin appeared to be slightly more effective than Lexapro.

Both that study and the one recently published in Nature offered participants psychotherapy in conjunction with drug therapy.

More research will be required to verify psilocybin’s potential as an antidepressant therapy.

Earlier research suggests that psychedelics, including psilocybin, may promote neuroplasticity.


Filed Under: Psychiatric/psychotropic drugs
Tagged With: antidepressants, fMRI, Lexapro, psilocybin
 

About The Author

Brian Buntz

As the pharma and biotech editor at WTWH Media, Brian has almost two decades of experience in B2B media, with a focus on healthcare and technology. While he has long maintained a keen interest in AI, more recently Brian has made making data analysis a central focus, and is exploring tools ranging from NLP and clustering to predictive analytics.

Throughout his 18-year tenure, Brian has covered an array of life science topics, including clinical trials, medical devices, and drug discovery and development. Prior to WTWH, he held the title of content director at Informa, where he focused on topics such as connected devices, cybersecurity, AI and Industry 4.0. A dedicated decade at UBM saw Brian providing in-depth coverage of the medical device sector. Engage with Brian on LinkedIn or drop him an email at bbuntz@wtwhmedia.com.

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