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…

While Big Pharma has yet to embrace psychedelics as potential treatments for depression and other psychiatric disorders, interest in psychedelic medicine is building.  Earlier this month, Nature Medicine published a Phase 3 study indicating that psychotherapy assisted with methyl​enedioxy​methamphetamine (MDMA) was a more effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than therapy alone. The study authors concluded…

The magic mushroom compound psilocybin appeared to be slightly more effective than the selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitor escitalopram (Lexapro) in a small study recently published in NEJM.   In the Phase 2 study, which tracked 59 patients over six weeks, the psilocybin group had an approximately 8-point average drop in the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (Self-Report) questionnaire…