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A paper just published [online](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-13282-7) reveals that treatment with magic mushrooms can have significant positive effects on depressed individuals. Most research on the effects of hallucinogens such as psilocybin have focussed on trying to understand the peak experience, but the researchers of this paper wanted to see the longer term effects. In this small sample of 19 patients with treatment-resistant depression, 100% showed improvements after 1 week.

In general, the psychedelic experience of enhanced global brain connectivity, often described as ego-lessness, disintegration, openness or just being spaced-out, provided a kind of reboot for the brain. The authors used the less colourful term "reset", but the post-high after-glow showed that the patients experienced a kind of cleansing that made their thinking more flexible and less depressed.

Now, compared to the hijacking of serotonin pathways beloved by many so-called antidepressants, psilocybin is a well-known serotonin receptor agonist. One reason for its absence from the allopathic pharmacopeia must be the mercantile ethics of drug companies who place patents and profits before patients and health. We may be seeing a similar trajectory to cannabis, although I would be wary of "improved" and "enhanced" commercial versions of any natural product.

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For those of you who feel this is all fairly obvious and merely a long drawn-out process to medicalise so-called recreational drugs whilst keeping most of them illegal, I found an amusing sub-plot to this research. 

One of the authors is Professor David Nutt, Director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit at Imperial College London. He complains bitterly to the [BBC](http://www.bbc.com/news/health-36247599) about the red-tape necessary to even conduct the experiment. "It cost £1,500 to dose each patient, when in any sane world it might have cost £30". 

He was once Chair of the UK government's Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD – 1998-2009) until [he was sacked](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/30/drugs-adviser-david-nutt-sacked) after writing a paper showing that alcohol was more dangerous than ecstasy, LSD and cannabis.

Nutt had previously clashed with Jacqui Smith when she was Home Secretary after he compared the 100 deaths a year from horseriding with the 30 deaths a year linked to ecstasy. Not one to be kept quiet, David Nutt then founded [DrugScience](http://www.drugscience.org.uk/), the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs. The site has a [useful summary](http://www.drugscience.org.uk/whatwedo/drugharms) of the otherwise still-paywalled paper.

Richard Garside, Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice, sponsors of the original briefing paper, said that, "The home secretary's action is a bad day for science and a bad day for the cause of evidence-informed policy making." 

When evidence-based science clashes with agenda-based politics, who do you think wins?

I think every politician deserves a good trip (with appropriate supervision) - just to "reset" their agendas.

But let's end on a high! I'd be interested to hear your experiences with either magic mushrooms or other hallucinogens, especially if, as the research suggests, it helped change your thinking or regain your vitality.

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Reference:

[Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression: fMRI-measured brain mechanisms](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-13282-7). Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 13187 (2017). doi:10.1038/s41598-017-13282-7

Images: Pixabay (edited by the author)