A study has found that the magic mushroom drug compound helps open the brains of people with depression

The study says that a psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms helps open the brains of depressed people and makes them less obsessed with negative thinking. According to research, psilocybin made the brain more flexible, which works differently than traditional antidepressants, even after using it.

The researchers suggest that the findings suggest that psilocybin could be a real alternative approach to treating depression. They said that patterns of brain activity during depression can become rigid and limited, while psilocybin can help the brain get rid of dirt in a way that conventional treatment can’t.

Professor David Natt, Director of the Imperial Psychedelic Research Center, said: “These findings are important because we have discovered for the first time that psilocybin differs from traditional antidepressants in that it makes the brain more fluid and has fewer negative thoughts. It makes models associated with depression. This fact must be taken into account. “.

It has not been seen with the usual antidepressants, said the article’s lead author, Professor Robin Carhart Harris, former director of the Imperial Center for Psychedelic Research and currently at the University of California, San Francisco.

“In previous studies we’ve seen a similar effect in the brain when people were checked for psychedelic drugs, but here we see it a few weeks after depression treatment, indicating a ‘transmission’ of the drug’s acute effect.”

Psilocybin is one of the narcotic treatments that has been studied as a potential treatment for mental disorders. The new findings are based on an analysis of brain scans of up to 60 people being treated for depression, conducted by the Center for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London.

The team behind the study believes it may explain how psilocybin works on the brain. Combined results from two studies showed that people who responded to treatment with psilocybin showed increased brain connectivity not only during treatment but also three weeks later.

This opening effect was associated with subjects experiencing an improvement in depression. The researchers believe that similar changes in brain connectivity were not seen in those treated with the usual antidepressant – escitalopram – indicating that the drug works differently in treating depression.

The group said the findings, published in Nature Medicine, are a promising advance in psilocybin therapy, with the effects replicated in two studies. But the authors caution that while the results are encouraging, depressed patients should not attempt to self-medicate with psilocybin, because taking magic mushrooms or psilocybin in the absence of experimental conditions may not have a positive effect.