But they pointed out that the small number of people involved in the trial and the lack of a placebo group meant the results should be treated with a degree of caution.
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Researchers have been testing the potential of a compound in magic mushrooms with psychedelic effects to treat depression.
He pointed out that all the patients taking part in the study had been diagnosed with moderate to severe depression and had previously failed to respond to two different types of antidepressant drug treatment.
He said psilocybin targeted the receptors in the brain that normally responded to the hormone serotonin, which was involved in mood. New treatments are urgently needed, and our study shows that psilocybin is a promising area of future research.
Another mental health expert agreed. Scientists fully supported them during the entire process.
Within a week of taking the drug, all of the participants had experienced a reduction in symptoms.
Patients attended two treatment days – a low (test) dose of psilocybin 10mg oral capsules, and a higher (therapeutic) dose of 25mg a week later.
Professor Nutt, who was sacked as the Government’s drugs advisor in 2009 for his outspoken views, urged the Home Secretary to re-designate psilocybin from Schedule 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Act to better enable further clinical trials.
Patients lay in beds in a quiet room, listening to classical music. Carhart-Harris said no serious side effects were reported during the study, although all volunteers said they were slightly anxious before and during initial drug administration. The psychedelic effect peaked after two to three hours, and patients were discharged six hours later.
The ethics committee that granted approval for the trial was so concerned that trial volunteers could experience delayed onset psychotic symptoms that it requested a three-month follow-up on the subjects. Overall, all 12 patients showed at least some improvement in their symptoms for up to three weeks after the dose. Howeveer, the results were quite promising. Previous studies have shown that using psychedelics can leave one open to suggestion, which could have been part of the positive outcomes seen here. As this was not a randomised-controlled trial, the patients knew they were receiving the drug and there was no control group to provide comparison either with existing treatments or with no treatment at all.
Depression is a major public health burden, affecting millions of people worldwide and costing the United States alone over $200 billion per year.
The researchers told the BBC “it is possible” all the improvement was down to the placebo effect although the duration of the benefit and change in outlook suggested something else was going on. The authors warn that strong conclusions can not be made about the therapeutic benefits of psilocybin but the findings show that more research in this field is now needed. In other words, the trips can sometimes be negative and extremely scary for some people. “Patients with treatment-resistant depression seeking psychological insight with a less exciting trajectory might consider the slow route offered by traditional dynamic psychotherapy”.
“It is extremely hard to do this research because the regulatory hurdles treat psilocybin as a risky (substance)”, he said.
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“This is an unparalleled success and could revolutionise the treatment of depression”.
