Psilocybin-containing magic mushooms by 24K-Production via iStock for WMNF News.
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Researchers at the University of South Florida are finding new ways to treat mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, and PTSD through the chemical Psilocybin. Usually found in “magic mushrooms,” psilocybin might be a key player in helping people retrain their brains to help treat these conditions.
USF research on psilocybin
Researcher Dr. Wagoner, chair of the Psychiatry & Behavioral Neurosciences Department at USF, says the chemical is meant to improve the serotonin receptors in the brain.
Dr. Wagoner says that “[Psilocybin] acts directly on the serotonin receptor. And without getting too deep into it, we have a lot of different brain chemicals. They do lots of different things, sometimes together, and one of them is serotonin. And we often think of that as being one of the happy brain chemicals. In the past, when we developed medications, [it] was to try to target that. Now, of course, that’s not the entire picture, but it’s part of it. And so initially, the thought is that a psychedelic compound like psilocybin can attach to that serotonin receptor. And to help to increase people’s moods, decrease depression, and make them feel better.”
Clinical trials
Clinical trials have been occurring along with this research and have found that the medical use of psilocybin can be used to treat many kinds of mental health conditions. The goal of the clinical trials is to possibly sell the medicine to a private company to then have it approved by the FDA.
Although, in Dr. Wagoner’s opinion, the treatment can not be done on its own, it has to be done together with psychotherapy. This entails having a mental health professional working along with the individual to identify their behavior and emotional changes.
“I would say that where we found the most improvement has been whenever it’s been paired with psychotherapy. Now that, of course, comes with its own pitfalls, right? Because if you are doing psychotherapy, then you know the person has to be skilled enough to do it. They have to be doing it the right way. You know, you have to have the right people, all of those sorts of things…So I think that that’s the way that a lot of these companies are going to continue to move towards, and that’s what they’re going to seek for FDA approval, to use it in conjunction with psychotherapy,” Dr. Wagoner says.
With the success of the studies and the proper use of psychotherapies along with medicine, psilocybin is well on its way to becoming a new way to treat mental health conditions.
There’s more information on the study on the USF Health website.