Psilocybin - Medical Research

Medical Research

Psilocybin has been a subject of medical research since the 1960s, when Leary and Alpert ran the Harvard Psilocybin Project, in which they carried out a number of experiments to evaluate the therapeutic value of psilocybin in the treatment of personality disorders, or to augment psychological counseling. In the 2000s (decade), there was a renewal of research concerning the use of psychedelic drugs for potential clinical applications, such as to address anxiety disorders, major depression, and various addictions. In 2008, the Johns Hopkins research team published guidelines for responsibly conducting medical research trials with psilocybin and other hallucinogens in humans. These included recommendations on how to screen potential study volunteers to exclude those with personal or family psychiatric histories that suggest a risk of averse reactions to hallucinogens. A 2010 study on the short- and long-term subjective effects of psilocybin administration in clinical settings concluded that despite a small risk of acute reactions such as dysphoria, anxiety, or panic, "the administration of moderate doses of psilocybin to healthy, high-functioning and well-prepared subjects in the context of a carefully monitored research environment is associated with an acceptable level of risk"; the authors note, however, that the safety of the drug "cannot be generalized to situations in which psilocybin is used recreationally or administered under less controlled conditions."

The first FDA-approved clinical study of psilocybin since 1970—led by Francisco Moreno at the University of Arizona and supported by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies—studied the effects of psilocybin on nine patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The pilot study found that, when administered by trained professionals in a medical setting, the use of psilocybin was associated with substantial reductions in OCD symptoms in several of the patients. This effect may be caused by psilocybin's ability to reduce the levels of the serotonin-2A receptor, resulting in decreased responsiveness to serotonin. Psilocybin has additionally shown promise to ease the pain caused by cluster headaches, often considered not only the most painful of all types of headaches but "one of the worst pain syndromes known to mankind." In a 2006 study, half of cluster headache patients reported that psilocybin aborted the attacks, and most reported extended remission periods; similar results were reported for LSD. A 2011 review of alternative headache treatments concluded that, despite flaws in the study design, these results suggest that LSD and psilocybin may warrant further study for use in the prevention of cluster headaches—only subhallucinogenic doses of the drugs are required for effective treatment, and no other medications have been reported to stop a cluster headache cycle.

Several modern studies have investigated the possibility that psilocybin can ease the psychological suffering associated with end-stage cancer. Preliminary results indicate that low doses of psilocybin can improve the mood and reduce the anxiety of patients with advanced cancer, and that the effects last from two weeks to six months. These results are comparable to those obtained from early studies that explored the use of LSD to improve the psychological well-being of terminally ill patients, but without the experimental rigor employed in modern clinical psychopharmacology research.