![]() Among other limitations, the majority of participants were white, middle-aged, highly educated and male, while participants may have been able to guess which treatment they received and there was no group given a placebo and therapy alone.Īnthony Cleare, professor of psychopharmacology at King’s College London, said the study provided “some of the most powerful evidence to date that psychedelics may have a role to play in the treatment of depression”. While the team said the results were promising, others said the study was not big enough to draw firm conclusions. However, the team noted that 57% of patients in the high-dose psilocybin group were judged to be in remission for their depression by the end of the six weeks, compared with 28% in the escitalopram group, while neither group had serious side-effects. He warned the findings were not conclusive as the team did not take into account the number of comparisons being made. He added that results from other scales were “tantalisingly suggestive of potential superiority of psilocybin therapy” not only for depression but other aspects of wellbeing. “Psilocybin therapy, as we predicted, works more quickly than escitalopram,” said Carhart-Harris. However, this reduction did not differ significantly between the two groups. The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, reveal that after six weeks both groups showed, on average, a decrease in the severity of depressive symptoms, according to scores from a questionnaire completed by the participants. Photograph: Imperial College London/PAĮach psilocybin session – which lasted six hours, including a three- to four-hour “trip” for those on the high dose – was supervised by at least two mental health professionals, with the participants lying on their back, propped up by pillows and listening to emotionally evocative neoclassical music.Īll participants received psychological therapy the day after a psilocybin session, as well as a phone or video call in the week after the first dose. ![]() The day after the first dose of psilocybin, this group began a daily dose of escitalopram, the strength of which increased over time.Īdults with moderate to severe major depressive disorder were randomly allocated to receive two 25mg doses of psilocybin three weeks apart. This was to ensure any differences in outcomes between the groups would not simply be down to the expectation of being given psilocybin. ![]() The other 29 participants were given two very low, or “inactive”, doses of psilocybin three weeks apart. The day after the first dose of psilocybin, this group began a daily placebo. Over the six-week trial, 30 out of 59 adults with moderate to severe major depressive disorder were randomly allocated to receive two 25mg doses of psilocybin three weeks apart – a dose that Carhart-Harris said was high enough to produce the kind of experiences often described as existential or even “mystical”. The £1m trial builds on previous work by the team exploring how psilocybin affects the brain, and an earlier clinical trial in which the drug helped alleviate treatment-resistant depression in 12 patients. “We strongly believe that the … psychotherapy component is as important as the drug action.” ![]() “That would be an error of judgment,” he said. Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, co-author of the study: ‘The results signal hope that we may be looking at a promising alternative treatment for depression.’ Photograph: Imperial College London/PA ![]()
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