Magic Mushrooms For Your Mental Health

When you think of psychedelic drugs, what comes to mind? If the first images your mind conjures up are hippies lying on the floor listening to Pink Floyd, you might be interested to know that psychedelic compounds have actually been used in a medical setting for a great part of human history. “Magic mushrooms” are one example — over 100 natural types of mushrooms contain the active (and hallucinogenic) compound psilocybin, which has shown strong potential in scientific trials as an effective therapy for numerous mental health problems, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), depression, anxiety and alcohol addiction.

Even though the studies (linked above) supporting these claims are small, they showed incredibly powerful and similar results — following one dose of psilocybin, almost all patients had an immediate reduction of their symptoms that continued to last for months. For some mental health conditions such as OCD, no other types of treatments have demonstrated such strong signals of efficacy. So how does it work? Scientists don’t understand exactly, but it could have to do with how psychedelics temporarily disrupt negative thought cycles during a trip by interrupting how the brain talks to the “self”; those thought cycles can then effectively be “restarted”, which might break the cycle that’s causing the condition by creating an openness to new thoughts.

The field of psychedelic research isn’t new. The US government had already supported and funded over 140 medical studies on psychedelic drugs before the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which labeled psychedelics as highly dangerous with no potential medical purpose. This has made it difficult to carry out controlled studies on the compounds. However, inspired scientists are finding ways to conduct innovative research, such as a new method of “microdosing” psilocybin — where someone takes a very small dose, far below recreational, in order to improve creative thinking abilities (here’s a link to new data on the topic).

Unfortunately there’s still very limited research from this century on the compound being used as a therapeutic. That’s why last month marked a milestone in psychedelic research -- the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) greenlighted a new clinical trial for the use of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression (TMD). London-based Compass Pathways received permission to move forward with their Phase 2b study of psilocybin therapy for TMD in North America and Europe — the first study of its kind in the US.

The story of how Compass began doing this type of research is a personal one. It’s run by a husband and wife who watched their son develop depression that was resistant to every treatment. The couple (who had backgrounds in public health and psychology) began doing their own research. They continued to encounter literature and anecdotes claiming that psychedelic drugs, including psilocybin, could help treat mental health conditions, including depression. Even though they weren’t personally experienced in taking mushrooms, the couple believed in the power of the data.

They started Compass and developed “psilocybin therapy”, wherein a hallucinogenic dose of pharmaceutical-grade psilocybin is administered alongside tailored psychological counseling for the patient during the “trip”. The preliminary results are promising, with all of the study participants experiencing immediate improvement in their depression, and more than half of them continuing to improve three months after therapy. None of them had any significant adverse events — something rarely seen in pharmacological trials of more traditional antidepressants. It’s worth noting that the study didn’t have a control group, which does leave open the possibility that it wasn’t the psilocybin that improved patients’ depression symptoms, but the expectation that it could.

High-profile investors like Peter Thiel add excitement to Compass’s research, because with enough support, a Phase 3 trial could potentially change the public conversation about psychedelics and begin to emphasize their helpful medical uses. And it’s not just psilocybin. Other recreationally-used drugs are also demonstrating clinical applications; Ketamine and MDMA are being explored as breakthrough treatments for TMD and post-traumatic stress disorder (I might go into detail on these in different posts).

Depression and other mental health conditions are already difficult to treat with traditional pharmaceuticals and methods. There is mounting scientific evidence for using non-traditional drugs to treat these conditions in a controlled therapeutic setting. More positive data might lead to a perception shift by the public and a loosening of restrictions by the government, which would enable scientists to conduct more rigorous studies to add value to the pioneering work that has already begun.

Two Sides of the Same Brain

Sometimes, ideas based in science take on a life of their own when they become part of popular culture. One such idea is that people’s personalities are based on whether they are dominantly left-brained or right-brained, a concept seen everywhere from infographics on the Internet to Mercedes Benz advertisements (photo above). As the Mercedes ad suggests, it’s widely believed that people who are left-brained are analytical, logical and verbose, while right-brainers are creative freethinkers who follow their intuition. This sounds like a simple neurological explanation for the differences in people’s personality — the problem is, it’s not backed up by any real evidence. So where did this idea come from?

The concept might have entered the mainstream in in the 70’s, based on Roger Sperry’s Nobel Prize winning research on “lateralization” — or how the brain localizes some activities to either hemisphere. His research demonstrated for the first time that each side of the brain had different cognitive abilities. As the idea reached a pop culture audience, lots of people “over-interpreted” his research and continued to expand on it, which could be one reason why the left-brain / right-brain myth still persists.

“No matter how lateralized the brain can get, though, the two sides still work together. The pop psychology notion of a left brain and a right brain doesn’t capture their intimate working relationship.”

— Carl Zimmer - “The Big Similarities & Quirky Differences Between Our Left and Right Brains” Discover Magazine (2009)

Realistically, each person’s brain is different in how and where it processes information, but both sides are always working together because they’re physically connected by a thick nerve bundle. For the majority of people, the left side of the brain has has processing centers that handle language and analysis, while the right deals with sight and emotions. This might explain why people believe the generalizations that left-brained people are better at math and right-brained people are better artists. Interestingly, these processing centers are swapped in 30% of left handed people, which just goes to show that general statements about the brain can’t be applicable to everyone.

Researchers even conducted a study (PLOS One) that specifically looked at whether people used one hemisphere of their brain more than the other while doing tasks inside an MRI machine -- and ultimately found no evidence of “sidedness”! They reviewed brain scans of over 1,000 people and analyzed over 7,000 different brain regions to determine if one side was more dominant than the other side. Ultimately they saw that while individuals had some unique differences, both hemispheres of the brain always communicated and worked together. At the end of the day, neuroscientists still don’t have any evidence that your personality is governed by lateralization, regardless of which hemisphere your Wernicke's Area is in.

The science out there shows the left-brain / right-brain concept is more of a metaphor than a truth based in science, but it’s true that certain brain regions can differ from person to person. Even though many of us identify with personality traits such as “creative” or “analytical”, it’s a misunderstanding to believe that such traits have something to do with which side of your brain is working harder. The neuroscience of personality is a topic for another day, so in the meantime ditch the notion that you’re governed by one side of your brain, and embrace your brain-ambidexterity.