Magic Mushrooms May Relieve Chronic Pain and Depression
/By Crystal Lindell
A new study shows that psilocybin, the active ingredient in what’s colloquially called magic mushrooms, could help relieve chronic pain and depression by targeting specific parts of the brain — at least in mice.
Psilocybin is a naturally occurring alkaloid with psychoactive properties that’s been used for pain relief for thousands of years. In the United States, however, it is classified as an illegal Schedule One controlled substance.
Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania tested psilocybin on laboratory mice with chronic nerve injury and inflammatory pain.
They found that a single dose reduced both pain, anxiety and depression in the mice, judging by their behavior. The benefits lasted almost two weeks.
Unlike many pharmaceuticals, researchers say psilocybin gently activates specific nerves in the brain, called serotonin receptors.
“Unlike other drugs that fully turn these signals on or off, psilocybin acts more like a dimmer switch, turning it to just the right level,” lead author Joseph Cichon, MD, an assistant professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at Penn, said in a press release.
”This new study offers hope. These findings open the door to developing new, non-opioid, non-addictive therapies as psilocybin and related psychedelics are not considered addictive.”
To pinpoint where the effects originated, researchers injected psilocin — the active metabolite that the body rapidly converts from psilocybin — into different parts of the mice’s central nervous system. The team then used advanced fluorescent microscopy, a technique that uses glowing dyes to detect nerve activity, to see which neurons are activated and firing.
When psilocin was injected directly into the prefrontal cortex of the brains of the mice, it provided the same pain relief and mood improvements as when psilocybin was given to the whole body. But when researchers injected psilocin into the spinal cords of the mice, they found that it didn’t have the same calming effect.
“Psilocybin may offer meaningful relief for patients by bypassing the site of injury altogether and instead modulating brain circuits that process pain, while lifting the ones that help you feel better, giving you relief from both pain and low mood at the same time,” said Cichon.
Researchers hope their findings, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, could help spur advancements in treatments for other conditions, such as addiction or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Cichon says more research is needed to determine the effectiveness of psilocybin.
“In my anesthesiology practice, I often see that both pain and mood symptoms can worsen following surgery due to the physiological and psychological stress imposed by the procedure,” he said. “While psilocybin shows promise as a treatment for both pain and depression, it remains uncertain whether such therapies would be safe, effective, or feasible in the context of surgery and anesthesia.”
The Penn team plans further studies to investigate dosing strategies, long-term effects, and the ability of the brain to re-wire itself through the use of psilocybin.
“While these findings are encouraging, we don’t know how long-lived psilocybin’s effects are or how multiple doses might be needed to adjust brain pathways involved in chronic pain for a longer lasting solution,” said co-author Stephen Wisser, a PhD student in Cichon’s lab.
While the DEA considers psilocybin an illegal substance with no accepted medical use, Oregon and Colorado have legalized it for supervised therapeutic use. Several cities in California, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington and Maine have also decriminalized it. And efforts are underway to change psilocybin’s federal status.
The Food and Drug Administration has granted a breakthrough therapy designation to psilocybin to expedite research and drug development. Over 60 scientific studies have shown the ability of psilocybin and other psychedelics to reduce pain from fibromyalgia, cluster headache, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and other conditions.
