Psilocybin is the psychoactive compound in "magic mushrooms," studied as a potential treatment for depression, anxiety, and other conditions.
Researchers at Northeastern and Carleton universities report in Communications Biology that psilocybin may protect rat brains from three mild head impacts. Hits like these can raise CTE risk and have no established treatment, though the evidence so far is brain imaging in rats.
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The protection ran through the same serotonin receptor that carries the hallucinations, though a non-hallucinogenic compound worked too, and a randomised trial in about 80 patients is due to start in November.
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Definium Therapeutics says more than 200 adults with moderate or severe generalised anxiety improved three months after a single dose of LSD, and a UCL researcher expects FDA approval within a year or two.
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Scientific American's Science Quickly walked through early psilocybin research in anorexia nervosa. The condition kills about 5% of patients within four years of diagnosis, which is the real story.
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A Nature study of 62 psychedelic-naive adults reports that the feeling of dissolved self-world boundaries tracks integration between self-referential and sensory networks.
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