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Magic Mushrooms 'Reboot' Brain In Depressed People, Study Suggests (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Magic mushrooms may effectively "reset" the activity of key brain circuits known to play a role in depression, the latest study to highlight the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics suggests. Psychedelics have shown promising results in the treatment of depression and addictions in a number of clinical trials over the last decade. Imperial College London researchers used psilocybin -- the psychoactive compound that occurs naturally in magic mushrooms -- to treat a small number of patients with depression, monitoring their brain function, before and after. Images of patients' brains revealed changes in brain activity that were associated with marked and lasting reductions in depressive symptoms and participants in the trial reported benefits lasting up to five weeks after treatment.
Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, head of psychedelic research at Imperial, who led the study, said: "We have shown for the first time clear changes in brain activity in depressed people treated with psilocybin after failing to respond to conventional treatments. Several of our patients described feeling 'reset' after the treatment and often used computer analogies. For example, one said he felt like his brain had been 'defragged' like a computer hard drive, and another said he felt 'rebooted.' Psilocybin may be giving these individuals the temporary 'kick start' they need to break out of their depressive states and these imaging results do tentatively support a 'reset' analogy. Similar brain effects to these have been seen with electroconvulsive therapy." The study has been published in Scientific Reports.
Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, head of psychedelic research at Imperial, who led the study, said: "We have shown for the first time clear changes in brain activity in depressed people treated with psilocybin after failing to respond to conventional treatments. Several of our patients described feeling 'reset' after the treatment and often used computer analogies. For example, one said he felt like his brain had been 'defragged' like a computer hard drive, and another said he felt 'rebooted.' Psilocybin may be giving these individuals the temporary 'kick start' they need to break out of their depressive states and these imaging results do tentatively support a 'reset' analogy. Similar brain effects to these have been seen with electroconvulsive therapy." The study has been published in Scientific Reports.
That is exactly what I was trying to do 45 years ago ;) lol
Where can I find these "magic mushrooms" of which you speak?
Maybe it could help put the brakes on the recent suicide epidemic.
... I never want to do it again just for that reason alone.
Get a bud buster, bust them up, throw some Aero bars into a small pot, melt them and throw in the shrooms. Punt into fridge and voila can't taste the shrooms.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I've never done shrooms till about a year ago, done them about 15-20 times. Started off with 1 gram chocolates and took 1/2 of one. When I felt like something after 45+ min I took the other 1/2. There were no hallucinations but you get an almost weed high but really special feeling where feel your surroundings more. If I take them at say at 8pm and don't take anymore after 10pm then I can fall asleep around 2am. Next morning though I feel great and clear brained and no mood swings for a couple of days. Bonus is you can (or at least if worked for me) fuck like a champ and get really horny on them. Now that's with the lower doses. Higher doses right under loosing your ego is still ok not not as enjoyable as your mind wonders too much and at times some darker places and then full trips are meh too taxing on the brain, maybe if I was younger.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I'll never forget my first magic mushroom. It was the mid 80s, and I was 10 years old. I ate the mushroom, and suddenly I felt like I was 10 feet tall.
True Scotsmen use lyseric acid diethylamide instead.
You might be on the autism spectrum. Please get this checked ASAP.
From time to time I "reboot" my brain with a moderate amount of alcohol, so while I don't "do drugs" I can relate to the feeling of starting with a clean slate. When I find I need to do this, it's when I am over-thinking so many things and I get in a sort of "feedback loop" like when you hold a microphone too close to a speaker. It gets overwhelming. So yeah, alcohol is my reset button.
Anecdotal evidence shows that a subhallucinogenic dose is much more effective than the chemically related expensive triptans for controlling severe migraines. Pity it's not legal.
"Several of our patients described feeling 'reset' after the treatment and often used computer analogies"
I just know there must be a formal logical fallacy related to expanding anecdotal evidence to cover the entire range. I'll leave it to the logic experts to point out which one.
I a had a "perfect moment" on mushrooms. Out on a camping trip with friends, I dropped mushrooms and I looked out over the water and into the sun. All of a sudden everything just seemed to "fit" and I felt a sensation of warmth and wholeness envelope my body. Anxiety, fear, and doubt dropped away and briefly, for the first time in my life I felt completely at peace. I imagine some people search their entire lives for such a moment. It didn't last and, for various reasons, I haven't attempted to duplicate the experience, but I will always remember it.
May feel like their brain has been fsck'd or init 6'd. Some describe it like going from init to system d.
I have read about research being done to use psychedelics to treat PTSD. Sorry I don't have a citation for that. The reasoning for PTSD treatment sounded much like what this article says about depression. There was or is a controversy about research to test whether such a treatment is effective. The research was approved in Europe and denied in the US. This was a few years ago so I do not know the current status.
Trying to understand mushrooms by looking at neurochemistry and the brain's connectome is like trying to understand skydiving by looking at those things. You are missing the point and won't understand it unless you try it yourself.
Fuck, Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey have a lot to answer for. If not for their disgusting antics, we would have had this medicine decades ago. But no, they had to dance around like frightening spectres, "I'm going to dose your kids with hallucinogens, and then they'll never come home to you again! They'll hate everything about you! Muhahahaha!" All so they could try to tear down society, because they deemed it unjust. Fuck those fucking pricks. Their persuasion worked! These drugs were made hugely illegal, even for research, largely due to the scare tactics they used. When you go back and look at the coverage, it's not surprising people reacted this way. We had this increidble medicine this whole time, and they just wanted to use it for recreation. They're worse than Harvey Weinstein in my book.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
But they are magic compared to other mushrooms which only nourish you without any high. And they are really magic compared to the ones that kill you.
Does the Home Office / the government know of this post? Isn't there a danger they will try to close Imperial down to show how tough they are on drugs? Who is funding it anyway? Was the job advertised? (I could go on... )
My brain has been stuck in a reboot loop since I experimented with Magic Mushrooms back in the early 1980's.
I heard about 'rebooting' with electric shocks also. While it an be a great starting point to start solving an issue, it's only a start. What's the next step?
is that many people suffer depression because of their need for attention and these types of studies create plenty of it.
User: My brain seems to be slow and moody as of late.
Support: Have you tried turning it on and off, sir?
User: Mmmm
Great if patients can reboot their brains. However, not much good if they can't change the circumstances that made them depressed in the first place. No drug therapy can solve societal problems. We need to rethink our values and how they're making so many people miserable.
"Reboot" the brain?
So, basically electro-convulsive therapy, but for cool people.
And Aspirin doesn't solve the underlying problem causing pain. So?
Tripping while depressed can get real shit. real fast.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
I sure hope so. It's a damn shame that research with entheogens was limited (or outright banned) for all these decades. A lot of people might have been helped.
Because someone let ASSHOLES be in charge, and to an asshole, anyone seeming to ENJOY anything... must be doing something wrong, and needs to be stopped.
Thank God that things like aspirin and immunizations don't make you make that "I'm coming!" face... or they'd have been banned and stupidly criminalized too.
I'm serious. If taking aspirin had a side-effect of feeling ecstasy, like all is right with the world, like you've just orgasmed, and did nothing else besides what aspirin currently does, it would be illegal to use, or even possess in the United States because we let fucking assholes run things.
Perhaps... we should stop letting fucking assholes run things?
Need I say more?
In the same way it sort of validates shock treatment and lobotomies. It actually suggests that the problem is actually damaged neuron "circuits". The synopsis only mentions short term treatment and so hints that a treatment might be something like Chemothapy where you have a treatment and wait for the body to heal and then repeat. Probably over a period of a year or two. I would speculate it's probably just as effective as shock treatment but without the memory loss.
If depression is characterized by a 'spiral', then maybe it's analogous to a feedback loop producing the same neuroactive chemicals (?). If mushrooms alter the feedback 'coefficient' and/or 'decay constant', maybe that's what could keep it from producing the spiraling effect. Or maybe the 'reset' flushes those chemicals from the brain, after which the spiral is forced to start again from the beginning.
Magic Mushrooms, those little fungi that CAUSE people to become zombies, or as we now call them Millennials is now claiming to do the opposite?
Really? Next you will actually believe that 70 years of Democrats supporting Russia and that they have changed their strips and blame Republicans for chumming up with Russia. Jimmy Carter, 1976, "Russia has no influence over Eastern-Block nations"; who is responsible along with France for the ENTIRE mess in the middle-east with Iran and Irag.
Billy "BJ" Clinton should try some before Hillary files for divorce next week.
As someone whom suffers from depression and has to take these god-awful medicines produced by Big Pharma, I would love to be able to try this. I am sick of managing depression. If this offers a cure for it, than I would rather a cure. Too bad that Big Pharma is all about profit and they know that there is no profit in curing disease: they'd much rather manage it.
I have read claims that sensory deprivation chambers can induce hallucinogenic states.
Your post is like a pretzel made out of bullshit. Can't tell if you really believe the crap, but go fuck off somewhere else, maybe infowars?
Fallacies are another name for heuristics. A heuristic such as "anecdata" is what you need when you're trying to prove to regulators that a particular claim is likely enough to warrant further study.
I'm middle-aged now, and haven't used psychedelics in many years, but I tried mushrooms and LSD a few times, and found each experience difficult to integrate. Not only were the trips confusing, the "revelations" I thought I'd experienced left me scratching my head later, wondering what it all meant, and how the interconnectedness of the universe and the fabric of spacetime related to my life. Psychedelics can open new doors, but you have to be willing to walk through them. And though I feel my few tries had no negative impact on me, they were not ultimately satisfying.
That said, I've discovered something equally benign, more easily obtainable, and seriously beneficial for some users: dextromethorphan. Yes, the OTC cough suppressant. I'll spare you the details and skip the politics of promoting something that teens can get their hands on, and simply say that DXM can act as a "reset button." A single dose of 350-500 milligrams, for me and many other people, produces lasting positive effects after the odd visual effects and dissociative state wear off. I haven't needed or tried this in quite a few years, but several times it improved my mood markedly and left me feeling refreshed, which endured for weeks or months. Others report similar findings, and I actually did call it my reset button when I was around 18-25 and battling moderate depression. Nothing worked as well, and for anyone who can take DXM (do NOT take it if you are CYP2D6 deficient - take a tiny dose and work up a bit if you are unsure, and avoid if you have liver, blood pressure, or heart problems), it seems to be quite safe to use occasionally. DXM may have saved my life, or at least drastically improved it, when prescription antidepressants did nothing.
Others will argue that marijuana, especially sativa or sativa-leaning hybrid strains, is beneficial to them, and I don't doubt their claims. I just wish the healthcare establishment, which I generally have a lot of faith in, could accept the notion that psychedelics and other non-traditional drugs are worth considering. I would love to see all of the aforementioned drugs studied more seriously for their potential psychiatric upside, as MDMA has been, to some degree.
I'm moderating so I don't want to comment directly in the relevant thread, but I've been enjoying your responses in the "code examples" article. Apparently there are a lot of people who don't understand what "contractor" means, but you're doing a great job schooling them.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
That has to be the most awesome professional title I've yet heard. I want to be that.