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Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study

independent.co.uk

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Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study

#151

Post by jdietrich »

jvandyke wrote: post #131
JamesBarney wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the effect size of the randomized controlled trial for psychedelic therapy?

I'm not sure (you can look it up as well as anyone), but from what I've heard (again, Pollan's book), controlled, randomized trials are very difficult if not impossible with psychedelics. It's obvious to both the patient and the observer who has received a placebo and who has not. That's part of the problem with studying this class of drugs, what we have considered the gold standard for clinical trials isn't effectiv…

>Study using psilocybin for smoking cessation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27441452

N = 15. I understand that there are a lot of regulatory obstacles to performing large-scale clinical trials into psychedelics, but the overall quality of the research so far is indifferent. A great number of ineffective and mediocre interventions have been made to look miraculous by a handful of small open-label trials. The homeopathy community has produced a mountain of similar trials.

Psychedelics do indeed look promising and have a plausible mechanism for providing very large effect sizes, but it really is too early to draw any firm conclusions. The authors have registered a larger comparative efficacy trial, so I look forward to seeing their results if and when they are published.

Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study

#152

Post by __blockcipher__ »

rjurney wrote: post #142

My experience tells me that excessive MDMA use makes the drug not work, and results in severe depression. I've experienced it, I've seen others experience it. Neurotoxicity would seem to be the explanation.

For the future benefit of any readers, I encourage everyone to go read MisterYouAreSoDumb’s MDMA supplementation guide. It’a an incredible piece of work.

tl;dr: take alpha lipoic acid (ideally na-r-ala) when rolling to prevent a reactive oxygen species/inflammatory cascade

Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study

#153

Post by vanderZwan »

kneel wrote: post #9

I've had great experiences with LSD, experiences that may have even changed my trajectory in life. That being said I would never recommend LSD to someone undergoing serious mental health issues. IMO not safe at all, you can really end up in a bad place.

On top of the clinical supervision mentioned in the other comment, therapeutic dosage is probably much lower than the ones used to go on a trip (same is true for many other hypothetically abusable medication that is already being prescribed for a whole range of mental illnesses).

Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study

#154

Post by Omnus »

ttul wrote: post #30

So, precisely the wrong approach would be to block research of any kind by continuing the severe prohibition of these substances.

Yes - the FDA is (surprisingly?) receptive and psilocybin (among others) could be approved in the next few years, maybe up to a decade depending on results. https://www.nature.com/news/psychedelic-compound-in-ecstasy-...

Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study

#155

Post by stuntkite »

pmoriarty wrote: post #140
stuntkite wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person who has been to psychedelic hell, I can say a nice part about it is that it ends. Having people around you to help you assimilate complicated experiences is key. If you're on the edge of a manic episode, it can definitely be a catalyst, and I've seen difficult things come of it but sometimes difficult things are manifestations of things we need to deal with. The benefits of responsible psychedelic usage g…

"The more modern thinking is that schizophrenia doesn't exist[1]." One of the main points of the article you link to is that schizophrenia does exist, with the caveat that it exists not as a single disease but as a disease spectrum: "when Dr. van Os writes that "'schizophrenia' does not exist," taking care to place quotation marks around "schizophrenia," what he's mainly saying is that the term "schizophrenia" doesn'…

Sorry, I should have been more clear. What I was trying to point out was that people seem to think of it as a disease like cancer and it's problematic to distill it to such a fine point. The fear that somehow you can open a door to losing your faculties much like how you can open a door to cancer via smoking is a mix of drug war propaganda and the overwhelming societal stigma against mental illness.

I very much agree with the conclusion clinically. However I've seen how the imprecise nature and the scarlet letter stigma of the disorder can feed into itself. Especially when coupled with (a lot of times secret) drug usage.

There are issues with co-morbid problems like autism spectrum+PTSD+psychiatric medications with unreported usage of substances that very much exhibit like psychotic spectrum disorders and because of a failure to identify the difference, people get the wrong care and sometimes it kills them. I tragically saw this play out with a friend of mine and in hindsight it was totally preventable.

I am definitely not denying that people have mental illnesses that need to be treated. Just saying that crazy isn't what most people think it is and crazification when it comes to psychedelics is something that fails to appropriately address a lot of factors. To think of psychosis in terms of absolute doesn't help people that struggle lead better lives and doesn't really cover the bases for self discovery and personal awareness either. In the end, not being critical of this kind of talk related to psychedelics makes it much harder for us to explore their massive therapeutic potential.

Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study

#156

Post by __blockcipher__ »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #146
pmoriarty wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these people "fried" because they used those substances, or because of how they used them, or how they viewed, integrated (or not-integrated) their experiences? A visual distortion is a good example. When experiencing a visual distortion, it is possible to feel anxious about the appearance of such a distortion, or instead one could be indifferent to it, or even enjoy and welcome it. It need not be negative. More…

Depends on the distortion. A visual distortion means that you aren't seeing things as they really are. That could be problematic for your ability to drive, or to ride a bike, or any number of other activities. You could be indifferent to that, but it could still be a genuine problem for your ability to function.

Even without visual distortions, none of us ever see things as they are :)

As a fun fact, you can drive on LSD if you’re experienced with psychedelics and know you can trust yourself, at least under doses IME most people handle psychs fine, some can handle practically anything, and some will lose connection to reality and basically forget how rational thought works on an eighth of mushrooms. There’s little indicators that have given me an idea of how someone might react, but you never know for sure. Thus why the advice to have a trip sitter is always given - personally I’ve never needed a trip sitter, but I’ve seen people who absolutely did.

Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study

#157

Post by iamcasen »

sakopov wrote: post #135

I don't know how legitimate these stories are, but some folks swear that they've gotten rid of various addictions after their trips on Ayahuasca. This is apparently a mixture of plants that some tribes in South America have been using for self-medication for ages.

Absolutely. Many tribes throughout the amazon have different plant concoctions that end up producing some variant of DMT. While I haven't experienced DMT, I have tried mushrooms, and I can say without a doubt that it reshaped my mind and helped me see everything from a more positive, compassionate light.

I think the key for tribes in the amazon is the important ritual associated with these drugs. They aren't taken at a rave, they are taken with very serious purpose in mind.

Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study

#158

Post by benbreen »

vanderZwan wrote: post #153
kneel wrote: post #9

I've had great experiences with LSD, experiences that may have even changed my trajectory in life. That being said I would never recommend LSD to someone undergoing serious mental health issues. IMO not safe at all, you can really end up in a bad place.

On top of the clinical supervision mentioned in the other comment, therapeutic dosage is probably much lower than the ones used to go on a trip (same is true for many other hypothetically abusable medication that is already being prescribed for a whole range of mental illnesses).

I've been reading Michael Pollan's new book on this (How to Change Your Mind - really good read, incidentally) and according to him it's actually the opposite in some of the clinical trials he looked at. In the book he describes clinical settings that involve relatively large doses of psychedelics, primarily psilocybin but also DMT and LSD, because the goal is to induce "ego death" and/or a profound or mystical experience. This tends to correlate with the type of dosage where you are basically not inhabiting your familiar reality/not aware of your body for several hours at a time.

To put that in perspective, I've probably taken psychedelics around a dozen times and only truly achieved something I would call "ego death" once (a truly fascinating and moving experience, but that's for another time!). And a lot of the people I know would take fairly low doses and do things like go to parties or walk around Central Park. By comparison, the clinical amounts Pollan is describing make it virtually impossible to move around or talk in a coherent way, let alone go out into the world.

Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study

#159

Post by pmoriarty »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #156
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the distortion. A visual distortion means that you aren't seeing things as they really are. That could be problematic for your ability to drive, or to ride a bike, or any number of other activities. You could be indifferent to that, but it could still be a genuine problem for your ability to function.

Even without visual distortions, none of us ever see things as they are :) As a fun fact, you can drive on LSD if you’re experienced with psychedelics and know you can trust yourself, at least under doses IME most people handle psychs fine, some can handle practically anything, and some will lose connection to reality and basically forget how rational thought works on an eighth of mushrooms. There’s little indicators…

"you can drive on LSD if you’re experienced with psychedelics and know you can trust yourself, at least under doses

It's not just the visuals that are the problem. Temporal distortions are common -- you can feel like time has stopped or slowed down or sped up or gone backwards. Also, you might get disoriented or confused -- not understanding where you are or what you're doing or how a steering wheel works while you're on the freeway is probably not the wisest or safest thing to subject yourself or others on the road to. Or you might get irresistibly entranced by a fleck of paint on your dashboard, which could look like a whole animated world to you, while you should be keeping your eyes on the road, etc, etc, etc.

You know how there's a warning not to drive or operate heavy machinery on some medications? Well, that warning should be on psychedelics, only times 1000.

Re: Psychedelics could heal brain cells in people suffering from depression: study

#160

Post by openfuture »

rjurney wrote: post #142

My experience tells me that excessive MDMA use makes the drug not work, and results in severe depression. I've experienced it, I've seen others experience it. Neurotoxicity would seem to be the explanation.

MDMA is not a "proper" psychadelic imo
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