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Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

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Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#51

Post by dwroberts »

bitmasher9 wrote: post #35
dwroberts wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this story was on HN before a few weeks ago and I raised similar - it’s nuts to give that to someone who probably doesn’t have the mental state to be able to comprehend what is going on. Don’t understand how it is possibly ethical to do. Especially with the effects being temporary - can you imagine how awful it must be to regain lucidity outside of your control and then lose it again for the sake of an experimen…

What an interesting take. I was imagining how precious one last conversation with a loved one would be.

Yeah well I was imagining how medical ethics work with respect to putting patients through unnecessary suffering. Temporarily restoring someone’s lucidity with the knowledge they will lose it again (having already suffered the progression of the disease the first time) is more helpful to you than it is to them

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#52

Post by fallinghawks »

dwroberts wrote: post #38
40four wrote: post #9

This exact case study came up on a recent Rogan episode with Dean Radin, PhD. While the result is very interesting and perhaps illuminating about the unexpected biological mechanisms, apparently the effects were very short lived. Even more interesting, Dr. Radin discussed one of his companies is working on a new drug that uses the same brain receptors as psilocybin, that has the potential to induce similar effects (w…

The problem with this study though is that it doesn’t really illuminate anything. Psychedelics restoring the default mode network in the brain is already somewhat understood (*that it happens, not the mechanism of how), so it’s not that strange a temporary reversion of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s would happen. And it’s not even suggestive of eg making an actual medicine that could be taken long term, because Alzheime…

And it's a single case which could simply be an anomaly. You'd need a serious controlled study to get any meaningful info about the effectiveness.

Very curious exactly who made the decision/gave permission to take granny on a shroom trip.

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#53

Post by LoganDark »

ozgrakkurt wrote: post #46
wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you take it, you understand, that if taken with the right approach it can lead to profound insights in changing your life and the effects described: helping with depression, addiction and accepting death are not far fetched at all. Yet it can also, if not guided or done on someone with anxiety have the opposite effect. The more biological effects I agreed are not conclusion that can be drawn from that.

> When you take it, you understand To be fair, this is not how medical research is done.

It's also not the best idea to tell whatever board is reviewing your proposals, "just take psilocybin yourself and you'll understand"

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#54

Post by Pxtl »

bilsbie wrote: post #49
trumpdong wrote: post #16

Psilocybin is one of those things we don't even know the full effects of because the government had a hysterical fit and completely banned it because people who took it were more likely to oppose the Vietnam War.

What’s exciting though is that this administration recently signed an executive order directing the agency to speed up the development and approval process for psychedelics.

Yup. Not sure which particular stopped-clock struck right within the generally anti-science MAHA movement but I think everybody is happy to take the win.

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#55

Post by jszymborski »

tokai wrote: post #45
jszymborski wrote: post #40

So, I'm not making any accusations or decelerations of "bad science", I've only read the abstract and this isn't my field. That said, some relevant context here is that: (1) Case studies are some of the most easily fabricated journal outputs (2) This is published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, which is listed by some as being a predatory journal [0]. The Frontiers publishers are the fine folk who published an AI gener…

I would not trust predatoryjournals.org. Beside the site looking much like the worst predatory journals, they have no transparency in who they are and how they evaluate journals. It seems just to be Beall's old list, with some newer things thrown in. I'm not saying that Frontiers in Neuroscience is not predatory, but its not a proper argument for it to be predatory, to point to a random list as proof. As Beall couldn…

That's totally fair, and I'm often reminded not to paint all "Frontiers" journals with the same brush (although it's difficult for me sometimes).

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#56

Post by D-Machine »

wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #39
Aurornis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psilocybin is harder to get research approvals for than many things, but it’s not “completely banned”. There are studies every year being completed with psilocybin, many of which get posted here on HN. There is a growing tension between the extraordinary pop culture claims of psilocybin curing everything (now extending to Alzheimer’s due to this 1 low-quality report from Brazil) and the actual studied effects, though…

When you take it, you understand, that if taken with the right approach it can lead to profound insights in changing your life and the effects described: helping with depression, addiction and accepting death are not far fetched at all. Yet it can also, if not guided or done on someone with anxiety have the opposite effect. The more biological effects I agreed are not conclusion that can be drawn from that.

Right, when you take it, it becomes clear it just injects salience / profundity / meaning into whatever you happen to be focused on or have on your mind (EDIT: mostly this is the main effect, but there can be novel perspectives / insights, and other audio-visual changes, but IMO it is the felt meaning that primarily drives the more credulous claims). Without adequate preparation, this is likely to be worthless in most cases, harmful in other cases, and helpful in some again. However, not all causes of depression or addiction are about accepting death, or a salience / meaning problem, and even when that kind of issue is involved, a momentary experience of profound meaning is NOT actually necessarily transformative either (i.e. you can and in fact must still choose how to interpret that experience, once out of it).

So it would actually be very surprising if it was just a clear net positive overall

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#57

Post by LoganDark »

Psychedelics are one of my favorite classes of drug. I used to take LSD recreationally every few weeks or months, until one bad vomiting episode caused me upper-esophageal sphincter dysfunction somehow. Ever since then, I can't seem to take any without throwing up (and generally having a terrible time due to stomach contents backing up into my throat constantly). Nobody can seem to figure out why my throat stopped working properly all of a sudden or how to fix it. :(

I'm glad that psilocybin research is picking up. I really think its potential benefits deserve to be more widely known and available. Hopefully without the spontaneously appearing dysfunction though

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#58

Post by asveikau »

Pxtl wrote: post #54
bilsbie wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s exciting though is that this administration recently signed an executive order directing the agency to speed up the development and approval process for psychedelics.

Yup. Not sure which particular stopped-clock struck right within the generally anti-science MAHA movement but I think everybody is happy to take the win.

Ironically enough, the psychedelic field sort of defies some scientific analysis, so could be construed as "anti-science". I've seen some commentary that it's difficult to test. As an example, you can't really do a double blind study with a placebo because it's obvious to everybody who got the drug.

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#59

Post by Teknomadix »

Highly editorialized title. "Transient multidomain functional improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin-containing mushroom administration: a case report" This is exactly that. A case report. This is not a successful treatment. Far short of that.

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#60

Post by sowbug »

LoganDark wrote: post #57

Psychedelics are one of my favorite classes of drug. I used to take LSD recreationally every few weeks or months, until one bad vomiting episode caused me upper-esophageal sphincter dysfunction somehow. Ever since then, I can't seem to take any without throwing up (and generally having a terrible time due to stomach contents backing up into my throat constantly). Nobody can seem to figure out why my throat stopped wo…

It might be coincidence. Hiatal hernia affects more than 50% of the population over age 50, though not everyone shows symptoms.
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