Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by luxuryballs » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

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.

that feeling of a clock striking right is actually a momentary glint of light pouring through a crack in the cold stone shell that has become encrusted around the hearts of those soaking too often in the type of extreme rhetorical panic which broods a curated and embedded fear similar to the kind that makes children afraid of the bogey man, they feel safer to stay hidden with the fear than to venture out enough to discover it was just a chimney sweep on the distant rooftop and everything is fine outside after all where they soon discover some great adventure or purpose in the richness of the world

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

#82

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #26

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.

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…

> A lot of the published outcomes are surprisingly low quality, like this case report or all of the studies that neglect to include a control group. Mental health studies without a control group are basically useless because even a control group that doesn’t receive a placebo (that is, people you simply monitor and interact with) will get better.

Honest question, does a control group really matter that much when it's not possible to do a blinded study? Unless it's some incredibly small microdose, I would assume most study participants are able to tell if they're tripping or not.

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

#83

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #69

sowbug wrote: post #66

I was recently reading about a phenomenon called terminal lucidity, where a person suffering from mental decline such as Alzheimer's spontaneously improves, recognizing loved ones, retrieving memories, and being able to carry on conversations. It's called "terminal" because the person usually dies within hours or days. If this is a real phenomenon, then it's amazing to think that at least some of the people who suffe…

i’m skeptical how much of a real thing this is vs particularly type of appealing story to the human psyche

[deleted]

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

#84

Post by wouldbecouldbe » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

D-Machine wrote: post #56

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.

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 mos…

I think its relatively easy to make it beneficial with an adult person taken in most serene settings & with good intentions. The studies they did do seem to reflect that.

I would advice against a too high of a dose first time. The 5 grams they normally give in studies seems to be on the high side for a first time.

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

#85

Post by gchamonlive » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

Teknomadix wrote: post #59

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.

> We report the case of an octogenarian Japanese-American woman with a 10-year history of Alzheimer’s disease, including 5 years of marked hypofunction and predominantly monosyllabic speech.

> The patient received 5 g of orally administered psilocybin-containing mushrooms

> Approximately 19 h post-administration, spontaneous autobiographical speech emerged. Over subsequent days and weeks, functional improvements included restoration of urinary continence, improved ambulation, autonomous dressing, increased emotional responsiveness, sustained social interaction, contextual memory retrieval, preserved working memory for social context, and spontaneous conversational engagement.

This is exactly that, a treatment using psilocybin that was successful. It's not claiming to have developed a treatment protocol, the title is precise.

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

#86

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#87

Post by new-treatment » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:35 PM UTC

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.

>>the government had a hysterical fit and completely banned it because people who took it were more likely to oppose the Vietnam War.

If you are to believe the Brave New World (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World) worldview of Huxley (who topically was on loads of LSD himself), you'd think the government would want to flood the public with psychedelics -- low to zero toxicity, allows people to zone out, not addictive, allows people to focus inwards rather than focus on civic mismanagement.

Any ideas on why the US government is so opposed Psychedelics? Clearly the government is for Bread and circus. In fact, the establishment left and right want desperately for us to believe everything is indeed fine regardless of the facts our eyes see (e.g. Annie Lowrey on https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/americans-depresse...)

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

#88

Post by new-treatment » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #31

rerx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In defense of the comment you replied to: Research into treatments with Psilocybin or LSD was in quite a hiatus for decades after the substances were banned in the 1960s or 70s.

I understand that, but a lot has changed since then and psilocybin is not the only substance that has been studied which interacts with those receptors. Our ability to synthesize new compounds has also exploded since then. Drug companies are looking for the next blockbuster drug. They don’t need to use psilocybin. We can now use powerful computers to come up with countless variations of drugs that activate the recept…

Very notably Definium Therapeutics (Formerly MindMed) has synthesized an orally disintegrating LSD pill. Given almost zero historical toxicity, I think it is mostly stuck in some societal acceptance limbo for this class of meds. Strange if one sees how openly accepted THC/etc are

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

#89

Post by wouldbecouldbe » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:40 PM UTC

LoganDark wrote: post #67

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>upper-esophageal sphincter dysfunction If you've never read a Pulitzer Prize Winner, Confederacy of Dunces would be a personally-relatable disaster (to start with; it's great). >Psychedelics are one of my favorite classes of drug. Your initial description of usage was probably a bit wreckless , but I do maintain that most people would probably benefit from a single (or few) psilocybin experiences (preferably an init…

I certainly have been reckless with it, but it helped me a lot to cope with constant high stress without resorting to more immediately harmful things. It also gave me a lot of nice experiences, unique insight and other things like that. Before this dysfunction started, bad experiences were pretty rare rather than practically every time...

shame, same with mushrooms?

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

#90

Post by shepardrtc » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:42 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #69

sowbug wrote: post #66

I was recently reading about a phenomenon called terminal lucidity, where a person suffering from mental decline such as Alzheimer's spontaneously improves, recognizing loved ones, retrieving memories, and being able to carry on conversations. It's called "terminal" because the person usually dies within hours or days. If this is a real phenomenon, then it's amazing to think that at least some of the people who suffe…

i’m skeptical how much of a real thing this is vs particularly type of appealing story to the human psyche

It happened to my father, who was suffering a severe mental decline because of hydrocephalus. After weeks of trying to figure out what happened, one day he was sitting in the hospital perfectly fine, talking normally. I remember being so relieved. But then the next day he was back to not knowing anything and being half aware. He died a few weeks later.