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

frontiersin.org

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

#21

Post by mc32 »

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…

Wow, if that turns out to work, that would alleviate lots of suffering for both the patient and her or his relatives and caretakers.

This would be pretty amazing.

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

#23

Post by 40four »

Aurornis wrote: post #19
40four wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, It’s a single case study so obviously take it with a grain of salt. Actual scientists understand this. People on social media don’t ands that’s annoying I get it. On the other hand, it’s interesting and perhaps illuminating to people working in that field. A field mind you, that has made a little to no progress in decades. Arguments could be made they’ve made some errors and went down the wrong path. It’s a fie…

> On the other hand, it’s interesting and perhaps illuminating to people working in that field People in medicine or research have seen hundreds of extraordinary case reports like this. They’re everywhere on different topics and they’re not hard to get published. They know that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and it’s easy to see that this paper is completely devoid of evidence, just some extraord…

Hey, fair enough. I don’t necessarily disagree with you, anything with psilocybin in the title tends to be a little more sensational. I find it very interesting though, I just listened to a recent Rogan podcast with Dr. Dean Radin, this exact case study came up because one of his companies is working a related product. Apparently they’ve developed a nasal delivery system that directly crosses into the brain, and the drug uses the same receptors as psilocybin but without the psychedelic effects. Apparently it has extraordinary positive effects on memory and lasts for months. They’ve tested on mice and chimpanzees, so real science is being done in this lane outside this case study. I guess I’m saying sometimes when “traditional” science gets stuck in the mud, we need creative & bold people who think outside the box to move things forward.

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

#24

Post by fred_is_fred »

sva_ wrote: post #6

> n=1 > pay to publish journal > no clear Alzheimers diagnosis ("[...] were considered clinically most compatible with advanced Alzheimer’s disease") > administration of a heroic dose of street-quality drugs vs. a controlled sample > no university or hospital affiliation? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, hence I remain skeptical

Not only that but the author has appeared on Joe Rogan - that tells me all I need to know.

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

#25

Post by turtlesdown11 »

mc32 wrote: post #21
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…

Wow, if that turns out to work, that would alleviate lots of suffering for both the patient and her or his relatives and caretakers. This would be pretty amazing.

This is crackpot stuff - there's no scientific evidence of any of this, it's pure grifting. The individual cited above has a phd in educational psychology and runs a pseudoscience "institute"

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

#26

Post by Aurornis »

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.

Just look at this comment section: People raising suspicions about the obvious problems in the study are being downvoted. The top voted comments are citing a Joe Rogan podcast with a guy hyping his startup. People really, really want to believe this is a magic cure and the usual guardrails of suspicion for extraordinary claims are seemingly suspended for this one topic.

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

#27

Post by Aurornis »

40four wrote: post #12
sva_ wrote: post #6

> n=1 > pay to publish journal > no clear Alzheimers diagnosis ("[...] were considered clinically most compatible with advanced Alzheimer’s disease") > administration of a heroic dose of street-quality drugs vs. a controlled sample > no university or hospital affiliation? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, hence I remain skeptical

It’s a single case study so obviously take it with a grain of salt. On the other hand, it’s interesting and perhaps illuminating to people working in that field. A field mind you, that has made a little to no progress in decades. Arguments could be made they’ve made some errors and went down the wrong path. It’s a field that could probably use some new ideas.

> On the other hand, it’s interesting and perhaps illuminating to people working in that field

I responded to your other comment with this exact text, but to repeat:

This paper is not illuminating to people in the field. This is 3 unaffiliated people who paid to publish an anecdote without any supporting evidence. Paid medical journals are full of these.

Medical professionals know how to spot these claims because they’ve seen a hundred of them over the years that went nowhere. This was published not for the medical establishment, but for news media and social media and maybe to boost the author’s visibility to get funding for something they want to do.

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

#28

Post by ekianjo »

sva_ wrote: post #6

> n=1 > pay to publish journal > no clear Alzheimers diagnosis ("[...] were considered clinically most compatible with advanced Alzheimer’s disease") > administration of a heroic dose of street-quality drugs vs. a controlled sample > no university or hospital affiliation? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, hence I remain skeptical

Good criticism but be aware that acreditated authors and institutions are a bunch of crooks on the whole who cook their results, do p-hacking to the death, badly document their protocols, don't release their datasets not their analysis, and have no problems getting paid by big pharma and not disclosing it fully. The field is more joke than science at this stage.

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

#29

Post by wouldbecouldbe »

archonis wrote: post #18
UnfitFootprint wrote: post #3

Good riddance - this kind of thing needs to be experimented with more. But 5 grams! This reads like witch doctor science; I’m surprised it passed ethics

It's not just 5 grams of some random cubensis, it's 5 grams of the enigma strain, which is ridiculously potent.

Yeah and when they give it in experiments they also give participants an eye mask, which doesn't allow you to quickly snap back to reality. I enjoy Psilocybin, but that would be scary for me.

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

#30

Post by rerx »

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…

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.
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