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Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

medscape.com

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Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#331

Post by jajko »

whoknw wrote: post #317
fsckboy wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just consider, if it's so powerful in adjusting his brain, it's probably equally powerful in adjusting anybody's brain, and what if your brain doesn't need adjustment? there's no reason to think it's "idempotent" so to speak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idempotence is the property of certain operations in mathematics and computer science whereby they can be applied multiple times without changing the result beyond…

My experience with psychedelics is the following: they shift your perception of things temporarily. The way the "adjustment" works is that you are able to "see" and "touch" experiences you could not before, because they would have annihilated you. They open a door to re-living things and re-processing. Hard for me to see that you would come out of that "broken", if there's nothing to process your trip will be a pleas…

Powerful they are indeed. Depends on general personality, current mental situation, dosage taken, environment and/or people setting up the vibe. That's why I think they should be 100% available but 100% only under professional supervision, who has chemistry and skills to stop the trip gracefully if needed.

I've only ever done them (mushrooms) alone, mixed with fresh lemon juice that somehow makes them more intense and shorter-acting (say 2.5h very intense trip I prefer much more than 6h of less intensity). A profound, maybe a bit life-changing experience. Laying down, eyes closed, listening to some mellow shamanic music, I went far and beyond anything I can explain with my words, dissolving senses, myself, and putting it back again afterwards piece by piece.

It was pure goodness and positivity, but I can imagine if it was so strong but negative it could have been soul-crushing. Pair it with already fragile personality and the need for professional oversight is always a good idea IMHO. Educate on top. Ignore on your own risk.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#332

Post by GuB-42 »

idunnoman1222 wrote: post #278
dontwearitout wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never found it compelling that blinding isn't possible for drug-naive patients. There are other drugs that could induce a "trip" and an unfamiliar individual could mistake for a minor psychedelic experience.

Really? name one.

When you don't know what a psychedelic experience is, any mind altering substance could do. For someone who never got drunk, it could even include alcohol.

It is very hard to describe in words what a psychedelic experience is, so without a reference point, it is hard to tell if what you experienced is one or not.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#333

Post by BigGreenJorts »

fsckboy wrote: post #279
yieldcrv wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

everyone considers that, but because they’ll be dead by the time the studies narrow down anything they chose the substance that moves them towards results - or doesn’t everyone can perceive that psychedelic is doing many highly variable things at once and probably shouldn't be recommended, so they just say their experience

the vast majority of people who try psychedelics are not trying to escape untreatable clinical depression, they are doing it recreationally, for a roller coaster ride which they believe connects them with the Almighty or the Unknowable or the Dao or the All-loving Everpresent or the "insert word that sounds profound" These people are inspired—perhaps by the Almighty, i'm not judging—to preach The Gospel of psychedeli…

Idk how many people trying psychedelics for the first time are that interested in the shamanic gods or whatever as much as they want life altered in a fun weird way. In college when people did LSD or mushrooms, they were usually most interested in the visuals.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#334

Post by baq »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #82

Ok like most of you I’ve taken psychedelic drugs. I’ve had bad experiences sure, but I’m fine now. The issue is that what people generally say, like, “oh sometimes you need to encounter your demons,” maybe that will be temporarily traumatizing—in general people recover from that. The real issues are…more complex. More complex than any diagnoses in the DSM can cover. The brain is very complicated, and everyone’s brain…

> Ok like most of you I’ve taken psychedelic drugs. I’ve had bad experiences sure, but I’m fine now.

I guess people with really bad experiences don’t talk about them as readily as the lucky ones. I don’t know the scale, but there must be some selection bias at work here.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#335

Post by phoronixrly »

mistermann wrote: post #298
phoronixrly wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people here are speaking from experience. I trust my own judgment over some knob in the FDA that is steeped in a culture of drug control. Let me paraphrase this: Many people here are parroting stuff based on a sample size of 1, who lived to tell the tale. You trust your own judgement based on those people before the rigorous safety and effectiveness studies for the FDA, on a whim that the FDA approves or rejec…

Notice how you downgraded your confident claim of knowledge to a tentative question . What's going on homie?

It just seemed incredibly stupid so I wanted to make sure I understood correctly what they meant.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#336

Post by braiamp »

Wytwwww wrote: post #275
fsckboy wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The results are based on a grand total of 25 people in the psilocybin group and 21 people in the SSRI group. Statistical significance is based on sample size, and is independent of population size. Let that sink in, doesn't matter if your population is 100K or 8 billion, when you sample you are trying to understand the probabilities in your sample, not in the population. Therefore, (think about the birthday paradox…

> few dozen in the room with you is an adequate sample It's not, though? Unless you're fine with a very high margin of error... Also the sample in studies like this is hardly ever close to being random anyway. > it should not surprise you that statistical significance is achieved through a much smaller sample size Sure... just with a very low confidence level.

Margin of error only occurs when you expect high variability and a very large population of measurements. When the set of potential measurements is of size 2, having enough statistical power can be achieved with very low sample size. Anyways, many results have survived stage 4 analysis (real world, observational, administrative documents sourced), even when their OG sample size is relatively small.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#337

Post by shakna »

braiamp wrote: post #336
Wytwwww wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> few dozen in the room with you is an adequate sample It's not, though? Unless you're fine with a very high margin of error... Also the sample in studies like this is hardly ever close to being random anyway. > it should not surprise you that statistical significance is achieved through a much smaller sample size Sure... just with a very low confidence level.

Margin of error only occurs when you expect high variability and a very large population of measurements. When the set of potential measurements is of size 2, having enough statistical power can be achieved with very low sample size. Anyways, many results have survived stage 4 analysis (real world, observational, administrative documents sourced), even when their OG sample size is relatively small.

Statistical analysis in psychology is traditionally very poor, because there is an exceptionally high amount of variability. This is a known problem.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#338

Post by braiamp »

TeaBrain wrote: post #301
fsckboy wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The results are based on a grand total of 25 people in the psilocybin group and 21 people in the SSRI group. Statistical significance is based on sample size, and is independent of population size. Let that sink in, doesn't matter if your population is 100K or 8 billion, when you sample you are trying to understand the probabilities in your sample, not in the population. Therefore, (think about the birthday paradox…

>Therefore, (think about the birthday paradox, doesn't matter how many people in the world, a few dozen in the room with you is an adequate sample), it should not surprise you that statistical significance is achieved through a much smaller sample size than most non-statisticians have intuition for. This response on the supposed the lack of importance of a sample size is completely wrong on just about every claim. Th…

Except that sample size doesn't matter if the set of potential results/measurements of the dependent variable are very large. Someone pointed out that you can demonstrate that alcohol impairs executive functions, balance, etc. with a very small sample size, because the effects would be so large and evident that your statistical power would be. On very large variance, where the results are dichotomous in nature (can a subject walk straight in a 10 meters line, without walking outside: yes/no) can have a very small sample size.

Use this calculator, set options to: two independent groups, dichotomous, group 1 = 90%, group 2 = 10%, incidence, enrollment ratio = 1, alpha = 0.05 and power = 80%. The sample size is 10, 5 for each group. https://clincalc.com/stats/samplesize.aspx

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#339

Post by braiamp »

notfed wrote: post #240
thegrim33 wrote: post #173

The results are based on a grand total of 25 people in the psilocybin group and 21 people in the SSRI group. The sample size is pretty small. The methodology is also kind of strange, the psilocybin group got a total of 20 hours of in-person therapy during their 'treatment' and 6 follow-up skype calls, whereas the SSRI didn't get anything other than the 6 month questionaire. Those 20 hours of personalized therapy whil…

If that's true, I'm confused how this is a "double-blind, randomized, controlled trial"? Also, what's up with drug studies always having such a low sample size? Is it really that hard to find people who'd volunteer to get free drugs?

> If that's true, I'm confused how this is a "double-blind, randomized, controlled trial"?

Those are design descriptions.

Double blind means that neither patient nor the one administering the treatment knows which is which. Randomized only means that each subject is assigned randomly a treatment group. Controlled trial just means that the study design made sure that other variables that are not under experiment are also under control. Nothing about this preclude actions done to the subjects nor sample sizes.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#340

Post by arunix »

neom wrote: post #21

Psilocybin saved my life. I'm no longer suicidal, I'm no longer a practicing alcoholic, and outside of a few things here and there, I'm generally at peace with my life. I cannot express how grateful I am for psilocybin.

That sounds great. How can I try it?
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