Researchers report that two doses of the psychedelic substance psilocybin, given with supportive psycho- therapy, produced rapid and large reductions in depressive symptoms, with most participants showing improvement and half of study participants achieving remission through the four-week follow-up.
Upcoming Psilocybin Studies: Opioid Addiction, Alzheimer’s Disease, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome.
Source: http://www.hopkinsphsychedelic.org/
“Johns Hopkins is deeply committed to exploring innovative treatments for our patients. Our scientists have shown that psychedelics have real potential as medicine, and this new center will help us explore that po- tential.”
- Paul B. Rothman, M.D., Dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Scientists today are entering a new era of studying a truly unique class of pharmacological compounds known as psychedelics. Although research with these compounds was first started in the 1950s and ‘60s, it abruptly ended in the early 1970s in response to unfavorable media coverage, resulting in misperceptions of risk and highly restrictive regulations.
After a decades-long hiatus, in 2000 the research group at Johns Hopkins was the first to obtain regulatory approval in the United States to reinitiate research with psychedelics in healthy, psychedelic-naive volun- teers. Our 2006 publication on the safety and enduring positive effects of a single dose of psilocybin is wide- ly considered the landmark study that sparked a renewal of psychedelic research world-wide.
Since that time, they have further groundbreaking studies in more than 60 peer-reviewed articles in respect- ed scientific journals. The Peer Review Articles are listed later in the plan.
This makes Johns Hopkins the leading psychedelic research institution in the U.S., and among the few leading groups worldwide. Their research has demonstrated therapeutic effects in people who suffer a range of challenging conditions including addiction (smoking, alcohol, other drugs of abuse), existential distress caused by life-threatening disease, and treatment-resistant depression.
Researchers at the John Hopkin’s Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness focus on how psychedelics affect behavior, mood, cognition, brain function and biological markers of health.
Source: http://www.hopkinsphsychedelic.org/“
According to John Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness, Tens of millions of people worldwide suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Millions more have suffered from emotional and physical abuse but never get diagnosed. Their research has indicated that PTSD is “notoriously difficult to treat and cure and Conventional treatments fail all the time.”
Apparently there is good news in that one odd candidate—MDMA-assisted psychotherapy—has produced miraculous patient outcomes in fact the Researchers at Johns Hopkins were quoted as saying that, “the pa- tient results practically defy belief.”
(MDMA) is a synthetic drug that alters mood and perception (awareness of surrounding objects and condi- tions). It is chemically similar to both stimulants and hallucinogens, producing feelings of increased energy, pleasure, emotional warmth, and distorted sensory and time perception.
MDMA was initially popular in the nightclub scene and at all-night dance parties (“raves”), but the drug now affects a broader range of people who more commonly call the drug Ecstasy or Molly.
The John Hopkins Study further states, as one actual patient put it in the “Trip of Compassion” documentary, “I felt like I went through 15 years of psychological therapy in one night. “with 107 participants, 56% no lon- ger qualified for PTSD after treatment with MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, measured two months following treatment. At the 12-month follow-up, 68% no longer had PTSD. Most subjects received just 2–3 sessions of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. All participants had chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD and had suffered from PTSD for an average of 17.8 years.
On August 16, 2017, the FDA granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation to MDMA for the treatment of PTSD. There is a clear path ahead to make MDMA a legal medicine for millions of people suffering from PTSD. This is very promising, and we are cautiously very optimistic that patients will see similar outcomes from Psilocybin therapies.
Source: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/psychedelic-research-centre/research/
In the last decade, a number of research groups in Europe and the Americas have conducted studies into the safety and effectiveness of psychedelics for conditions such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but the Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research is the first to gain this level of stature within a major academic institution.
When delivered safely and professionally, psychedelic therapy holds a great deal of promise for treating some very serious mental health conditions.
Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris
Head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College, London, England.
The Centre is the first in the World to Clinically investigate the brain effects of LSD using modern brain imaging and the first to study psilocybin – the active compound in magic mushrooms – for treating severe depression.
These studies have laid the groundwork for larger trials that are now taking place around the world. Other pioneering work from the group includes breakthrough neuroimaging research with psilocybin, MDMA and DMT (the psychoactive compounds found in ecstasy and ayahuasca respectively).
Source: https://www.nyucanceranxiety.org/
Research conclusion: single moderate-dose psilocybin (in conjunction with psychotherapy) was safely ad- ministered to a cohort of patients with cancer-related psychological distress (e.g. anxiety, depression).
It produced rapid and sustained anxiolytic and anti-depressant effects (for at least 7 weeks but potentially as long as 8 months), decreased cancer-related existential dis- tress, increased spiritual wellbeing and quality of life, and was associated with improved attitudes towards death.
The psilocybin-induced mystical experience mediated the anxiolytic and anti-depressant effects of psi- locybin. Psilocybin, administered in conjunction with appropriate psychotherapy, could become a novel pharmacological-psychosocial treatment modality for cancer-related psychological and existential distress. Source NYU.
Rapid and sustained symptom reduction following psilocybin treatment for anxiety and depression in pa- tients with life-threatening cancer: a randomized controlled trial.
Stephen Ross1,2,3,4,5,6, Anthony Bossis1,2,4, Jeffrey Guss1,2,4, Gabrielle Agin-Liebes10, Tara Malone1, Barry Cohen7,Sarah E Mennenga1, Alexander Belser8, Krystallia Kalliontzi2,James Babb9, Zhe Su3, Patricia Corby2 and Brian L Schmidt2
