New treatment for depression

Boom in psychedelic therapies?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/20/magic-mushrooms-set-become-uks-ultimate-weapon-against-depression/

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/apr/12/psilocybin-depression-brain-break-out-of-a-rut-magic-mushrooms

Short-acting drugs, psychedelic experience, two-hour therapy session.

Resetting brain networks

Helping to end ingrained negative patterns of thought,

and making patients far more receptive to therapy.

Small Pharma

https://smallpharma.com

Leading the world’s first regulated clinical trial,

DMT (dimethyltryptamine) with psychotherapy for major depressive disorder.

Phase one done on healthy volunteers

Next few months, reports from 42 patients

Dr Carol Routledge, chief medical and scientific officer

We think that this treatment will really get to the root cause, rather than just dampening symptoms

Almost immediate benefits

Based on initial data that we already have, and other companies have, there’s going to be a fairly immediate impact

In terms of the psychedelic experience, we’re talking about 20 minutes,

and then the integration therapy afterwards,

we expect the antidepressant activity to be extremely durable … to last maybe three, four or five months

Imaging data

Psychedelics work on the brain networks

Making neural connections more flexible to brain plasticity

You can reset those networks in the brain, and then that leaves the brain much more receptive to therapy, which is why we bring it in straight afterwards

Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)

Innovative Licensing and Access Pathway (ILAP)

Brings organisations together

Speed up the time getting meds to patients

Other companies testing MDMA

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine

Therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Psilocybin, (Clerkenwell Health)

Depression

Smoking

Terminal illness

Psychedelic experience

Out-of-body sensations

Visual or aural hallucinations

Psilocybin microdosers demonstrate greater observed improvements in mood and mental health at one month relative to non-microdosing controls

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-14512-3#Tab2

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, July, 2022

Psilocybin microdosing

Repeated self-administration of mushrooms containing psilocybin,

at doses small enough to not impact regular functioning.

3–5 times per week, of 0.1 to 0.3 g of dried mushrooms

Naturalistic, observational design

Study approved, University of British Columbia Research Ethics Board (H19-03051)

Psilocybin microdosers (n = 953)

Non-microdosing comparators (n = 180)

For approximately 30 days

Identified small- to medium-sized improvements in mood and mental health,

that were generally consistent across gender, age and presence of mental health concerns

Improved psychomotor performance in older adults.

Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale

https://proceduresonline.com/trixcms2/media/11957/depression-anxiety-and-stress-scale-dass21.pdf

Adults who microdose psychedelics report health related motivations and lower levels of anxiety and depression compared to non-microdosers

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01811-4

Large international sample of adults

microdosers (n = 4050)

non-microdosers (n = 4653)

Psilocybin, 85% of microdosers, (LSD, 11%)

microdosers exhibited lower levels of depression, anxiety, and stress across gender

microdosers were less likely to use alcohol regularly and were more likely to abstain from alcohol entirely

microdosers were more likely to abstain from the use of nicotine

Psilocybin, in 10mg or 25mg doses, has no short- or long-term detrimental effects in healthy people

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/psilocybin-in-10mg-or-25mg-doses-has-no-short-or-long-term-detrimental-effects-in-healthy-people

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02698811211064720

The therapeutic potential of microdosing psychedelics in depression

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7457631/

Micro dose, 5% to 10% of psychotropic dose

LSD (10–20 mcg)

Psilocybin (less than 1–3 mg),

have subtle (positive) effects on cognitive processes (time perception, convergent and divergent thinking) and brain regions involved in affective processes.