Using psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, to treat depression is not a new idea. What is new is some research, published in the scientific journal Cell, that suggests psilocybin isn’t just putting a Band-Aid on depression.
It turns out psilocybin might be rewriting our brains to eliminate the toxic negative thought loops of depression that relentlessly hammer at us when were at our lowest.
Scientists used an engineered rabies virus to map how psilocybin changes brain circuitry in mice. The goal is to better understand how it might interrupt the repetitive, negative thought loops associated with depression. Or, as the researchers call it, “rumination.”
Speaking with the Cornell Chronicle, Cornell University biomedical engineer Alex Kwan said that “rumination is one of the main points for depression, where people have this unhealthy focus, and they keep dwelling on the same negative thoughts.”
Study Suggests Psilocybin Can Break Depressive Brain Loops
According to the research team, psilocybin appears to weaken the neural feedback loops that keep those thoughts running on repeat. You still feel them occasionally, but they don’t echo in your mind endlessly. Instead, they eventually fade out and allow you to move on with your day and your life.
The team gave mice a single dose of psilocybin, followed by a modified rabies virus that traces neural connections by spreading across synapses and lighting them up with fluorescent proteins. The differences were stark when the scientists compared psilocybin-treated mice to a placebo group.
Brain regions involved in sensory processing became more connected to areas responsible for action, suggesting a shift away from internal looping and toward engagement with the outside world. The cortex is where repetitive thought patterns usually form. The researchers found that those connections were reduced.
This goes hand-in-hand with other research coming out of Kawn’s lab that showed silicide causing long-lasting structural changes in the brain. This new study adds a little bit of vital detail to that. It’s rewiring the brain, and that rewiring isn’t random. The drug might strengthen or weaken brain circuits depending on how they are used at the time.
This means that one day we might be able to combine psychedelics with targeted brain stimulation techniques to manipulate where and how brain rewiring occurs, essentially physically. A psychedelic drug might one day create a world where you can take your ailing brain to a brain mechanic to get a tune-up.
Right now, the findings are limited to mice, so there’s a lot more work to be done to see if it’s transformable to humans, but it’s getting harder and harder to deny that a psychedelic drug still banned in much of the country might be exactly what we’ve long needed to help us all get out of these depressive feedback loops.
The post Psychedelics Might Fix Your Depression by Rewiring Your Brain, Study Finds appeared first on VICE.
