Dr. Casey Wolfington, a licensed psychologist, simulates guiding a research subject through their psilocybin experience at Vail Health Behavioral Health Innovation Center in Colorado. Dr. Casey Wolfington, a licensed psychologist, simulates guiding a research subject through their psilocybin experience at Vail Health Behavioral Health Innovation Center in Colorado. (CNN) — The matchup: Two doses of psilocybin , the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms,” against a six-week course of the popular antidepressant escitalopram, often sold as Lexapro or Cipralex. Escitalopram is one of a class of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs.
The projected winner: The drug that produces the best outcome at six months in the battle against depression, which affects more than 300 million people worldwide.
The stakes are high for psilocybin clinical trials — there’s a pressing need for a more effective medical solution in the fight against depression, especially treatment-resistant depression. Of the nearly 9 million people with major depression in the United States who have tried pharmaceuticals, 2.8 million are estimated to be resistant to multiple antidepressants.
“I am aware of a case of a person who tried 17 different drugs and nothing worked,” said psychobiologist Dr. Bertha Madras, director of the Laboratory of Addiction Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School’s McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.
“Even shock therapy failed,” Madras said. “It’s a terrible thing when you simply cannot help a person to get up out of bed and engage in life.” Antidepressant pros and cons
For a good number of people antidepressants have been a blessing, at least at the beginning of treatment , said Dr. Charles Raison, a professor of psychiatry and human ecology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison.
“I always start by saying, ‘Thank God, we have them.’ Many people can say, ‘Wow, I was pulled out of a pretty deep hole,’“ said Raison, who is also the director of the Vail Health Behavioral Health Innovation Center in Colorado where psilocybin is studied.
But for up to a third of depressed patients, antidepressants fail to work at all. Even for those who do find relief, “the benefits tend […]
What experts say about taking psilocybin as an alternative treatment for depression
