Scientists on Wednesday hailed a “milestone” in mental health research as the world’s largest trial into whether magic mushrooms can treat depression was launched at a south London hospital.
The COMP006 study will assess whether psilocybin, the chemical found in magic mushrooms, could help to alleviate symptoms of the condition.
There are approximately 100 million people with treatment-resistant depression worldwide, which means that their symptoms do not respond to at least two antidepressant treatments. Depression affects about three in 100 people in England.
The trial will be conducted at the Centre for Mental Health Research and Innovation, which officially opened on Wednesday at the Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell.
Participants will be given separate 1mg, 10mg or 25mg doses of synthetic psilocybin and monitored to see if their symptoms improve. Researchers are particularly interested in whether repeated doses can improve the therapeutic response.
The synthetic doses were developed by biotechnology firm COMPASS Pathways, who partnered with the Maudsley and researchers from King’s College London for the trial.
Previous trials conducted by COMPASS found that people with depression who took a single 25mg dose of psilocybin reported a significant reduction in symptoms after three weeks compared with those who took a 1mg dose.
Scientists believe that psilocybin could help to alleviate symptoms of mental illness as it can trigger positive biological changes in the brain. It is thought that psilocybin helps brain cells to reorganise their structure and function in a way that helps them to connect better. This can help patients to feel more connected to their own identity, or their family and friends.
At high doses, psilocybin induces a psychedelic experience with altered sensations, euphoria and visual hallucinations. Magic mushrooms are often used recreationally but remain a Class B substance in the UK, carrying a maximum prison sentence of 7 years for possession.
Professor Allan Young, head of academic psychiatry at King’s College London, said the launch of the trial marked “a milestone for research into the use of psychedelics to treat mental health conditions”, adding that the new centre would help “assess the feasibility for their delivery at scale”.
Kabir Nath, CEO of Compass Pathways, said: “Every 40 seconds, someone dies from suicide; tens of millions more live with mental health conditions for which there is no good standard of care.
“The launch of our Phase 3 clinical study in treatment-resistant depression here in the UK is an important step in developing innovations that are urgently needed.”
Last year, the Standard reported how scientists were trialling the use of psilocybin in treating anorexia patients. The condition has the highest mortality rate of all psychiatric disorders because of medical complications and suicide, but there is no pharmacological treatment.
Speaking to the Standard at the launch of the trial, Dr Guy Goodwin, chief medical officer at Compass, explained that the psychedelic experience could help to change the cognitive “rigidity” associated with anorexia.
“When patients take a psychedelic drug, areas of the brain that usually work quite separately from each other become more connected,” he told the Standard.
“This is manifested in a person’s experience – they may feel more connected to their own identity or their family and friends.
“This opens up different possibilities for ways of thinking afterwards.”
Scientists are also exploring the use of methylone, a Class B drug, as a potential treatment for PTSD.
Methylone is an entactogen, a class of drug that speeds up the body’s physical responses and produces feelings of emotional openness and empathy. Its effects have been compared with that of MDMA, but it is short-lasting and does not induce hallucinations.
