Mental Reset: This is How Magic Mushrooms Treat Depression

Mental Reset: This is How Magic Mushrooms Treat Depression

Unknown   Oktober 14, 2017   Comment  

Hallucinogenic mushrooms have been found to help alleviate depression, even in severe cases where other kinds of treatment fail to do the job, and new research is providing insight into the secrets of how our brains function.

Led by Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, researchers from Imperial College London have used the psychoactive compound psilocybin, commonly found in so-called magic mushrooms, to treat depression in patients and have used brain scan techniques to observe how precisely the hallucinogen influences the brain, according to a report by The Guardian.

  Photo: Courtesy of the Museum of Moscow
Could Psychedelic Mushrooms Help Those Battling Depression?

The fact that psilocybin has now been shown to be a potent cure for depression became known in 2016, when Carhart-Harris's team first used the chemical compound on a group of patients. As Sputnik reported at the time, the initial test included a group of 12 patients, aged 30-64, who failed to find a cure for their condition via conventional pharmaceutical methods. Eight patients out of the original twelve claimed a full remission from what they had documented as decades-long battles with mental and emotional distress.

The results were recognized as a major medical success.

"For the first time in many years, people who were at the end of the road with currently available treatments reported decreased anxiety, increased optimism and an ability to enjoy things. This is an unparalleled success and could revolutionize the treatment of depression," said Amanda Feilding, co-director of the research.

During that initial test, however, the team observed further research would be needed to understand how exactly the psychoactive compound affects the human brain.

This year, the team gave the psilocybin compound to a group of 20 patients and the treatment was found to be largely successful — about half of the group reported feeling well just five weeks after the ingesting the medication.

But this time, the team acquired additional data on mental activity via brain scans.

First, the scans confirmed the previous year's finding that psilocybin reduces blood flow in the area of the brain called the amygdala the area responsible for processing emotion — primarily those qualitatively assessed as negative, such as anxiety and fear.

According to the BBC report, the team found that the greater the reduction of activity in the amygdala, the greater the improvement in reducing symptoms. According to BBC, the interconnected brain structure known as the "default-mode network" also became more stable after using the compound.

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As an added benefit, psilocybin appears to temporarily limit connectivity between certain parts of the brain. According to a Verge report, this disruption of connectivity is what causes the psychedelic effect of magic mushrooms, in which people lose their sense of ‘self' — called by psychologists the ego — when experiencing the effects of the compound.

But brain scans performed after the treatment were surprising, as, following the treatments, there turned out to be enhanced connectivity between brain regions. Researchers describe the effects by noting that psychedelics break old connectivity patterns and boost the brain to create new and healthier mental structures.

This effect has been supported by the patients, who all reported some kind of welcomed mental reset.

According to Dr. Carhart-Harris, "Patients were very ready to use this [computer reset] analogy. Without any priming they would say, 'I've been reset, reborn, rebooted', and one patient said his brain had been defragged and cleaned up."

This year's experiment has its weak sides, though, since the test group was still quite small; there was also no control group — a group of patients given the placebo treatment — to compare results.

According to the Guardian, Professor David Nutt, director of the neuropsychopharmacology unit in the division of brain sciences, and senior author of the paper, said: "Larger studies are needed to see if this positive effect can be reproduced in more patients. But these initial findings are exciting and provide another treatment avenue to explore."

"What is impressive about these preliminary findings," said Professor Mitul Mehta from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, "is that brain changes occurred in the networks we know are involved in depression, after just a single dose of psilocybin."

"This provides a clear rationale to now look at the longer-term mechanisms in controlled studies," he said, cited by the BBC.

Magic Mushroom Compound May Reset Brain Of Depressive People

Magic Mushroom Compound May Reset Brain Of Depressive People

Unknown   Oktober 14, 2017   Comment  

New research finds that the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms could be effective in treating depression. Participants of the study felt as though their brains were “reset” after the treatments.
Psilocybin is the naturally occurring psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms which are often used as classic psychoactive drugs. It has previously been used medicinally, and evidence suggests its usefulness in treating psychiatric conditions such as depression, addiction, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. When combined with a supportive environment and integrative psychological care, the use of psilocybin helps in inducing emotional breakthroughs.

Researchers from Imperial College London conducted a study that provided evidence for the effectiveness of psilocybin in treating depression. To find out exactly what brain mechanisms are involved in garnering such positive effects, researchers focused on a small group of 19 participants, all of whom experienced treatment-resistant depression.

The participants were each given two doses of psilocybin at 10 mg and 25 mg respectively, with the second dose being given a week after the first. They then completed clinical questionnaires to describe how they were feeling.

All the patients exhibited lesser depressive symptoms and interestingly, researchers noticed that a number of participants used computer analogies to describe how they felt, using words such as “reset,” “reboot,” and “defrag.” Researchers also performed fMRI scans on the participants’ brains before and after the treatment and found evidence of immediate and sustained antidepressant effects.

The scans reveal significant reductions in cerebral blood flow to the temporal cortex specifically in the amygdala, an effect that researchers correlate to decreased depressive symptoms.

“Psilocybin may be giving these individuals the temporary ‘kick start’ they need to break out of their depressive states and these imaging results do tentatively support a ‘reset’ analogy. Similar brain effects to these have been seen with electroconvulsive therapy,” said Dr. Carhart-Harris, head of psychedelic research at Imperial College London and coauthor of the study.

It’s worth noting that the current research is a preliminary one that involved a fairly small number of participants. As such, it’s not yet safe to categorically state that psilocybin treats depression. The research, however, shows promise in looking into the use of psilocybin in developing psychiatric therapy especially among treatment-resistant depressive individuals.

Because of the promising results, researchers are looking into conducting a comparative trial in which they will compare the effects of psilocybin against other antidepressants.

The study was published in Scientific Reports.

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Biological clock discoveries by 3 Americans earn Nobel prize

Biological clock discoveries by 3 Americans earn Nobel prize

Unknown   Oktober 02, 2017   Comment  

Three Americans won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for their discoveries about the body's biological clock, opening up whole new fields of research and raising awareness about the importance of getting enough sleep.
Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young won the 9-million-kronor ($1.1 million) prize for their work on finding genetic mechanisms behind circadian rhythms, which adapt the workings of the body to different phases of the day, influencing sleep, behavior, hormone levels, body temperature and metabolism.

They "were able to peek inside our biological clock and elucidate its inner workings," the Nobel citation said.

"Circadian dysfunction has been linked to sleep disorders, as well as depression, bipolar disorder, cognitive function, memory formation and some neurological diseases," according to a Nobel background report.

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Michael Rosbash smiles during an interview at his home, Oct. 2, 2017. He's one of the Americans awarded this year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.  (AP)

 
Michael Rosbash smiles during an interview at his home, Monday, Oct. 2, 2017, in Newton, Mass. Rosbach is one of the Americans awarded this year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering the molecular mechanisms that control humans' circadian rhythm. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes)

Michael Rosbash smiles during an interview at his home, Oct. 2, 2017. He's one of the Americans awarded this year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.  (AP)

The awardees' work stems back to 1984, when Rosbash and Hall, both at Brandeis, along with Young isolated the "period gene" in fruit flies. Hall and Rosbash found that a protein encoded by the gene accumulated during the night and degraded during daytime. A decade later, Young discovered another "clock gene."

The work was done using fruit flies.

"I am very pleased for the fruit fly," Rosbash, a 73-year-old professor at Brandeis University, told The Associated Press. He said he got the call about the award just after 5 a.m.

"When the landline rings at that hour, normally it is because someone died," he said. "I'm still a little overwhelmed."

But he added "I stand on the shoulders of giants. This is a very humbling award."

Young is at Rockefeller University; Hall formerly was a visiting professor at the University of Maine but said his prize work was done at Brandeis.

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Hall, 72, wryly noted that he was already awake when the call about the prize came around 5 a.m. because of age-related changes in his own circadian rhythms.

"I said 'Is this a prank'?" he told the AP by telephone from Cambridge, Maine.

The winners have raised "awareness of the importance of a proper sleep hygiene" said Juleen Zierath of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute, which chooses the laureates. Carlos Ibanez, another assembly member, said the research was important in understanding how humans adapt to shiftwork.

Michael Hastings, a scientist at the U.K. Medical Research Council, said the discoveries had opened up a whole new field of study for biology and medicine.

"Until then, the body clock was viewed as a sort of black box," Hastings told the AP. "We knew nothing about its operation. But what they did was get the genes that made the body clock, and once you've got the genes, you can take the field wherever you want to."

"It's a field that has exploded massively, propelled by the discoveries by these guys," he told the AP.

Hall said scientists have known about circadian rhythms since the 1700s but the research team looked at the mechanics and underpinnings of how it works. He said understanding that can give researchers a chance to address the circadian rhythm disorders that contribute to sleep problems.

Young said their research had disclosed "a beautiful mechanism" for how genes controlled body clocks.

Asked at a New York news conference about possible medical breakthroughs from the work, Young said "we're just starting with this." But he noted that a genetic mutation had been found in some people who have chronic trouble getting to sleep at night.

"Our wellbeing is affected when there is a temporary mismatch between our external environment and this internal biological clock, for example when we travel across several time zones and experience 'jet lag,'" the Nobel statement said, explaining the research. "There are also indications that chronic misalignment between our lifestyle and the rhythm dictated by our inner time keeper is associated with increased risk for various diseases."

That misalignment may be associated with diseases including cancer and degenerative neurological conditions.

"If you understand how the normal process works, that gives you a chance, not an inevitability, but a chance to influence the internal workings of the clock and possibly to improve a patient's wellbeing," Hall said.

"I think most of its practical applications lie ahead," said Rosbash.

How Messing With Our Body Clocks Can Raise Alarms With Health

How Messing With Our Body Clocks Can Raise Alarms With Health

Unknown   Oktober 02, 2017   Comment  

Research that helped discover the clocks running in every cell in our bodies earned three scientists a Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday.

"With exquisite precision, our inner clock adapts our physiology to the dramatically different phases of the day," the Nobel Prize committee wrote of the work of Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young. "The clock regulates critical functions such as behavior, hormone levels, sleep, body temperature and metabolism."

We humans are time-keeping machines. And it seems we need regular sleeping and eating schedules to keep all of our clocks in sync.

Studies show that if we mess with the body's natural sleep-wake cycle — say, by working an overnight shift, taking a trans-Aatlantic flight or staying up all night with a new baby or puppy — we pay the price.
Nobel Prize In Medicine Is Awarded To 3 Americans For Work On Circadian Rhythm
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Nobel Prize In Medicine Is Awarded To 3 Americans For Work On Circadian Rhythm

Our blood pressure goes up, hunger hormones get thrown off and blood sugar control goes south.

We can all recover from an occasional all-nighter, an episode of jet lag or short-term disruptions.

But over time, if living against the clock becomes a way of life, this may set the stage for weight gain and metabolic diseases such as Type 2 diabetes.

"What happens is that you get a total de-synchronization of the clocks within us," explains Fred Turek, a circadian scientist at Northwestern University. "Which may be underlying the chronic diseases we face in our society today."

So consider what happens, for instance, if we eat late or in the middle of the night. The master clock — which is set by the light-dark cycle — is cuing all other clocks in the body that it's night. Time to rest.

"The clock in the brain is sending signals saying: Do not eat, do not eat!" says Turek.

But when we override this signal and eat anyway, the clock in the pancreas, for instance, has to start releasing insulin to deal with the meal. And, research suggests, this late-night munching may start to reset the clock in the organ. The result? Competing time cues.

"The pancreas is listening to signals related to food intake. But that's out of sync with what the brain is telling it to do," says Turek. "So if we're sending signals to those organs at the wrong time of day — such as eating at the wrong time of day — [we're] upsetting the balance."

And there's accumulating evidence that we may be more sensitive to these timing cues than scientists ever imagined.

Consider, for instance, the results of a weight-loss study that we reported on, which was published in 2013 in the International Journal of Obesity. Researchers found that the timing of meals can influence how much weight people lose.

"The finding that we had was that people who ate their main meal earlier in the day were much more successful at losing weight," says study author Frank Scheer, a Harvard neuroscientist who directs the Medical Chronobiology Program at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

In fact, early eaters lost 25 percent more weight than later eaters — "a surprisingly large difference," Scheer says. Another study found that eating a big breakfast was more conducive to weight loss, compared with a big dinner — adding to the evidence that the timing of meals is important.

Beyond weight management, there's evidence that the clocks in our bodies — and the timing of our sleeping, eating and activities — play multiple roles in helping us maintain good health. And different systems in the body are programmed to do different tasks at different times.

For instance, doctors have long known that the time of day you take a drug can influence its potency. "If you take a drug at one time of day, it might be much more toxic than another time of day," Turek says. Part of this effect could be that the liver is better at detoxifying at certain times of day.

Turek says his hope is that, down the road, circadian science will be integrated into the practice of medicine.

"We'd like to be in a position where we'd be able to monitor hundreds of different rhythms in your body and see if they're out of sync — and then try to normalize them," Turek says.

Whether — or how quickly — this may happen is hard to say. But what's clear is that the study of the biology of time is exploding.

"What we're doing now in medicine is what Einstein did for physics," says Turek. "He brought time to physics. We're bringing time to biology."

The irony, of course, is that this insight comes at a time when the demands of our 24/7 society mean more and more of us are overriding our internal clocks.

Patients who get opioids in the ER are less likely to use them long-term

Patients who get opioids in the ER are less likely to use them long-term

Unknown   September 26, 2017   Comment  

Compared to other medical settings, emergency patients who are prescribed opioids for the first time in the emergency department are less likely to become long-term users and more likely to be prescribed these powerful painkillers in accordance with The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines. A paper analyzing 5.2 million prescriptions for opioids is being published online today in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Opioid Prescribing for Opioid-Naïve Patients in Emergency Department and Other Settings: Characteristics of Prescriptions and Association with Long-Term Use").
"Our paper lays to rest the notion that emergency physicians are handing out opioids like candy," said lead study author Molly Moore Jeffery, PhD., scientific director of the Mayo Clinic Division of Emergency Medicine Research in Rochester, Minn. "Close adherence to prescribing guidelines may help explain why the progression to long-term opioid use is so much lower in the ER. Most opioid prescriptions written in the emergency department are for shorter duration, written for lower daily doses and less likely to be for long-acting formulations."

In the emergency department, opioid prescriptions exceeding 7 days were 84 to 91 percent (depending on insurance status) lower than in non-emergency settings. Prescriptions from the ER were 23 to 37 percent less likely to exceed 50 morphine milligram equivalents and 33 to 54 percent less likely to exceed 90 milligram equivalents (a high dose). Prescriptions from the ER were 86 to 92 percent less likely to be written for long-acting or extended-release formulations than those attributed to non-emergency settings.

Regardless of insurance status, patients receiving opioid prescriptions in the emergency department were less likely to progress to long-term opioid use. For patients seen in the ER, 1.1 percent with private insurance, 3.1 percent with Medicare (age 65 or older) and 6.2 percent with disabled Medicare progressed to long-term use. Put another way, patients with commercial insurance were 46 percent less likely to progress to long-term opioid use, Medicare patients age 65 and older were 56 percent less likely to progress to long-term opioid use and patients with disabled Medicare were 58 percent less likely to progress to long-term use if they received an opioid prescription in the emergency department.

"Over time, prescriptions written in the ER for high dose opioids decreased between 2009 and 2011," said Ms. Jeffery. "Less than 5 percent of opioid prescriptions from the ER exceeded 7 days, which is much lower than the percentage in non-emergency settings. Further research should explore how we can replicate the success of opioid prescribing in emergency departments in other medical settings."

patients who are prescribed opioids for the first time in the emergency department are less likely to become long-term users and more likely to be prescribed these powerful painkillers in accordance with The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines. A paper analyzing 5.2 million prescriptions for opioids is being published online today in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Opioid Prescribing for Opioid-Naïve Patients in Emergency Department and Other Settings: Characteristics of Prescriptions and Association with Long-Term Use").

Emergency departments write shorter duration and smaller-dose opioid prescriptions, study shows

Emergency departments write shorter duration and smaller-dose opioid prescriptions, study shows

Unknown   September 26, 2017   Comment  

Opioid prescriptions from the emergency department (ED) are written for a shorter duration and smaller dose than those written elsewhere, shows new research led by Mayo Clinic. The study, published today in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, also demonstrates that patients who receive an opioid prescription in the ED are less likely to progress to long-term use.

This challenges common perceptions about the ED as the main source of opioid prescriptions, researchers say.

"There are a few things that many people assume about opioids, and one is that, in the ED, they give them out like candy," says lead author Molly Jeffery, Ph.D., scientific director, Mayo Clinic Division of Emergency Medicine Research. "This idea didn't really fit with the clinical experience of the ED physicians at Mayo Clinic, but there wasn't much information out there to know what's going on nationally."

To study 5.2 million opioid prescriptions written for acute – or new-onset – pain across the U.S. between 2009 and 2015, the researchers used the OptumLabs Data Warehouse, a database of de-identified, linked clinical and administrative claims information. None of the patients in the study had received an opioid prescription for the previous six months. This made it easier to compare doses by eliminating patients who built up a tolerance to the drugs.

Researchers found prescriptions for commercially insured patients from the ED were 44 percent less likely to exceed a three-day supply than those written elsewhere. Those patients were also 38 percent less likely to exceed a daily dose of 50 milligrams of morphine equivalent, which is almost seven pills of five-milligram oxycodone per day. And they were 46 percent less likely to progress to long-term opioid use. An opioid prescribing guideline from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued in 2016 cautions against exceeding a three-day supply or 50 milligrams of morphine equivalent per day for acute pain.

The results were similar for Medicare patients.

"As an emergency physician, it was a good surprise to see the results of the study," says senior author M. Fernanda Bellolio, M.D., research chair of the Mayo Clinic Department of Emergency Medicine.


Also unexpected, the researchers say, were the number of prescriptions that exceeded 50 milligrams of morphine equivalent per day. One in 5 commercially insured patients in a non-ED setting received a dose exceeding this guideline. People receiving prescriptions exceeding CDC recommendations – regardless of where they were written – were three times more likely to progress to long-term use.

"Patients and physicians should be aware of the risk of long-term use when they're deciding on the best treatment for acute pain," Dr. Bellolio says.

The researchers hope this study will help combat what the CDC calls an opioid epidemic by working toward an ideal prescription to match each patient's need.

"There is a large amount of variability across patient populations in the amount of opioids people receive for acute pain, depending on where they receive their prescription," Dr. Jeffery says. "When we see variability on such a large scale, we should worry that some people are not getting the best, most appropriate treatment."

In the last 15 years, the number of Americans receiving an opioid prescription and the number of deaths involving overdoses have roughly quadrupled, according to the CDC. More than 41 people per day died from a prescription opioid overdose in 2015.

The researchers also note a positive trend: The proportion of prescriptions progressing to long-term use dropped over the study's period.

The team now is studying what's driving the differences between ED prescriptions and other practice settings. They hope shedding light on why there's a difference will reduce the variation in prescriptions and help health care providers determine the best treatment for each individual.

Kids Emulate Movie Characters Who Use Guns

Kids Emulate Movie Characters Who Use Guns

Unknown   September 26, 2017   Comment  

Want to create a society in which a shocking number of children die from gun violence? Here's a simple recipe: Expose kids to countless images of adults shooting one another to resolve their differences. Then make sure there are enough poorly secured firearms in circulation so that many have access to them.

Sad to say, that describes current-day America—a land where gun violence is an element of many purportedly family friendly movies, and firearms are carelessly stored in many homes. The journal JAMA Pediatrics calls this a "toxic mix," and that's not hyperbole: According to research released earlier this year, 7,100 children under the age of 18 are shot every year, and 1,300 of them die as a result.

Now, a new study in that journal provides evidence of the dangerous dynamic that puts so many kids' lives in jeopardy. It reports that children who found a strategically hidden firearm were far more likely to pull the trigger if they had just watched a clip from a movie that featured the firing of firearms.

"Children who see movie characters use guns are more likely to use guns themselves," conclude co-authors Kelly Dillon of Wittenberg University and Brad Bushman of the Ohio State University.

Their study featured 104 children between the ages of eight and 12—a mix of girls and boys of various ethnicities. Each participant was required to bring another child of a similar age—a relative or friend—resulting in 52 pairs of kids.

Each pair was randomly assigned to watch a 20-minute edited version of one of two PG-rated films: The Rocketeer or National Treasure. Half saw a version in which gun violence was edited out (while keeping the narrative intact); the others were exposed to scenes of characters using firearms.
Gun-control and gun-rights advocates can surely agree on the importance of keeping dangerous guns safely away from small hands.

Afterwards, each pair was taken to a different room and "told they could play with any of the toys and games" in a cabinet, including Lego bricks, nerf guns, and checkers.

"One of the cabinet drawers contained a real .38-caliber handgun that was modified so that it could not fire," the researchers report. "The magazine held infrared wiring to count the number of times the trigger was pulled with sufficient force to discharge the gun."

More than 80 percent of the pairs—43 out of 52—found the gun, and, for 22 pairs, either one or both children played with the weapon. Kids who had seen the movie clip containing guns spent an average of 53 seconds holding it, and "fired" the weapon an average of 2.8 times.

In contrast, those who saw the non-violent version held it for an average of 11 seconds and few pulled the trigger; the average was 0.01 pulls.

Analysis of eight randomly selected pairs of kids—four who saw the movie with gun action, and four without—found those in the former group were more aggressive in their style of play. One child pulled the trigger 26 times, while another did so 35 times; he also "threatened to hit his friend with the gun, and attempted to steal toys and games from the playroom," the researchers report.

They point out that "the movies we showed children were age-appropriate and not very graphic in terms of gun violence. The effects might be greater with newer films containing more gun violence." (Recent research found gun violence in PG-13 movies has more than tripled since the mid-1980s. The films screened for these kids were rated PG.)

In an accompanying editorial, Dimitri Christakis and Frederick Rivera concede that reducing violence in films and video games, and restricting the sale of guns, are both non-starters in the current cultural environment. But they note there is a more focused fix for this problem.

"Prior studies have shown that safe storage of guns is associated with a 75 percent reduction in the risk of firearm suicide and unintentional shootings among youths," they note. "Intervention programs to increase the safe storage of firearms are effective, even in rural areas where hunting and using firearms are a regular part of the culture."

Perhaps a massive public-service campaign is in order. Gun-control and gun-rights advocates can surely agree on the importance of keeping dangerous guns safely away from small hands.