[ExI] 'Magic mushroom' compound may work just as well as antidepressants, small study finds

[John Grigg]

"Psilocybin, the hallucinogen found in "magic mushrooms," may work just as
well as a common antidepressant drug at treating symptoms of depression, a
small new study suggests.

The study found that people who took psilocybin twice under the supervision
of psychiatrists showed similar reductions in *depression*
<https://www.livescience.com/34718-depression-treatment-psychotherapy-anti-depressants.html>
symptoms — based on scores on a survey — compared with people who took a
six-week course of the antidepressant escitalopram. And those in the
psilocybin group were more likely to report remission from depression
symptoms, compared with those in the escitalopram group, according to the
study, published Wednesday (April 14) in *The New England Journal of
Medicine* <http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2032994>.

"One of the most important aspects of this work is that people can clearly
see the promise of properly delivered psilocybin therapy by viewing it
compared with a more familiar, established treatment in the same study,"
study lead author Robin Carhart-Harris, head of the Centre for Psychedelic
Research at Imperial College London, *said in a statement*
<https://www.eurekalert.org/emb_releases/2021-04/icl-mmc041321.php>.
"Psilocybin performed very favourably in this head-to-head [trial]."

https://www.livescience.com/psilocybin-versus-antidepressants-magic-mushrooms.html
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