Can psychedelics treat depression?

madman · Jul 24, 2021

Can psychedelics treat depression? | CNN

Psilocybin - the active ingredient found in magic mushrooms - Is being seriously considered for the treatment of mental health issues. How did we get here from the Grateful Dead and Kool-Aid Acid Test?

www.cnn.com

Psilocybin - the active ingredient found in magic mushrooms - Is being seriously considered for the treatment of mental health issues. How did we get here from the Grateful Dead and Kool-Aid Acid?

madman · Jul 24, 2021

About psilocybin therapy | Compass Pathways

compasspathways.com

We want to find better ways to support people suffering with mental health challenges, and we believe we’re onto something important.

madman · Jul 24, 2021

madman · Jul 24, 2021

Psychedelic trips could soon be part of therapy — here’s what those sessions will look like

Medicinal uses for psilocybin include depression, PTSD, and other mental disorders, and as more clinical data comes in, a recent spate of public offering has raised billions of dollars for the emerging mental health field.

Investors are opening their minds and wallets to the possibilities of psychedelic-assisted therapies.

Three biopharmaceutical companies aiming to make psychedelic drugs to treat mental health disorders have gone public in recent months: Peter Thiel-backed Atai Life Sciences IPO’d in June and now has a market cap of $2.6 billion; MindMed went public in April and now has a market cap of more than $1 billion; and Compass Pathways IPO’d in November, with a current market cap of nearly $1.5 billion.

Together the three companies have more than nine psychedelic therapy drugs in their pipelines. And that’s not to mention the work being done by many more private biotech and telemedicine companies like Y Combinator-backed Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals, as well as start-ups like Mindbloom, which is already treating patients with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. (Ketamine is not psychedelic but is considered a dissociative anesthetic that can lead to a distortion of sights, colors, sounds, self, and environment).

All this means that tripping on mind-altering drugs like MDMA could become a regular part of therapy to treat conditions from depression to post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, chronic pain, and obsessive-compulsive disorder in the next two to five years.

Here’s what that could look like and what the research says.