How psilocybin, the psychedelic in mushrooms, may rewire the brain to ease depression, anxiety and more | CNN
How psilocybin, the psychedelic in mushrooms, may rewire the brain to ease depression, anxiety and more | CNN
Scientists are learning more about how psychedelic mushrooms may alter the brain, potentially leading to long-lasting reversals of depression, anxiety, cluster headaches and more.
There’s more. Researchers say psychedelic drugs help neurons in the brain sprout new dendrites, which look like branches on a tree, to increase communication between cells.
“These drugs can increase neuronal outgrowth, they can increase this branching of neurons, they can increase synapses. That’s called neuroplasticity,” Nutt said.
They say it now, but they were saying it decades ago too...
It's just crazy all these plants humanity grew up with were banned in the last century or two and all types of shit that's incredibly harmful is legal. Like, not just other drugs. All the plastics, pollution, and chemical additives are way more dangerous to human health than psilocybin or cannabis.
These drugs weren't banned to protect people's health, they were banned to protect the status quo
Nixon's admin blatantly admitted it.
“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
It's just crazy all these plants humanity grew up with were banned in the last century
I get your point, but most psychedelics aren't derived from plants.
Nixon's admin blatantly admitted it.
I find the claim highly dubious. This is from an interview published in 2016. Ehrlichman (which is quite the name for someone working for Nixon) was dead over 16 years at point. How do we know the interview didn't make this up? Like, you publish something out of character of someone dead since over a decade?
The fact that Nixon's administration was straight up criminal and dangerous doesn't need any interviews which content could very well have been made up. The academic evidence for legalization for a lot of substances is already there, we just chose to ignore it.
Psychedelics dissolve fascism at the cellular level.
And a whole lot of other things, too. Once you take them, you can never weaponize them.
from the article:
And it’s that disorganization that is ultimately therapeutic, according to Nutt: “Depressed people are continually self-critical, and they keep ruminating, going over and over the same negative, anxious or fearful thoughts.
↑ That’s actually what psilocybin causes me to do, sometimes.
“Psychedelics disrupt that, which is why people can suddenly see a way out of their depression during the trip,” he added. “Critical thoughts are easier to control, and thinking is more flexible. That’s why the drug is an effective treatment for depression.”
I would not group all psychedelics like that. For me, psilocybin specifically often causes me to revisit terrible moments in my past and dwell on those thoughts in a way that amplifies depression. Other psychedelics put me in the moment and have no such risk of dwelling on the past.
Small clinical trials have shown that one or two doses of psilocybin, given in a therapeutic setting, can make dramatic and long-lasting changes in people suffering from treatment-resistant major depressive disorder, which typically does not respond to traditional antidepressants.
Emphasis mine. I must say a therapeutic setting is very important. Don’t try psilocybin alone if you have negative events in your history. But also have to say it’s a game of chance. If there is just the right amount of stimulation around you, so you are not alone but also not so chaotic that you introvert to introspect as if alone, then psilocybin can be extremely fulfilling.