Psilocybin Therapy Shows PTSD Promise

PHOTO CAPTION: FILE PHOTO: Vietnam veteran Larry Edwards ,63, of Ellsworth, KS, sports a personal license plate "PTSD" for the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome he still suffers for his service in Vietnam, as he arrives in Fairfax, Virginia May 25, 2013, along with hundreds of thousands of motorcycle riders gathering on Memorial Day weekend for the 26th Annual Rolling Thunder Rally May 26, 2013 to remember POWs and MIAs from America's wars, in Washington. REUTERS/Mike Theiler/File Photo

July 30 — Nine of 12 military veterans with severe post-traumatic stress disorder no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD one month after receiving psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy in a small U.S. pilot study, researchers said.

The participants had not found relief through conventional treatments.

Researchers cautioned that the early-stage study was designed primarily to evaluate safety. With only 12 participants and no randomized control group, it cannot establish that psilocybin is an effective PTSD treatment.

The findings do, however, support further testing in larger clinical trials, said study leader Alan Davis of The Ohio State University College of Social Work.

The study was the first formal trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy specifically involving military veterans with PTSD, according to the researchers.

Psilocybin is the psychoactive ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms.

In the United States, psilocybin and most other psychedelic drugs are controlled substances classified as having no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April directing federal health regulators to accelerate reviews of psychedelic treatments and increase funding for research into their use.

Nine of 12 no longer met PTSD criteria

The results were published in the journal Communications Medicine.

“For a population with severe treatment-resistant PTSD, these results are striking,” study co-author Stacey Armstrong, also of Ohio State, said in a statement.

The 11-week treatment program began with eight hours of psychotherapy.

Participants then received two doses of synthetic psilocybin, administered two to three weeks apart. Another six to eight hours of therapy followed the drug sessions to help participants process the experience.

The most common side effect was a mild headache after receiving psilocybin.

“The ability for patients to go back and to revisit really difficult events that happened to them and to find a new way of understanding them and a new way of moving forward in their life has really been exciting,” Davis said.

Of the three veterans who still met PTSD criteria after one month, two experienced small reductions in symptoms. The third showed only a negligible decrease.

Researchers seek larger controlled trial

The researchers hope to obtain funding for a larger randomized, controlled clinical trial.

They will continue following the current participants for six months to assess whether the effects persist.

The team will also study biological changes and possible effects on other PTSD-related conditions, including sleep disorders and substance use.

Australia authorizes psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, while Switzerland permits its limited use in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

(Source: Reuters)