Psilocybin could very well be a major game-changer for mental health. For one, just a month after receiving two doses of the psychedelic drug, a small group of 13 people showed a big drop in depressive symptoms, according to a new report in JAMA Psychiatry. While the study was small, the drug is showing promise. After all, as reported by Science News, “Existing antidepressant drugs don’t work well for an estimated 30 to 50 percent of the people who try them; when they do work, the effects can take weeks to kick in. Psilocybin, a compound that can profoundly alter consciousness and perceptions of reality, might be a powerful alternative, says Roland Griffiths, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.”
In addition, psilocybin can reportedly promote neuroplasticity (the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization, as noted by Big Think) in the brains of rats. According to a study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, “The present study demonstrates that psilocybin rapidly induces gene expression related to neuroplasticity, biased towards the prefrontal cortex, compared to the hippocampus. Findings provide further evidence for the rapid plasticity-promoting effects of psilocybin.”