A treatment for depression based on psilocybin, the active ingredient found in magic mushrooms, is expected to be available by 2025 after clinical trials that showed the compound to be safe. Trials conducted by mental healthcare company Compass Pathways and run together with King’s College London involved 89 people treated with doses of psilocybin. No negative side effects outside of the expected psychedelic influence of the ingredient were detected.

The trials were conducted under the oversight of therapists, who reported no warning signs of potentially adverse side effects. The results are being accepted as a significant stride forward in the use of psilocybin as a medication for mental health issues that have proven untreatable.

While trials are still at a relatively early stage, if future rounds go as well, Compass Pathways hopes to have a treatment available by 2025. Ekaterina Malieyskaia, the company’s chief innovation officer, commented that the development offered hope to many of those that suffer from severe depression. She stated:

“This is a very challenging population to treat. The more treatment failures they have, the less the chance they will respond to subsequent treatments. This is a matter of urgency — a huge unmet need.”

The same qualities of the psilocybin that popularised the consumption of magic mushrooms for recreational purposes are those that hold the secret to its suspected medical benefits. As explained by Dr Malievskaia:

“Psilocybin works on a system of connections in what is known as the brain’s default mode network. It’s where your ego, your sense of self, lives. If you changed that, you changed a lot else. When patients became accustomed to the drug they gain a different perspective. It can help them generate insights and solutions for themselves.”

It’s the same ‘reset’ or ‘adjustment’ of the brain’s default mode network that is behind the profound experiences reported by some people who consume magic mushrooms recreationally. When it comes to suffers of depression, Dr Malievskaia says the change to how the brain works:

“Provides relief for people who feel they can be in the clutches of their own ego. It also gives patients a sense of agency — they feel separate from their symptoms. It’s probably the first drug where we cannot separate patients’ subjective experience from the effects of the compound.”

There is a movement of scientists pushing for more research into the potential mental health benefits of psychedelic drugs. In 2017, David Nutt of Imperial College London published a study on 17 individuals who suffered from symptoms of depression. The study found that these symptoms were relieved for a minimum of 5 weeks after being dosed with psilocybin. This was put down to the compound ‘resetting’ the brains of patients.

Dr Nutt commented on the more recent clinical trials by stating that he was not surprised and expanded:

“Showing safety in giving it to more than one person at the same sitting is helpful and should accelerate clinical research.”

Dr Malievskaia was, however, careful to stress that further information from larger scale clinical trials was now needed and that depression sufferers should not attempt to self-medicate:

“Patients with severe mental illness should not be taking psilocybin, and others should not do so recreationally. We just don’t know yet the magnitude of the effects or whether higher levels are safe.”