tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/magic-mushrooms-6815/articlesMagic mushrooms – The Conversation2024-01-19T16:54:31Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2211472024-01-19T16:54:31Z2024-01-19T16:54:31ZUncovering the mysteries of The Book of Kells – from myopic monks on magic mushrooms to superhuman detail<p>The Book of Kells is a late-eighth century illustrated copy of the four gospels of the New Testament, traditionally associated with the affiliated monasteries of Iona in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland and Kells in County Meath, Ireland. </p>
<p>Seeing the book at Trinity College Dublin is on the bucket list for most visitors to the city, although many are perhaps unaware of what, exactly, makes it so important. One easy way to explain its importance is to compare the so-called Chi-Rho page in Kells which celebrates the first mention of Christ’s name in the gospels by enlarging the first two letters of his name in the Greek alphabet, χ (Chi) and ρ (Rho) with a similar page in any other contemporary manuscript from the milieu of the Irish Church. </p>
<p>Not infrequently, the response to the Book of Kells page will be: “Monks on mushrooms!” This was also the reaction of Guardian art critic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/jan/04/book-of-kells-psychedelic-monks-drugs-trinity-college-dublin">Jonathan Jones</a> recently, when he visited the newly opened Book of Kells Experience, an immersive exhibition at Trinity College Dublin that showcases some of the extraordinary creative highlights of the manuscript.</p>
<p>There is a long history of <a href="https://worldart.news/2023/06/02/art-drugs-an-enigmatic-journey-through-tragic-tales-of-famous-artists/">substance-enhanced art</a>, particularly in association with some of the 20th century western greats – Picasso, Salvador Dali and Jean-Michel Basquiat – and of course an entire counterculture movement in the late 1960s connected with LSD. But this is not typically something we would associate with eighth-century monks.</p>
<p>The pages of The Book of Kells certainly contain some of the elements that have been used to identify drug use in modern and contemporary art. </p>
<p>The figures of Matthew and John introducing their respective gospels have creepily vacant stares. Letters are formed from distorted men, birds and beasts, their bodies and limbs extended and entangled to create decidedly surrealist openings to important gospel texts. One panel on the page that opens the Gospel of Luke appears to depict an all-male bacchanalian gathering. </p>
<h2>Kells under the microscope</h2>
<p>Although now faded by 1,200 years of use, the colours in the manuscript still retain some of their original psychedelic intensity. The yellows and purples practically vibrate on the page. The variety and layering of colours is not found in any surviving contemporary northwest-European manuscript.</p>
<p>Scientific research into the origins of the pigments conducted by Trinity College Dublin’s <a href="https://analyticalsciencejournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jrs.2231">library conservation department</a> have revealed some of the alchemy involved in their creation. </p>
<p>The intense yellows were created using the poison arsenic sulphide, the reds are toxic red lead and the purples are made from lichen, the purple colour extracted using ammonia, traditionally obtained from urine. </p>
<p>We know that contemporary metalworkers used <a href="http://www.saint-manchans-shrine.com/fire-gilding.html">mercury gilding</a> – a technique that would have led to neurological issues from the inhalation of mercury vapour. Might scribes too have been exposed to side effects from the tools of their trade?</p>
<p>Against this argument are some of the other secrets that the Book of Kells has revealed when studied under a microscope. </p>
<p>Underlying some of the most complex – and psychedelic – pages are tiny grids of pin pricks, used as a carefully prepared guide to ensure that the artist maintained perfect symmetry in his work. While at a macro level the art of The Book of Kells appears exuberant and uncontrolled, at a micro level it is an object lesson in pure symmetry, often at a minute scale. </p>
<p>For example, a panel measuring just 80mm x 45mm (right) near the centre of the Chi-Rho page incorporates three lions, four humans, four snakes and 13 birds. Although all are extenuated and locked into a tight mesh of limbs, bodies, wings and heads, the anatomy of each is complete and a symmetry of the bodies is maintained throughout. The precision of planning and control of design does not suggest a scribe under the influence of psychedelic drugs.</p>
<h2>Unsolved mysteries</h2>
<p>It is only since the <a href="https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/collections/ks65hc20t">digitisation of the manuscript</a> in 2014 that most of us been have able to properly appreciate this aspect of The Book of Kells’ mastery, as much of this detail is nearly invisible to the naked eye.</p>
<p>Artificial lenses are an <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2019/02/medieval-spectacles.html">invention of the late 13th century</a>, so aside from the possible use of the magnifying properties of rock crystal (for which there is no direct evidence) the question does arise as to whether the scribes’ ability to see and work at such a minute scale was enhanced by other means.</p>
<p>Although <a href="https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/epdf/10.1484/J.PERIT.5.131900?role=tab">more than 400 medical texts</a> survive from the later medieval period in Ireland, relatively few date back to the period when the Book of Kells was made. However, we do know that many monasteries had physicians. </p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38682/38682-h/38682-h.htm">a Life of St Columba</a>, written at Iona about 100 years before the Book of Kells was made there, describes a man coming to seek medicines at the monastery. Unfortunately, though, specific references to “cures” for eye ailments, or for enhancing near sightedness are not forthcoming. That is except for St Manchan “the wise” of Lemanaghan, County Offaly, whose hagiography (books written on the lives of saints) describes how his protruding eyes were cured by contact with the corpse of St Molua.</p>
<p>Assuming that this particular cure is an apocryphal one, the mystery of the enhanced myopia and the steady hands of the Book of Kells scribes remains unsolved, unless of course, one sides with one 12th-century commentator who declared that such intricacy could only be the result of “<a href="https://www.ucc.ie/en/media/academic/seanmeanghaeilge/cdi/texts/Carey_Hand_and_Angel.pdf">the work of angels</a>”.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Moss works for Trinity College Dublin. In the past she has received funding from the Irish Research Council and Bank of America Merrill Lynch for research work relevant to this article. </span></em></p>The pages of The Book of Kells certainly contain some of the elements that have been used to identify drug use in modern and contemporary art.Rachel Moss, Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2033712023-05-11T12:27:42Z2023-05-11T12:27:42ZBrain-altering fungi could lead the next frontier in mental health care<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525125/original/file-20230509-17-pzcku9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C0%2C5964%2C3520&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fungal metabolites, such as psilocybin, may have therapeutic potential.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cultivation-recreational-psilocybin-mushrooms-world-medical-1779792026">Kyrylo Vasyliev/ Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you were one of the millions of people who watched HBO’s TV series <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-last-of-us-a-show-that-surprised-and-challenged-audiences-even-those-who-had-played-the-game-201814">The Last of Us</a>, you probably have a heightened awareness of the threat that fungi can have to our health.</p>
<p>The series is set in a post-apocalyptic world where parasitic fungi take control of the human brain, turning people into killer zombies. The scariest part of this premise is that it’s not entirely implausible. Parasitic or “zombie” fungi that alter <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/how-the-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants-bodies-to-control-their-minds/545864/">the mind and behaviour of their hosts</a> do exist. </p>
<p>Fortunately, real-life zombie fungi (known as <em>Cordyceps</em>) only infect insects. The fungus hijacks their bodies for the sole purpose of spreading its seed-like fungal spores. When spores are ingested by insects, they germinate and grow, secreting molecules that travel to the host’s brain and interfere with its function.</p>
<p>The fungus compels the insect to forego its aversion to heights and climb upwards. Upon reaching a position optimal for fungal survival, the fungus induces the “death grip” and then devours its host from the inside-out, sprouting spore-containing mushrooms from the insect carcass.</p>
<h2>Fungi that alter our minds</h2>
<p>In the case of humans, some fungi which produce small molecules, or <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27809954/">metabolites</a>, that alter our minds – and recent research shows these have therapeutic potential. The most widely known is the hallucinogen psilocybin – the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, is another psychedelic with fungal origins. </p>
<p>Humans have known about the hallucinogenic properties of fungi for centuries. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2173580814001527">The Aztecs</a> even gave magic mushrooms to people who were dying to promote a peaceful transition to the afterlife. </p>
<p>But recently, there’s been an <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2772630">explosion of interest</a> in fungal metabolites, specifically because of their <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2032994">neurological benefits</a> and potential in treating mental health conditions. And it’s no wonder, given the mechanisms fungal metabolites use to interact with our nervous system.</p>
<p>Think of our brain like a map. When we’re young, we explore all corners of this map, sending out connections in every direction to make sense of our environment. Before long, we figure out basic truths – such as how to secure food, or where we live – and the neurological paths that make up these connections strengthen. </p>
<p>Over time, a network emerges that reflects our unique experiences. Regions we re-visit often will develop established paths, whereas under-used connections will fade away.</p>
<p>Conditions such as addiction, chronic depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are characterised by processes such as <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25264228/">repetitive negative thinking</a> or <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27911470/">rumination</a>, where patients focus on negative thoughts in a counterproductive way. Unfortunately, these <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25264228/">strengthen brain connections</a> that perpetuate the unfavourable mental state.</p>
<p>But it’s believed that fungal metabolites give our brain the freedom to explore less-visited territories again. Psychedelic “trips” are thought to allow people to <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychedelic-Experience-Tibetan-Penguin-Classics/dp/0141189630/ref=sr_1_1?crid=31L001ENA3N3M&keywords=the+psychedelic+experience+timothy+leary&qid=1683542508&sprefix=the+psychedelic+%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-1">experience a world without the boundaries of reality</a> – and more recent research suggests this is a manifestation of novel brain exploration.</p>
<p>For example, psilocybin stimulates a receptor in the brain called 5-HT2a. This receptor usually binds to serotonin, a chemical in our body which controls communication between specific nerve cells. But when psilocybin binds to the 5-HT2a receptor, it <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33578-1">makes it easier for our brain</a> to change and generate new connections (including causing hallucinations at high doses). We call this an increase in <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34566723/">neuroplasticity</a>. </p>
<p>Although the effects of a single large dose of psychedelics are transitory, evidence shows administering two smaller doses of psilocybin three weeks apart leads to a sustained <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01744-z">increase in connectivity</a> between different functional regions of the brain. Such changes in neuroplasticity have the potential to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01744-z">disrupt the rigid thought patterns</a> that underlie certain mental health conditions.</p>
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<img alt="A young man speaks with his therapist." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525129/original/file-20230509-22-rqqpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525129/original/file-20230509-22-rqqpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525129/original/file-20230509-22-rqqpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525129/original/file-20230509-22-rqqpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525129/original/file-20230509-22-rqqpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525129/original/file-20230509-22-rqqpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525129/original/file-20230509-22-rqqpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Combining psychedelics with traditional therapy methods could make therapy more beneficial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/stressed-black-man-explaining-his-problems-1793034835">Prostock-studio/ Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Furthermore, by increasing neuroplasticity, it is believed that psychedelics allow people to <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Change-Your-Mind-Psychedelics/dp/0141985135/ref=asc_df_0141985135/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=347799774948&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1060708585039904868&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045208&hvtargid=pla-547776848553&psc=1&th=1&psc=1">view life situations from a new perspective</a>. Combining psychedelics with more traditional talking therapy could make it possible to explore – and more fully understand – the initial trigger for negative thought patterns. This could potentially prevent the same negative cycle reestablishing after treatment. Indeed, research showed that combining therapy with psilocybin had a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02698811211073759">prolonged anti-depressive effect</a> in adults with major depressive disorder.</p>
<p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35225143/">Additional studies</a> demonstrate the positive effect of fungal metabolites in treating a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35225143/">range of conditions</a> – including anxiety, depression and alcohol addiction. These studies also point out that psilocybin can affect the symptoms after only one or two doses – whereas anti-depressants may take many months to work.</p>
<h2>No miracle cure</h2>
<p>That said, psychedelics should not be considered a miracle cure as there is still a lot we don’t know. Furthermore, most studies on psychedelics are still preliminary as they use a limited number of participants. As such, <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-popularity-of-microdosing-of-psychedelics-what-does-the-science-say-202209192819">experts are divided</a> on the efficacy of psychedelic treatment. Furthermore, psychedelics are powerful and unpredictable – and the safety and long-term effects of such treatment is unknown.</p>
<p>But given the current <a href="https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/pressures/mental-health-pressures-data-analysis">mental health crisis</a>, any intervention that offers a new approach to tackling these conditions – especially those that are treatment-resistant – needs to be carefully considered and rigorously researched. </p>
<p>Excitingly, many countries <a href="https://compasspathways.com/compass-pathways-receives-fda-breakthrough-therapy-designation-for-psilocybin-therapy-for-treatment-resistant-depression/">recognise the benefits</a> of psychedlics for mental health treatment. The Australian government even <a href="https://www.tga.gov.au/news/media-releases/change-classification-psilocybin-and-mdma-enable-prescribing-authorised-psychiatrists">legalised prescription psilocybin</a> for medicinal use in 2022. Although the UK doesn’t yet permit the prescription of psychedelics, <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/psychedelic-research-centre/">multiple research centres</a> are undertaking trials to establish the <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/psychoactive-trials-group">mental health benefits</a> of fungal metabolites. </p>
<p>While there’s still much we don’t know about fungal metabolites – including whether other molecules exist that have a similar effect on neurological function – it’s clear they have great potential in mental health treatment. Perhaps it’s time for us to relinquish certain negative connotations we have of illicit fungal drugs, and become comfortable thinking of brain-altering psychedelics as medicine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203371/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edel Hyland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, is one example of a fungus which can alter the human mind.Edel Hyland, Senior Lecturer in Biochemistry & Fungal Biology, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2002242023-02-23T21:32:26Z2023-02-23T21:32:26ZThe fungus zombies in ‘The Last of Us’ are fictional, but real fungi can infect people, and they’re becoming more resistant<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511892/original/file-20230223-22-69v4bj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=250%2C14%2C1667%2C1063&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the HBO series ‘The Last of Us,’ the parasitic fungus cordyeps mutates, and jumps from insects to humans and quickly spreads around the world, rendering its victims helpless to control their thoughts and actions.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(HBO)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many of the people watching <a href="https://www.hbo.com/the-last-of-us"><em>The Last of Us</em></a> are likely there for the zombies.</p>
<p>I love the zombies too, but I’m really there for the fungus.</p>
<p>I’ve been studying fungi since my PhD work in the 1980s, and I grow more fascinated by these amazing organisms with every passing year.</p>
<p>In the HBO series and the <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-ca/games/the-last-of-us-part-i/">video game that inspired it</a>, a parasitic fungus — a fictitious mutation of the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/cordyceps-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants">very real cordyceps</a> — jumps from insects to humans and quickly spreads around the world, rendering its victims helpless to control their thoughts and actions. Far-fetched fungal fear-mongering? It’s definitely fictional, but maybe not as preposterous as it might seem.</p>
<h2>Fascinating fungi</h2>
<p>From microscopic mould spores to <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus/">kilometres-long mycelium</a> under the forest floor, members of this distinct biological kingdom — neither plant nor animal — are incredible, and highly worthy of more attention.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An ant with fungal growths growing from its head and abdomen, on a green leaf" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512053/original/file-20230223-16-mssl7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">An ant infected with parasitic cordyceps fungus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>Most of us may not think about them beyond the mushroom slices on our pizza, but fungi figure prominently in our everyday lives. Do you eat bread? Thank <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/yeast-fungus">the fungus we call yeast</a>. Do you enjoy beer, wine or whisky? Raise a glass to your <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fmicroorganisms8081142">fungal friends responsible for the fermentation</a> that brings them to life.</p>
<p>Every time a round of antibiotics helps you recover from some form of infection, remember that <a href="https://www.acs.org/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/flemingpenicillin.html">a mould gave us the compounds that became penicillin</a> and its many derivatives.</p>
<p>Fungi are incredible chemists. They make many compounds that humans cannot easily replicate in the lab. Some make compounds that can affect behaviour. </p>
<p>Look at <a href="https://www.camh.ca/en/health-info/mental-illness-and-addiction-index/lsd">lysergic acid diethylamide</a>, commonly known as LSD, or “acid.” Its well-known psychedelic effects originate from a grain mould. Similarly, “magic” mushrooms are the source of <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/substance-use/controlled-illegal-drugs/magic-mushrooms.html">psilocybin</a>. LSD and magic mushrooms are both illegal recreational drugs but are also under study for their therapeutic value.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/albertas-new-policy-on-psychedelic-drug-treatment-for-mental-illness-will-canada-lead-the-psychedelic-renaissance-195061">Alberta’s new policy on psychedelic drug treatment for mental illness: Will Canada lead the psychedelic renaissance?</a>
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<h2>Fungal infections</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Pink flower-like blooms on translucent stems" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511900/original/file-20230223-2553-wdgm71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Microscopic image of the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CDC)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fungi also have an aggressive side. Apart from breaking down dead plants and animals, some forms attack living creatures, including humans. Whole pharmacy shelves are stocked with remedies for <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/hygiene/disease/athletes_foot.html">athlete’s foot</a>, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/diseases/candidiasis/index.html">yeast infections</a> and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/diseases/ringworm/treatment.html">jock itch</a>, all of them nasty fungal infections. Even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaad.2004.10.211">dandruff is caused by a fungus</a>.</p>
<p>Yet while we can access an array of medications to cure bacterial infections such as pneumonia and strep throat, there are only <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/fungal-infection/antifungal">four known compounds</a> available to rid ourselves of fungal infections. Three are available in the various over-the-counter powders, sprays and ointments we use to treat common fungal infections. </p>
<p>The fourth and newest class, echinocandins, is reserved for hospital settings, where the consequences of fungal infections can be deadly.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thewrightlab.com/">My team’s research lab</a> at McMaster is part of the university’s broader <a href="https://globalnexus.mcmaster.ca/">Global Nexus for Pandemics and Biological Threats</a>, and also works with the global research organization CIFAR’s <a href="https://cifar.ca/research-programs/fungal-kingdom/">Fungal Kingdom: Threats and Opportunities</a> program. </p>
<p>We are working to find ways to limit the potential harm humans face from fungal infections. We also seek to understand how we can use their abundant and as-yet barely tapped potential to make new antibiotics <a href="https://theconversation.com/antibiotic-resistant-infections-could-destroy-our-way-of-life-new-report-126670">before we lose the waning power of penicillin and its derivatives</a>.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/future-infectious-diseases-recent-history-shows-we-can-never-again-be-complacent-about-pathogens-177746">Future infectious diseases: Recent history shows we can never again be complacent about pathogens</a>
</strong>
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<h2>Fungi adapt and evolve</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Blue organisms growing from a translucent stalk" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512055/original/file-20230223-28-etvxfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Microscopic image of the fungal organism, Epidermophyton floccosum, which is a cause of infections such as athlete’s foot and jock itch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CDC/Libero Ajello)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I was first attracted to fungus research as a student about to begin my PhD studies about 35 years ago. At that time, <a href="https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/history/hiv-and-aids-timeline">HIV-AIDS was still emerging</a>, shutting down the immune systems of otherwise healthy people, leaving them vulnerable to opportunistic infections, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/infections/hiv-aids.html">including fungal infections</a>.</p>
<p>I wanted to understand more about how fungi worked.</p>
<p>Like bacteria and viruses, fungi are always evolving and adapting, <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/25-10-2022-who-releases-first-ever-list-of-health-threatening-fungi">finding ways to survive under hostile conditions</a>. We are seeing many forms of fungi adapting to live at ever-higher temperatures, including body temperature, which has long been humans’ first line of defence.</p>
<p>We are also seeing growing antimicrobial resistance among some causes of fungal infection, yeasts such as <a href="https://cifar.ca/cifarnews/2019/04/30/tackling-a-global-superbug/">Candida auris</a> and moulds such as <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/diseases/aspergillosis/index.html">Aspergillus</a>, both of which can be causes of in-hospital infections.</p>
<h2>Potential for a fungal pandemic</h2>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E5tSO9aR2Ds?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In the HBO Max drama ‘The Last of Us,’ a fungal infection turns its victims into fungus-sprouting zombies.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While <em>The Last of Us</em> is a strictly dramatic projection of what might happen in a deadly fungal outbreak, it is at least based, if not in reality, in logic.</p>
<p>Fungi are able to influence perceptions and behaviour through chemistry. Are they getting closer? You bet. Do they make zombies? Not that we know of, but the thought is darkly entertaining, and that keeps me watching.</p>
<p>The show does do an excellent service by reminding us that we need to adapt to stay ahead of the possibility of a fungal pandemic.</p>
<p>In the same way the movie <em><a href="https://mediashift.org/2017/04/reading-presidents-men-age-trump/">All The President’s Men</a></em> once inspired a generation of journalists, and <em><a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/10/the-paper-chase-at-40/">The Paper Chase</a></em> later channelled many eager students toward law school, I am hopeful that <em>The Last of Us</em> may trigger new interest in studying fungi.</p>
<p>The more minds we can focus on unlocking the true magic in mushrooms, the better off we’ll all be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gerry Wright receives funding for antifungal research from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canadian Institute for the Advanced Research and is a consultant for Kapoose Creek, a Canadian biotechnology firm.</span></em></p>While ‘The Last of Us’ is a dramatic projection of a deadly fungal outbreak, it is based, if not in reality, in logic. And it’s a reminder that fungal infections are growing more resistant.Gerry Wright, Professor of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1950612023-01-15T14:36:13Z2023-01-15T14:36:13ZAlberta’s new policy on psychedelic drug treatment for mental illness: Will Canada lead the psychedelic renaissance?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502616/original/file-20221223-30570-ki7ovk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C122%2C1901%2C1182&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Psychedelics are being held up as a potential solution to the growing need for mental health treatment. But, magic mushrooms are not magic bullets.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Peter Dejong)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/alberta-s-new-policy-on-psychedelic-drug-treatment-for-mental-illness--will-canada-lead-the-psychedelic-renaissance" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/psychedelics-alberta-regulations-united-conservative-party-government-ketamine-psilocybin-mdma-1.6622674">Patients in Alberta</a> will now be able to legally consider adding psychedelic-assisted therapy to the list of treatment options available for mental illnesses. </p>
<p>Alberta psychiatrists and policymakers suggest that they are getting ahead of the curve by creating regulations to ensure the safe use of these hallucinogenic substances in a therapeutically supported environment. As of Jan. 16, the option is available only through <a href="https://www.alberta.ca/psychedelic-drug-treatment-service-provider-licensing.aspx">registered and licensed</a> psychiatrists in the province. </p>
<p>Alberta’s new policy may set a precedent that moves Canadians one step closer to accepting psychedelics as medicinal substances, but historically these drugs were widely sought out for recreational and non-clinical purposes. And, if cannabis has taught us anything, medicalizing may simply be a short stop before decriminalizing and commercializing.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.camh.ca/en/health-info/mental-illness-and-addiction-index/hallucinogens">Psychedelic drugs</a> — including LSD, psilocybin (magic mushrooms), MDMA (ecstasy) and DMT (ayahuasca) — are criminalized substances in most jurisdictions around the world, but some people are suggesting it is time to re-imagine them as medicines. A few places are even <a href="https://bc.ctvnews.ca/stigma-against-psychedelics-could-fade-with-b-c-decriminalization-experts-say-1.6035470">considering decriminalizing psychedelics</a> altogether, claiming that naturally occurring plants like mushrooms, even “magic” ones, should not be subject to legal restrictions. </p>
<p>In the wake of cannabis reforms, it appears that psychedelics may be the next target in the dismantling of the war on drugs. Canada made bold strides internationally with its widespread <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/cannabis/">cannabis decriminalization</a>, but are Canadians ready to lead the psychedelic renaissance?</p>
<h2>Early psychedelic research</h2>
<p>There is some precedent for taking the lead. In the 1950s and ‘60s, an earlier generation of researchers pioneered the first wave of psychedelic science, including Canadian-based psychiatrists who <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/psychedelic-prophets-products-9780773555068.php">coined the word psychedelic</a> and made headlines for dramatic breakthroughs using <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkl039">LSD to treat alcoholism</a>. </p>
<p>Vancouver-based therapists also used LSD and psilocybin mushrooms to treat <a href="https://www.anvilpress.com/books/the-acid-room-the-psychedelic-trials-and-tribulations-of-hollywood-hospital">depression and homosexuality</a>. While homosexuality was considered both illegal and a mental disorder until later in the 1970s, psychedelic therapists pushed back against these labels as patients treated for same-sex attraction more often experienced feelings of acceptance — reactions that aligned this particular approach in Vancouver with the gay rights movement.</p>
<p>Despite positive reports of clinical benefits, by the end of the 1960s psychedelics had earned a reputation for recreational use and clinical abuse. And, there was good reason to draw these connections, as psychedelic drugs had moved from pharmaceutical experimentation into mainstream culture, and some researchers had <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mkultra">come under scrutiny for unethical practices</a>.</p>
<h2>Regulation and criminalization</h2>
<p>Most legal psychedelics ground to a halt in the 1970s with a set of regulatory prohibitions and cultural backlash. In public health reports since the 1970s, psychedelics have been described as objects of <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/Resolutions/resolution_1968-05-23_6.html">unethical research, recreational abuse and personal risk</a> including injury and even death.</p>
<p>Underground chemists and consumers tried to combat this image, suggesting that psychedelics provided intellectual and spiritual insights and <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-psychedelics-offer-artists-creative-boost">enhanced creativity</a>.</p>
<p>Most jurisdictions around the world criminalized psychedelics, whether for clinical research or personal experimentation. <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/20067845">Indigenous and non-western uses</a> of hallucinogenic plants of course stretch back even further in history, and these too <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/united-states-and-canada/north-american-indigenous-peoples/native-american-church">came under legal scrutiny</a> through a combination of colonial pressures to assimilate and a looming war on drugs that did not distinguish between religious practices and drug-seeking behaviours.</p>
<h2>The return of psychedelics</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Close-up view of long-stemmed mushrooms with reddish-brown caps" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503188/original/file-20230105-105030-6isavs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503188/original/file-20230105-105030-6isavs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503188/original/file-20230105-105030-6isavs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503188/original/file-20230105-105030-6isavs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503188/original/file-20230105-105030-6isavs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503188/original/file-20230105-105030-6isavs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503188/original/file-20230105-105030-6isavs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At the moment, the next generation of scientific research on psychedelics still lags behind the popular enthusiasm that has catapulted these substances into the mainstream.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Peter Dejong)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the last decade, regulations prohibiting psychedelics have started relaxing. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has designated breakthrough therapy status to <a href="https://maps.org/news/media/press-release-fda-grants-breakthrough-therapy-designation-for-mdma-assisted-psychotherapy-for-ptsd-agrees-on-special-protocol-assessment-for-phase-3-trials/">MDMA</a> and <a href="https://www.livescience.com/psilocybin-depression-breakthrough-therapy.html">psilocybin</a>, based on their performance in clinical trials with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and treatment-resistant depression, respectively. </p>
<p>Health Canada has provided exemptions for the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/some-doctors-therapists-get-health-canada-permission-to-use-magic-mushrooms-1.5834485">use of psilocybin for patients with end-of-life anxiety</a>, and has started approving suppliers and therapists interested in working with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. <a href="https://michener.ca/ce_course/fpp/">Training programs</a> for psychedelic therapists are popping up across Canada, perhaps anticipating a change in regulation and the current <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/canadian-health-care-professionals-request-psilocybin-for-training-1.5801538">lack of trained professionals</a> ready to deliver psychedelic medicine.</p>
<p>At the moment, the next generation of scientific research on psychedelics still lags behind the popular enthusiasm that has catapulted these substances into the mainstream. <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/the-unparalleled-greatest-feeling-or-risky-drug-inside-the-celebrity-loved-psychedelic-20220331-p5a9oa.html">Celebrity testimonials</a> and compelling <a href="https://open-foundation.org/hear-about-psychedelic-clinical-studies-from-the-perspective-of-patients/">patient accounts</a> are competing for our attention. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the growing burden of mental illness continues to <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/some-canadians-waiting-months-for-public-and-private-mental-health-services-1.6204350">overwhelm our health-care systems</a>. Psychedelics are being held up as a potential solution. But, magic mushrooms are not magic bullets.</p>
<h2>Beyond the medical marketplace</h2>
<p>Historically hallucinogenic substances have defied simple categorization as medicines, spiritual enhancers, toxins, sacred substances, rave drugs, etc. Whether or not Health Canada, or the province of Alberta, reclassifies psychedelics as a bona fide therapeutic option, these psychoactive substances will continue to attract consumers outside of clinical settings.</p>
<p>Canada has an opportunity to take the lead once more in this so-called psychedelic renaissance. But, it might be our chance to invest in more sustainable solutions to harm reduction and ways of including Indigenous perspectives, rather than racing to push psychedelics into the medical marketplace. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/hallucinogenic-plants-and-their-use-traditional-societies">Indigenous approaches to sacred plants</a> are not only about consuming substances, but involve preparation, intention and integration, often structured in ritualistic settings that are as much about spiritual health as physical or mental health. </p>
<p>This cosmology and approach does not easily fit under the Canada Health Act, nor is it obvious who should be responsible for regulating or administering rituals that sit outside of our health-care system. These differences in how we might imagine the value of psychedelics is an opportunity to rethink the place of Indigenous knowledge in health systems. </p>
<p>We are well positioned to take a sober approach to the psychedelic hype, which has been driven in large part by financial interests, and consider what aspects of the psychedelic experience we want to preserve. </p>
<p>Now may be a good time to reinvest in our public institutions to ensure that psychedelics don’t simply become another pharmaceutical option that profits private investors. Instead, we have an opportunity with psychedelics to rethink how a war on drugs has harmed individuals and communities and how we might want to build a better relationship with pharmaceuticals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195061/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erika Dyck receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
She is a board member of the US not-for-profit Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines.</span></em></p>Alberta’s new policy on psychedelic-assisted therapy for mental illness may set a precedent that moves Canadians one step closer to accepting psychedelics as medicinal substances.Erika Dyck, Professor and Canada Research Chair in the History of Health & Social Justice, University of SaskatchewanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1833202022-05-19T11:51:00Z2022-05-19T11:51:00ZPsychedelics: how they act on the brain to relieve depression<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464038/original/file-20220518-26-6h3enb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4026%2C2675&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The evidence is mounting for the effectiveness of psilocybin in treating depression.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/psilocybin-mushrooms-on-pink-bright-colorful-1922974532">Cannabis_Pic/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Up to 30% of people with depression <a href="https://www.psychiatrist.com/jcp/depression/identifying-difficult-treat-depression-differential/">don’t respond to treatment</a> with antidepressants. This may be down to differences in biology between patients and the fact that it often takes a long time to respond to the drugs – with some people giving up after a while. So there is an urgent need to expand the repertoire of drugs available to people with depression. </p>
<p>In recent years, attention has turned to psychedelics such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-trippy-drugs-to-therapeutic-aids-how-psychedelics-got-their-groove-back-154438">psilocybin</a>, the active compound in “magic mushrooms”. Despite a number of clinical trials showing that psilocybin can rapidly treat depression, including for <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269881116675512?url_ver=Z39.88-2003">cancer-related anxiety and depression</a>, little is known about how psilocybin actually works to relieve depression in the brain.</p>
<p>Now two recent studies, published in The New England Journal of Medicine and Nature Medicine, have shed some light on this mysterious process.</p>
<p>Psilocybin is a hallucinogen that changes the brain’s response to a chemical called serotonin. When broken down by the liver (into “psilocin”), it causes an altered state of consciousness and perception in users. </p>
<p>Previous studies, using functional MRI (fMRI) brain scanning, have shown that psilocybin seems to reduce activity in the <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1119598109">medial prefrontal cortex</a>, an area of the brain that helps regulate a number of cognitive functions, including attention, inhibitory control, habits and memory. The compound also decreases connections between this area and the posterior cingulate cortex, an area that may play a role in regulating memory and emotions.</p>
<p>An active connection between these two brain areas is normally a feature of the brain’s “<a href="https://neuroscientificallychallenged.com/posts/know-your-brain-default-mode-network">default mode network</a>”. This network is active when we rest and focus internally, perhaps reminiscing about the past, envisioning the future or thinking about ourselves or others. By reducing the activity of the network, psilocybin may well be removing the constraints of the internal “self” – with users reporting an “opened mind” with increased perception of the world around them.</p>
<p>Interestingly, rumination, a state of being “stuck” in negative thoughts, particularly about oneself, is a hallmark of depression. And we know that patients with higher levels of negative rumination tend to show <a href="https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(11)00133-8/fulltext">increased activity of the default mode network</a> compared with other networks at rest – literally becoming less responsive to the world around them. It remains to be seen, however, if the symptoms of depression cause this altered activity, or if those with a more active default mode network are more prone to depression. </p>
<h2>New results</h2>
<p>The most compelling evidence of how psilocybin works comes from a <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2032994">double-blind randomised controlled trial</a> (the gold-standard of clinical studies) that compared a group of depressed people taking psilocybin with those taking the existing antidepressant drug <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/escitalopram/">escitalopram</a> – something that’s never been done before. The trial was further analysed using fMRI brain scans, and the results were compared with other fMRI findings <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-13282-7">from another recent clinical trial</a>. </p>
<p>Just one day after the first dose of psilocybin, fMRI measures revealed an overall increase in connectivity between the brain’s various networks, which are <a href="https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/31/11/4867/6189777">typically reduced in those</a> with severe depression. The default mode network was simultaneously reduced, while connectivity between it and other networks was increased – backing up previous, smaller studies.</p>
<p>The dose increased connectivity more in some people than others. But the studies showed that the people who had the biggest boost in connection between networks also had the greatest improvement in their symptoms six months later.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Image of an MRI scan showing the default mode network." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464040/original/file-20220518-17-xv0p10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464040/original/file-20220518-17-xv0p10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464040/original/file-20220518-17-xv0p10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464040/original/file-20220518-17-xv0p10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464040/original/file-20220518-17-xv0p10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464040/original/file-20220518-17-xv0p10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464040/original/file-20220518-17-xv0p10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">MRI scan showing the default mode network.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">wikipedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The brains of people taking escitalopram, on the other hand, showed no change in connectivity between the default mode and other brain networks six weeks after treatment started. It is possible that escitalopram may bring about changes at a later time point. But the rapid onset of psilocybin’s antidepressant effect means it may be ideal for people who don’t respond to existing antidepressants.</p>
<p>The study proposes that the observed effect may be due to psilocybin having more concentrated action on receptors in the brain called “serotonergic 5-HT2A receptors” than escitalopram. These receptors are activated by serotonin and are active throughout network brain areas, including the default mode network. We already know that the level of binding by psilocybin to these receptors <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-019-0324-9">leads to psychedelic effects</a>. Exactly how their activation leads to changes in network connectivity is still to be explored though.</p>
<h2>The end of traditional antidepressants?</h2>
<p>This does raise the question of whether altered activity of the brain’s networks is required for treating depression. Many people taking traditional antidepressants still report an improvement in their symptoms without it. In fact, the study showed that, six weeks after commencing treatment, both groups reported improvement in their symptoms. </p>
<p>According to some depression rating scales, however, psilocybin had the greatest effect on overall mental wellbeing. And a greater proportion of patients treated with psilocybin showed a clinical response compared with those treated with escitalopram (70% versus 48%). More patients in the psilocybin group were also still in remission at six weeks (57% versus 28%). The fact that some patients still do not respond to psilocybin, or relapse after treatment, shows just how difficult it can be to treat depression.</p>
<p>What’s more, mental health professionals supported both treatment groups during and after the trial. The success of psilocybin is heavily <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269881118754710?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed">dependent on the environment in which it is taken</a>. This means it is a bad idea to use it for self-medicating. Also, patients were carefully selected for psilocybin-assisted therapy based on their history to avoid the risk of psychosis and other adverse effects. </p>
<p>Regardless of the caveats, these studies are incredibly promising and move us closer to expanding the available treatment options for patients with depression. What’s more, internalised negative thought processes are not specific to depression. In due course, other disorders, such as addiction or anxiety, may also benefit from psilocybin-assisted therapy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183320/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clare Tweedy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The active compound in magic mushrooms seems to increase connections between different brain networks.Clare Tweedy, Teaching Fellow in Neuroscience, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1504482021-01-24T18:52:06Z2021-01-24T18:52:06ZWill Australia legalise ecstasy and magic mushrooms to treat mental illness? Here’s why it’s still too soon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380101/original/file-20210122-17-1i8tm1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5742%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While the public focus remains on COVID vaccines, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) continues to evaluate <a href="https://www.tga.gov.au/consultation-invitation/consultation-proposed-amendments-poisons-standard-acms-accs-and-joint-acmsaccs-meetings-november-2020">a range of proposals</a> around the provision of medical treatments in Australia. </p>
<p>The regulatory body is currently considering whether psychiatrists should be allowed to prescribe MDMA and psilocybin to treat mental illness within the framework of scheduled medicines. The TGA <a href="https://www.tga.gov.au/scheduling-committees-meeting-dates-and-decisions-timeframes#y2020">will announce</a> its interim decision on February 3, and will make a final ruling on April 22.</p>
<p>Psychedelic drugs for the treatment of mental illness represent a promising area. And any new treatment which could help people suffering — particularly in the wake of the pandemic — may seem like a good thing.</p>
<p>But until Australia engages in further research into the therapeutic potential of these drugs, we believe it’s too soon to make them available as medicines. </p>
<h2>The application</h2>
<p>Increasing <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-019-05249-5">research evidence</a> suggests MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, could be an effective adjunct to psychotherapy for people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). </p>
<p>Meanwhile, clinical trials of psilocybin, the psychoactive component of magic mushrooms, show it could assist psychotherapy in the treatment of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032719309127">anxiety and depression</a>, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/dar.12544">addiction</a>, and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09540261.2018.1482261">a range of other mood disorders</a>.</p>
<p>On this basis, in July 2020, an organisation called Mind Medicine Australia made an application to the TGA requesting <a href="https://mindmedicineaustralia.org.au/tga/">MDMA and psilocybin</a> be classified as Schedule 8 controlled medicines. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Magic mushrooms." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380108/original/file-20210122-17-uivv7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380108/original/file-20210122-17-uivv7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380108/original/file-20210122-17-uivv7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380108/original/file-20210122-17-uivv7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380108/original/file-20210122-17-uivv7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380108/original/file-20210122-17-uivv7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380108/original/file-20210122-17-uivv7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Psilocybin, the psychoactive component of magic mushrooms, has shown promise as a treatment for a range of mood disorders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathon Carmichael</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>MDMA and psilocybin are currently classified as Schedule 9 prohibited drugs. Another example of a <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2020L01255">Schedule 9 drug</a> is heroin.</p>
<p>As Schedule 8 controlled medicines, MDMA and psilocybin would sit alongside <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2020L01255">drugs like</a> dexamphetamine, morphine and some forms of medical cannabis. Some of these and other Schedule 8 drugs such as ketamine and cocaine are used recreationally. </p>
<p>If the TGA reclassifies MDMA and psilocybin, Australia would be the first country in the world to recognise these drugs as legitimate medicines. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/psychedelics-to-treat-mental-illness-australian-researchers-are-giving-it-a-go-112952">Psychedelics to treat mental illness? Australian researchers are giving it a go</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Is Australia ready?</h2>
<p>Early research suggesting psychedelics <a href="https://maps.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5468#earlyresearchlsd">had therapeutic potential</a> lapsed after 1971, when the drugs were made illegal around the world. But it resumed early in the 2000s, manifesting into an international renaissance in psychedelic science. </p>
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<p>Australia was <a href="https://theconversation.com/shroom-to-grow-australias-missing-psychedelic-science-17344">a little later</a> to get involved than some countries, but in the past 18 months we’ve succeeded in <a href="https://theconversation.com/psychedelics-to-treat-mental-illness-australian-researchers-are-giving-it-a-go-112952">initiating clinical research</a> locally. </p>
<p>Edith Cowan University, Monash University, the University of Melbourne, and St Vincent’s hospitals in Melbourne and Sydney <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7077451/mdma-psychedelic-mushroom-studies-to-move-to-recruitment-phase/">all have research</a> on psychedelic-assisted therapies either in the pipeline or already underway. The trial at St Vincent’s hospital in Melbourne is the first to have started recruiting participants.</p>
<p>These trials aim both to contribute to the research happening globally, and to demonstrate that Australia has the regulatory processes, people and infrastructure to provide these treatments safely and effectively. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/weekly-dose-ecstasy-the-party-drug-that-could-be-used-to-treat-ptsd-55149">Weekly Dose: ecstasy, the party drug that could be used to treat PTSD</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>But we’re not there yet</h2>
<p>There are three key reasons why Australia is not yet ready for MDMA and psilocybin to be rescheduled as medicines by the TGA.</p>
<p><strong>1. No accredited training</strong> </p>
<p>Australia has very few health-care professionals trained to provide psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. These drugs produce powerful changes in consciousness that <a href="https://www.ranzcp.org/files/resources/college_statements/clinical_memoranda/cm-therapeutic-use-of-psychedelics.aspx">could lead to psychological harm</a>, rather than healing, when given to unsuitable patients, or by health-care workers without the necessary training.</p>
<p><strong>2. Prohibitive costs</strong></p>
<p>Medical cannabis is only legally available in pharmaceutical formulations — the actual plant is not available as a medicine. This makes medical cannabis expensive. Only <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/108d1761-b523-492b-81cc-a09db6740e85/aihw-phe-270-Chapter6-Medicinal-cannabis.pdf.aspx">3.9% of Australians</a> using cannabis for medical reasons access it legally. We expect pharmaceutical-grade MDMA and psilocybin will also be expensive to access. </p>
<p><strong>3. Going underground</strong></p>
<p>Like medical cannabis, we’re concerned that lack of access and prohibitive costs will mean more people will access existing <a href="https://video.vice.com/en_au/video/psychedelic-psychotherapy-using-lsd-mdma-and-psilocybin-to-treat-mental-health-1-408/5c513491be4077144c5572e1">unregulated MDMA and psilocybin treatment services</a>. This puts people at risk, since there’s no quality control of either the drugs or the therapists.</p>
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</figure>
<p>Should these issues arise, our efforts over recent years to finally establish psychedelic medicine in Australia could be undone.</p>
<h2>What will the TGA decide?</h2>
<p>Given these concerns, we believe it’s highly unlikely the TGA will decide to reschedule MDMA and psilocybin as medicines at this stage. </p>
<p>And while emerging evidence is continuing to suggest these drugs can be <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-019-05249-5">effective adjuncts to psychotherapy</a>, we believe the application was made without sufficient regard to the universally accepted process of new drug approval. </p>
<p>We need to see Phase 3 clinical trials completed before any informed decisions can be made (the trials in Australia have not yet reached Phase 3). This approval process is important so we know the drugs are effective and safe, including understanding any side effects.</p>
<p>By way of comparison, we know Pfizer wouldn’t apply for TGA approval for a new antidepressant before completing Phase 3 research. Even the COVID-19 vaccines Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna are fast-tracking internationally have been required to complete stringent, widely scrutinised Phase 3 trials.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-will-covid-19-vaccines-be-approved-for-use-in-australia-153640">How will COVID-19 vaccines be approved for use in Australia?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Where to from here?</h2>
<p>Current and future Australian research in this space will offer a crucial pathway for therapists to learn how to provide psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. This is an important step before Australia is ready for MDMA and psilocybin to be approved as medicines.</p>
<p>Moving forward, we anticipate Australian health-care professional <a href="https://www.ahpra.gov.au/">registration boards</a> will come to acknowledge psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy as a speciality area of training, and will need to develop accredited training programs to meet the demand for appropriately qualified therapists.</p>
<p>Notably, none of the current research into psychedelic-assisted treatments for mental illness in Australia is receiving government funding. Government support will be important to extend this research beyond the early-phase trials, and ultimately will be crucial for the widespread rollout of this treatment. </p>
<p>Finally, to ensure equitable access, psychedelic-assisted therapies will need to be embedded within the public health-care system and supported by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.</p>
<p>Our submission to the TGA, along with others, will be made public on February 3, when the TGA announces its interim decision on the rescheduling of psilocybin and MDMA.</p>
<p><em>Correction: this article has been corrected to remove reference to methamphetamine as a Schedule 9 drug. It is a Schedule 8 drug under the Poisons Standard.</em></p>
<p><em>The text has also been amended to clarify that it is currently possible for psychiatrists in some states and territories to prescribe MDMA and psilocybin under the Special Access Scheme-B. Applications under this scheme are evaluated on a case-by-case basis.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150448/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Bright is a Director of the DGR-1 charity, Psychedelic Research in Science & Medicine Ltd (PRISM). Stephen Bright has had no formal association with Mind Medicine Australia, except through its allocated funding of PRISM's support of clinical research at St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Williams is Executive Director of the DGR-1 charity, Psychedelic Research in Science & Medicine Ltd (PRISM), and receives fellowship funding from the Vasudhara Foundation. Martin Williams previously consulted to Mind Medicine Australia (MMA) as Scientific Officer, from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020. PRISM received tax-deductible donations from MMA in March and November 2019, allocated entirely to the first year of the St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne clinical trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy for anxiety and depression associated with terminal illness. Martin Williams resigned from the role of Scientific Officer with MMA on 4 April 2020, and PRISM terminated its arrangement with MMA on 4 September 2020.</span></em></p>The TGA is currently evaluating a proposal to legalise MDMA and psilocybin for the treatment of mental illness. But there are a few reasons Australia isn’t quite ready to take this step.Stephen Bright, Senior Lecturer of Addiction, Edith Cowan UniversityMartin Williams, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1306682020-11-27T10:51:29Z2020-11-27T10:51:29ZLiberty cap: the surprising tale of how Europe’s magic mushroom got its name<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369097/original/file-20201112-21-1ymfwzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/psychedelic-mushroom-hand-412607932">Yellow_cat/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s autumn, the best season for mushroom pickers. And mushrooms – specifically magic ones – are in the spotlight. A <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40263-020-00748-y">growing body</a> of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31931272/">research</a> is showing that psilocybin, the main psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms, has potential in treating psychological disorders like <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31931272/">depression</a>, <a href="https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/news-and-analysis/feature/psychedelics-entering-a-new-age-of-addiction-therapy/20066899.article?firstPass=false">addiction</a> and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32170326/">PTSD</a>. The state of Oregon just voted to <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/09/oregon-just-voted-to-legalise-magic-mushrooms-13561453/">legalise</a> the mushrooms for therapeutic use – a US first.</p>
<p>Of the nearly 200 species of psychedelic mushrooms that have been identified worldwide, only one – <em>Psilocybe semilanceata</em> – grows in any abundance in northern Europe. Like many mushrooms, <em>Psilocybe semilanceata</em> is generally known not by its scientific designation, but by its common or folk name, the “liberty cap” mushroom.</p>
<p>For years, this bothered me. As a Roman historian, I know the liberty cap (the <em>pileus</em>, in Latin) as a hat given to a Roman slave on the occasion of their being freed. It was a conical felt cap, shaped like that of a smurf, and which undeniably bears a clear resemblance to <em>Psilocybe semilanceata</em>’s distinctive pointy cap. </p>
<p>But how on earth did an obscure Roman social practice end up lending its name to a modern psychedelic? As <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0015587X.2016.1155371">I soon discovered</a>, the answer takes us through an assassination, a number of revolutions, a bit of poetry, a dash of xenophobia, and a very unusual scientific discovery.</p>
<p>The original liberty cap was an actual hat, worn by freed slaves in the Roman world to mark their status: no longer property, but never truly “free”, tainted by their history. For the freedman, it was a symbol both of pride and shame. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A silver coin bearing the words 'EID MAR' and a hat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369101/original/file-20201112-19-191u8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369101/original/file-20201112-19-191u8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369101/original/file-20201112-19-191u8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369101/original/file-20201112-19-191u8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369101/original/file-20201112-19-191u8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369101/original/file-20201112-19-191u8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369101/original/file-20201112-19-191u8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brutus’s Eid Mar coin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eid_Mar.jpg#/media/File:Eid_Mar.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But in the year 44 BC, the hat gained a new cultural currency after Julius Caesar was famously murdered on the Ides of March (March 15). To advertise his part in the deed, Marcus Junius Brutus (of “<em>et tu, Brute</em>” fame) minted coins, the obverse of which bore the legend EID MAR beneath a pair of daggers and the distinctive liberty cap. Brutus’s meaning was clear: Rome herself had been freed from Caesar’s tyranny.</p>
<p>Brutus’s use of this symbol translated it from a low status social marker into an elite political symbol, and one that enjoyed a considerably longer life than the short-lived Brutus himself. Throughout the remainder of the Roman period the goddess <em>Libertas</em> and the liberty cap were a commonly employed shorthand by emperors keen to stress the freedom that their absolute rule bought.</p>
<h2>Caps of revolution</h2>
<p>With the collapse of Roman power in Europe in the fifth century AD, the liberty cap was forgotten. But then, during the 16th century, as interest in and explicit emulation of Roman antiquity began to spread through the countries of Europe, the liberty cap again reached public consciousness.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Three men, one with a drum, wearing red caps." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369102/original/file-20201112-23-tf3zk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369102/original/file-20201112-23-tf3zk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369102/original/file-20201112-23-tf3zk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369102/original/file-20201112-23-tf3zk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369102/original/file-20201112-23-tf3zk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369102/original/file-20201112-23-tf3zk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369102/original/file-20201112-23-tf3zk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">French revolutionaries wearing bonnets rouges.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrygian_cap#/media/File:Sansculottes.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Books like Cesare Ripa’s <em>Iconologia</em> (1593) described the hat and its symbolism for educated audiences, and it again began to be used as a political symbol. When the Dutch drove the Spanish from Holland in 1577, coins bearing the liberty cap were minted, and William of Orange likewise minted liberty cap coins to commemorate his bloodless seizure of the English throne in 1688.</p>
<p>But it was in two of the great republican revolutions of the 18th century – the French and American revolutions – that it became a truly popular icon. Now blended with the visual form of the ancient <a href="https://academic.oup.com/fh/article-abstract/11/2/131/520339?redirectedFrom=fulltext">Phrygian cap</a>, the liberty cap (<em>bonnet rougue</em> in French) appeared no longer merely as a representational device but as an actual item of headwear or decoration.</p>
<p>In France, on June 20 1790, an armed mob stormed the royal apartments in the Tuileries and forced Louis XVI (later to be executed by the revolutionaries) to don the liberty cap. In America, revolutionary groups declared their rebellion against British rule by raising a liberty cap upon a pole in the public squares of their towns. In 1781 a medal, designed by no less than Benjamin Franklin to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, <em>Libertas Americana</em> (the personification of American Liberty) is depicted with wild, free flowing hair, the pole and cap of liberty slung across her shoulder.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369103/original/file-20201112-17-tu983q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Silver coin depicting liberty as a woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369103/original/file-20201112-17-tu983q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369103/original/file-20201112-17-tu983q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369103/original/file-20201112-17-tu983q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369103/original/file-20201112-17-tu983q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369103/original/file-20201112-17-tu983q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369103/original/file-20201112-17-tu983q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369103/original/file-20201112-17-tu983q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1783 Libertas Americana medal, designed by Benjamin Franklin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrygian_cap#/media/File:Libertas_Americana_silver_medallion_1783.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From headwear to fungi</h2>
<p>The revolutions of France and America were viewed with considerable disquiet from Britain. But the pole and cap of liberty clearly made an impact on a young poet by the name of James Woodhouse, whose 1803 poem, “Autumn and the Redbreast, an Ode”, paid a striking tribute to the varied beauty of mushrooms:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Whose tapering stems, robust, or light,<br>
Like columns catch the searching sight,<br>
To claim remark where e’er I roam;<br>
Supporting each a shapely dome;<br>
Like fair umbrellas, furl’d, or spread,<br>
Display their many-colour’d head;<br>
Grey, purple, yellow, white, or brown,<br>
Shap’d like War’s shield, or Prelate’s crown—<br>
Like Freedom’s cap, or Friar’s cowl,<br>
Or China’s bright inverted bowl </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This seems to be the first ever connection of the physical cap of liberty and the distinctive pixie cap of the mushroom. It was clearly not used because it was an established name (note his inventive imagery with the other shapes he describes), but rather coined by Woodhouse as a poetic flourish. </p>
<p>This metaphor caught the attention of a famous reader, Robert Southey, who had reviewed the volume in which the poem appeared in 1804. In 1812, Southey, along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Omniana.html?id=UEkPAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">Omniana</a>, a two volume collection of table talk and miscellaneous musings intended to educated and inform the would-be conversationalist. Nestled in among attacks upon Catholic traditions and notes upon early English metre was the following observation on the “Cap of Liberty”: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is a common fungus, which so exactly represents the pole and cap of liberty, that it seems offered by nature herself as the appropriate emblem of Gallic republicanism, — mushroom patriots, with a mushroom cap of liberty.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Neither Woodhouse nor Southey and Coleridge identified the precise mushroom they had in mind with the cap of liberty metaphor. But as the discipline of mycology – the study of fungi – began to cement itself in the 19th century, a field driven by precisely the kind of gentleman scholars that would have kept a copy of Omniana on their shelves, the name was clearly and universally associated with <em>Psilocybe semilanceata</em>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Little brown mushrooms growing in grass." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369095/original/file-20201112-15-wyyuzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369095/original/file-20201112-15-wyyuzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369095/original/file-20201112-15-wyyuzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369095/original/file-20201112-15-wyyuzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369095/original/file-20201112-15-wyyuzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369095/original/file-20201112-15-wyyuzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369095/original/file-20201112-15-wyyuzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Psilocybe semilanceata – or liberty caps – growing in the wild.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/liberty-caps-known-magic-mushrooms-growing-1827325079">JoeEJ/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At that time, this was an utterly obscure and unremarkable little mushroom below the notice of any but devoted mycologists. As common names for mushrooms began to be included in mycological handbooks, <em>Psilocybe semilanceata</em> was routinely identified as the liberty cap. </p>
<p>Perhaps the earliest such example was in Mordecai Cooke’s 1871 Handbook of British Fungi. In 1894, Cooke published his Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms, which tellingly referred to <em>Psilocybe semilanceata</em>, within quotation marks, as “cap of liberty”, exactly the phrasing used by Coleridge, whom it would appear that Cooke was consciously quoting. By the 20th century, the name was firmly established.</p>
<h2>A mushroom becomes magic</h2>
<p>The story could, perhaps, end there, but it has a delightful coda, in which the liberty cap mushroom was propelled from total obscurity as merely one of literally hundreds of innocuous LBMs (little brown mushrooms) known only by scientific specialists to perhaps one of the best known members of Europe’s mycological fauna. </p>
<p>Throughout the literature written by Europeans on the customs and religions of the peoples of Central America, there existed rumours of a magical food that the Aztecs called <em>teonanácatl</em> (“the divine mushroom”). These rumours had long been discounted as superstitious mythologising, no more deserving of serious consideration than the shapeshifters of Norse and Icelandic saga. But in the early part of the 20th century, the divine mushroom captured the imagination of seemingly the most unlikely man on the planet, Robert Gordon Wasson, the vice president of the Wall Street banking firm JP Morgan.</p>
<p>Since the 1920s, Wasson had been obsessed with ethnomycology (the study of human cultural interactions with mushrooms). In the course of research that would lead to a voluminous bibliography, Wasson travelled to Mexico and there, after a long and frustrating search, finally found a woman who was willing to initiate him in the secrets of the sacred mushroom. He became (perhaps) the first white man to intentionally ingest a hallucinogenic fungus and published his experience in a 1957 Life article, “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeking_the_Magic_Mushroom">Seeking the Magic Mushroom</a>”.</p>
<p>Wasson’s discovery was a sensation. In 1958 a team led by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann – the man who first synthesised (and ingested) LSD – was able to isolate the main psychoactive compound in the mushrooms, which was named psilocybin as a nod to the fact that it was primarily mushrooms of the genus <em>Psilocybe</em> that possessed the chemical. Though species of the hallucinogen fungi were most concentrated in Central America, they began to be found worldwide. In 1969, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0007153669800665">an article</a> in <em>Transactions of the British Mycological Society</em> established that none other than the innocuous little liberty cap contained psilocybin.</p>
<p>Though there are other psychedelic species that grow in Britain (including the distinctive red and white <em>Amanita muscaria</em> – <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/fungi-and-lichens/fly-agaric/">fly agaric</a> – which contains muscimol not psilocybin), the liberty cap has secured a reputation as the poster-child for Britain’s domestically growing psychedelic fungi. Modern “shroomers” can’t resist punning on the liberty cap name – with its associations to the transcendental “liberation” afforded by psychedelics – and grassroots organisations such as the Shroom Liberation Front attest to this fact. </p>
<p>But in origin, the liberty cap’s name has nothing to do with psychologist and psychedelic drug advocate Timothy Leary (“turn on, tune in, drop out”) or the 1960s counter culture. Rather – and somewhat improbably – it traces a path back through the political revolutions of the early modern period, via the murder of the tyrant Julius Caesar, to a conical cap worn by Rome’s former slaves.</p>
<p>To place the cap on their heads was a sign of their liberation. To pluck the modern liberty cap from the ground could see you spending a cool <a href="https://www.drugwise.org.uk/magic-mushrooms/">seven years</a> in jail.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130668/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrastos Omissi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How on earth did an obscure Roman social practice end up lending its name to a modern psychedelic?Adrastos Omissi, Lecturer in Latin Literature, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1358922020-05-18T11:12:40Z2020-05-18T11:12:40ZPsychedelic experiences disrupt routine thinking — and so has the coronavirus pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336161/original/file-20200519-152327-15sprbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=354%2C84%2C5279%2C3666&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Leaving predictability and entering into uncertainty is a threshold to transformation.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fearghal Kelly/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the widespread disruption of our usual routines. The ambiguity of when it will end, how things will unfold and what will happen in the future has resulted in a collective liminal state, a kind of a waiting area on the threshold of change. </p>
<p>COVID-19 has undermined our <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-coronavirus-pandemic-has-revealed-how-fragile-everyday-life-is-134637">usual expectations and assumptions</a>. Evidence from my work on how our brains react to psychedelics tell me the transient anxiety — which occurs when expectations collapse — may yield benefits. To gain the benefits, we must be intentional in the viewing of this era as a transformational opportunity. </p>
<p>I have looked at how medium-to-high doses of psychedelics can help reset the brain, shaking it out of old patterns. I wonder if our current state of uncertainty could have similar impacts on the brain — a metaphorical psychedelic dose — for new insights, values clarification and a collective reset. </p>
<h2>The brain is a prediction machine</h2>
<p>A recent study shows experiences with psychedelics such as psilocybin (also known as magic mushrooms) can have <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00020">disruptive impacts on our brains</a>. Neuroimaging of the brain on psychedelics have revealed a state of chaos, or entropy and a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2063-13.2013">loss of synchronization of brain waves</a>.</p>
<p>Entropy is a measure of uncertainty and randomness or disorder. British neuroscientist Karl Friston defines entropy as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2787">a measure of uncertainty, the “average surprise.”</a> Low entropy means, on average, that outcomes are relatively predictable. </p>
<p>In Friston’s view, the brain is a prediction machine. We construct the future from the past. We make predictive inferences (conscious and unconscious) to conserve energy and simplify the interpretation of a continuous input of stimuli. </p>
<p>We gain mastery, but at the expense of novelty. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331869/original/file-20200430-42951-1hcluou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=133%2C58%2C3748%2C2508&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331869/original/file-20200430-42951-1hcluou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331869/original/file-20200430-42951-1hcluou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331869/original/file-20200430-42951-1hcluou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331869/original/file-20200430-42951-1hcluou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331869/original/file-20200430-42951-1hcluou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331869/original/file-20200430-42951-1hcluou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We construct the future from the past.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Disrupting the patterns</h2>
<p>Poor mental health often revolves around excessive rumination and repetition. Rumination is rigid, repetitive and negative thinking characterized by low entropy. </p>
<p>In 1949, McGill University psychologist Donald Hebb <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/h0087296">predicted much of what modern neuroscience would go on to prove with neuroimaging technologies</a>. Hebbs’ postulate — that the neurons that fire together, wire together — provides a summary of the way synaptic pathways bond and are reinforced by repetition. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333189/original/file-20200506-49546-1n1vkmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333189/original/file-20200506-49546-1n1vkmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333189/original/file-20200506-49546-1n1vkmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333189/original/file-20200506-49546-1n1vkmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333189/original/file-20200506-49546-1n1vkmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333189/original/file-20200506-49546-1n1vkmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333189/original/file-20200506-49546-1n1vkmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333189/original/file-20200506-49546-1n1vkmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sign that reads ‘Magic Mushrooms’ from the Smart-Zone in Amsterdam, Netherlands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marcus Loke/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This repetition and rumination robs the mind of flexibility, especially when attached to memories with heightened (positive or negative) emotional resonance. Repetition-habituated brains marinate in a soup of low novelty and lack of surprise, forecasting tomorrow to be much the same as today.</p>
<p>Psychedelics disrupt our repetitive or ruminative ways of thinking and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/cpt.557">rewire brain communication patterns</a>. The result is often an altered state of consciousness marked by transient confusion, followed by a high probability of novel, meaningful and possibly even mystical experiences. </p>
<p>When the rigid, top-down control of the ego is loosened, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00020">anarchy of the creative unconscious blooms</a>.</p>
<h2>How psychedelics can help</h2>
<p>Our research group at Queen’s University recently completed a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.04.19013896">review of existing studies on psilocybin-assisted therapy</a>. From over 2,000 records, we found nine completed clinical trials with a total of 169 participants.</p>
<p>Overall, the trials showed that most subjects safely tolerated these interventions and showed improved mental health. However, some experienced transient distress and post-treatment headaches. The trend suggests positive outcomes in various conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction, depression, psychological distress associated with life-threatening cancers and demoralization among long-term AIDS survivors. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333193/original/file-20200506-49542-15xnwra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333193/original/file-20200506-49542-15xnwra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333193/original/file-20200506-49542-15xnwra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333193/original/file-20200506-49542-15xnwra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333193/original/file-20200506-49542-15xnwra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333193/original/file-20200506-49542-15xnwra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333193/original/file-20200506-49542-15xnwra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Psychedelics, like COVID-19, can disrupt our repetitive or ruminative ways of thinking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Adam Nieścioruk/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In short, although psychedelics can be accompanied by known adverse experiences, trials seem to indicate that psilocybin is relatively safe (with the right supports and in a supportive setting) and has a marked ability to interrupt psychopathologies.</p>
<p>To ensure safety and support, the majority of psilocybin trials used the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167816673493">PSI model (preparation, session, integration)</a> with multiple moderate-to-high-doses sessions happening in the company of trained therapists. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167817706884">Participants report experiences</a> of transient anxiety, distress and confusion, states of joy, interconnectedness, catharsis, forgiveness and wisdom experiences. In contrast to talk therapy, psychedelic sessions are experiential, meaning that we experience changed ways of both seeing and being in the world. </p>
<h2>Being OK with uncertainty</h2>
<p>Mystical experiences have been reported both <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-011-2358-5">by clinical trial subjects</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881116662634">by recreational psilocybin users</a>. Mysticism can be thought of as an experience of absorption, a dissolution of separateness and a sense of deep connection. Absorption is the opposite of rumination. </p>
<p>Rumination carries you away on an eddy of self-referential and self-containing thoughts, while when experiencing absorption, you leave behind your narrow sense of self, experiencing something greater that is both inside and outside of you. </p>
<p>The psychedelic experience is a classic <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/21533369.2013.851843">hero’s journey</a>. The hero leaves the comforts of home, faces disruption and challenges to their previous way of thinking and being, has profound and transformative experiences, and returns a changed person. </p>
<p>Leaving predictability and entering into uncertainty is a threshold to transformation. </p>
<h2>When predictions fail, opportunities are born</h2>
<p>In one study, psilocybin trial subjects reported <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167817709585">feeling more deeply connected</a>, open and relational as a result of their entropic, and often difficult, psychedelic experiences. In another study, they have been found to hold <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881117748902">less authoritarian political views and be more in touch with nature</a>.</p>
<p>Participants in collective psychedelic rituals commonly experience feelings of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/002076407101700402">deep bond, kinship and even telepathy with other participants</a>. I believe we may be in a similar moment during COVID-19. </p>
<p>COVID-19 has disrupted the normative habits of society. It has forced the economic machine to pause. It has forced many to reevaluate practices and priorities. In some cases, I believe it is dissolving our normal sense of human separateness (even though we are physically distanced). </p>
<p>Perhaps, like the liminal psychedelic state, the uncertainty in which we find ourselves in this moment will lead to more visions of what can be. </p>
<p>The future does not have to remain in the past. </p>
<p>Those of us with the luxury of space and time have an opportunity to reset, unbind our minds, quit repeating old patterns, experience anew what life can hold and to do better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ron Shore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Psychedelics can help reset the brain, shaking it out of old patterns. The current state of uncertainty could have similar impacts - a metaphorical psychedelic dose - for new insights.Ron Shore, PhD Student & Teaching Fellow, School of Kinesiology and Health Studies, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1202792019-07-16T22:01:06Z2019-07-16T22:01:06Z‘Microdosers’ of psychedelics report improved mood, focus and creativity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283779/original/file-20190711-173342-ealfbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=167%2C16%2C5142%2C3296&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Participants in a new research study also reported that microdosing psychedelics made them more confident, motivated and productive.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Microdosing psychedelics is a growing trend that involves ingesting very small sub-hallucinogenic amounts of substances <a href="https://www.camh.ca/en/health-info/mental-illness-and-addiction-index/lsd">like LSD</a> or dried <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/10/magic-mushrooms-treatment-depression-aztecs-psilocybin-mental-health-medicine">psilocybin-containing mushrooms</a>.</p>
<p>We ran a large-scale, <a href="https://cos.io/prereg/">pre-registered</a> global research study asking participants to report what they like and dislike about microdosing.</p>
<p>The three most commonly reported benefits were: <a href="https://rdcu.be/bJAJZ">improved mood, increased focus and enhanced creativity</a>.</p>
<p>The three most common challenges were: illegality (by a wide margin), physiological discomfort and “other concerns” such as the unknown risk profile of microdosing and forgetting to take a regular dose.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ketamine-the-illicit-party-psychedelic-that-promises-to-heal-depression-115697">Ketamine: The illicit party psychedelic that promises to heal depression</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What does microdosing involve?</h2>
<p>When people microdose, they normally consume about a tenth of a recreational dose of a psychedelic substance, although doses vary between people. The dose is sub-hallucinogenic; people who microdose aren’t “tripping.” Microdosers go about their daily lives, many taking care of children or working in offices, expecting a little boost.</p>
<p>Although we don’t know what microdosing does (if anything), it is a growing trend. Some <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/man-giving-how-to-microdose-lsd-psychedelic-drugs-online-tutorial-2017-10">Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are becoming microdosing coaches</a>, touting the purported benefits of microdosing. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283780/original/file-20190711-173338-by34lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283780/original/file-20190711-173338-by34lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283780/original/file-20190711-173338-by34lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283780/original/file-20190711-173338-by34lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283780/original/file-20190711-173338-by34lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283780/original/file-20190711-173338-by34lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283780/original/file-20190711-173338-by34lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The illegal nature of psychedelics in most jurisdictions was the biggest concern for research participants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A small scientific community has also started <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-018-5049-7">asking pre-defined questions about what microdosing may do</a>, but we figured we’d ask people what they experience, from the ground up.</p>
<p>We recruited 909 participants from all over the world <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/microdosing/">using forums like r/microdosing</a>. In one section of our survey, 278 participants told us about the three main benefits of microdosing for them, and the three main challenges they had to cope with.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-cure-brain-diseases-neuroscientists-must-collaborate-thats-why-im-giving-my-data-away-118672">To cure brain diseases, neuroscientists must collaborate: That's why I'm giving my data away</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>If you’re curious to see everything that people reported, <a href="https://rdcu.be/bJAJZ">our paper is available here</a>. We are making the data available publicly, at no cost, as part of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/opening-up-the-future-of-psychedelic-science-101303">commitment to Open Science</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283782/original/file-20190711-173334-1uu70oe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283782/original/file-20190711-173334-1uu70oe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283782/original/file-20190711-173334-1uu70oe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283782/original/file-20190711-173334-1uu70oe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283782/original/file-20190711-173334-1uu70oe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283782/original/file-20190711-173334-1uu70oe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283782/original/file-20190711-173334-1uu70oe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283782/original/file-20190711-173334-1uu70oe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Categories of microdosing benefits and challenges from the published paper. These data indicate reported outcomes, not confirmed effects.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>More confident, motivated and productive</h2>
<p>The benefits our participants reported <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/microdosing/wiki/effects-interactions">mostly match what people have been reporting anecdotally</a>. They said microdosing helped with mood, focus, creativity, self-efficacy, energy and more. </p>
<p>These findings, like creativity, square well with <a href="https://theconversation.com/microdosers-of-lsd-and-magic-mushrooms-are-wiser-and-more-creative-101302">our previous research</a>.</p>
<p>Our approach was to take individual reports and classify them into categories. This way we got an idea of how common each of these reports was, helping us guide future research down the most promising avenues.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283783/original/file-20190711-173366-9d4mgi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283783/original/file-20190711-173366-9d4mgi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283783/original/file-20190711-173366-9d4mgi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283783/original/file-20190711-173366-9d4mgi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283783/original/file-20190711-173366-9d4mgi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283783/original/file-20190711-173366-9d4mgi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283783/original/file-20190711-173366-9d4mgi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283783/original/file-20190711-173366-9d4mgi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Difference in raw count of reported benefits and challenges. Positive values indicate greater endorsement of benefits; negative values reflect greater endorsement of challenges. Differences, regardless of magnitude, should be thought of as preliminary.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, the most commonly reported benefit was improved mood (26.6 per cent of people) making mood the highest-potential area for future research to focus on. Creativity is another obvious area.</p>
<p>Perhaps less intuitive is that many people reported microdosing made them more confident, motivated and productive, so this also seems worth researching.</p>
<p>In contrast, only 4.2 per cent of people mentioned reduced anxiety and several people reported increased anxiety, so studying microdosing for anxiety reduction seems less promising.</p>
<p>These data indicate perceived outcomes and do not indicate confirmed effects.</p>
<h2>Headaches, gastrointestinal issues, insomnia</h2>
<p>The most common challenge was illegality and this was mentioned in almost a third of reports. In our coding of responses, illegality involved having to deal with the black market, social stigma around using illegal substances and difficulty with dose accuracy and purity. </p>
<p>(Microdosers should always <a href="https://testkitplus.com/">test their dose</a>: you never know <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/drug-testing-kits-can-help-prevent-deaths-advocates-1.2745446">what you get when you’re buying unregulated substances</a>.)</p>
<p>This challenge is not due to microdosing itself so much as social policy and norms. As research on psychedelics grows, these <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/denver-decriminalizes-magic-mushrooms-psilocybin-834249/">substances may eventually be decriminalized</a> or legalized, which could dispel the most common challenge reported in our sample.</p>
<p>Next up was physiological discomfort: in 18 per cent of reports, participants described headaches, gastrointestinal issues, insomnia and other unwanted side-effects of microdosing.</p>
<p>Research should examine these possible side effects and consider how they compare to the profiles of the <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/antidepressant-side-effects#ssr-is">many legal substances available, such as anti-depressants, which also cause side effects</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283786/original/file-20190711-173342-3f0sza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283786/original/file-20190711-173342-3f0sza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283786/original/file-20190711-173342-3f0sza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283786/original/file-20190711-173342-3f0sza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283786/original/file-20190711-173342-3f0sza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283786/original/file-20190711-173342-3f0sza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283786/original/file-20190711-173342-3f0sza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283786/original/file-20190711-173342-3f0sza.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Participants also reported improved mood and reduced substance use on a pre-defined measure. Anxiety refers here to improvements in anxiety-related experiences, not to increased experience of anxiety.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Participants also mentioned other concerns, such as not knowing whether there could be harmful interactions between psychedelics and other medications, and lack of research evidence about the long-term effects of microdosing.</p>
<h2>What’s next for microdosing research?</h2>
<p>It is possible that microdosing psychedelics was unrelated to many of the benefits and challenges participants reported. People often feel better or worse even when taking totally inert substances, like sugar pills. This is <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect">commonly known as the placebo effect</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/280574.php">Randomized placebo-controlled trials</a> are required to determine what the true outcomes of microdosing are, which is why we’re planning to run one soon.</p>
<p>Our results suggest that microdosers get a lot out of their use of psychedelics, while negative reports mostly focus on social and physiological concerns. Overall, participants reported less challenges than benefits, and they reported that the benefits were more important than the challenges.</p>
<p>There are still more unknowns than knowns when it comes to microdosing: does microdosing cause any of these effects, or is it all placebo? Could there be long-term negative consequences to microdosing? Are certain people more likely to experience specific benefits or challenges?</p>
<p>This study creates a road map for researchers to follow. We encourage researchers to test whether these benefits and challenges occur in a lab setting, as we will be doing in the coming months and years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a new research study, more than 900 people from around the world explain the challenges and benefits of microdosing LSD and psilocybin-containing mushrooms.Rotem Petranker, PhD student in Clinical Psychology, York University, CanadaThomas Anderson, PhD student in Congnitive Neuroscience, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1150332019-04-11T22:58:02Z2019-04-11T22:58:02ZDiscovering hallucinogenic mushrooms in Mexico<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267878/original/file-20190405-180052-k1d61m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=147%2C0%2C1685%2C873&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fresco depicting the healer María Sabina with her mushrooms. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">DR</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Before being qualified as “magic” and becoming the global phenomenon they are today, certain mushrooms were considered as sacred by the Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico. In the Nahuatl language the word <em>teonanacatl</em>, literally means <a href="http://entheology.com/plants/psilocybe-mexicana-teonanacatl/">“the flesh of God”</a>. In the 16th century, with the conquest of Mexico and its colonisation by the Spaniards, the evangelising monks considered the mushrooms to be the work of the Devil. Over nearly 400 years, the ritual use of hallucinogenic mushrooms was thus <a href="https://arqueologiamexicana.mx/mexico-antiguo/las-plantas-magicas-y-la-conciencia-visionaria">systematically condemned</a>… until it was discovered, in the 1950s, that the rites were still alive.</p>
<h2>Sacred medicine</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219383/original/file-20180517-155558-11l45g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219383/original/file-20180517-155558-11l45g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219383/original/file-20180517-155558-11l45g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219383/original/file-20180517-155558-11l45g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219383/original/file-20180517-155558-11l45g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219383/original/file-20180517-155558-11l45g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219383/original/file-20180517-155558-11l45g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219383/original/file-20180517-155558-11l45g4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Map of the states of Mexico (click to enlarge).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Political_divisions_of_Mexico-fr.svg/1000px-Political_divisions_of_Mexico-fr.svg.png">Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, in a few small villages of the central highlands of Mexico, the consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms still survives. In the mountainous region of the Sierra Mazatec (located in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca), there are three species of hallucinogens that grow between June and September, during the rainy season.</p>
<p>The properties of all three species have led them to be described as <em>medicina</em> by the inhabitants of the Sierra Mazatec. To heal (mainly gout and fever), the sick can proceed in two ways. One is to consult a shaman who, ingesting the mushrooms, “sees” their patient’s ailment and thus predicts a prompt recovery or a slow death. Alternatively, patients can consume the mushrooms themselves, but must follow a strict process. For three days before and after ingesting the mushrooms, they must eat a meat- and bean-free diet and not have sexual intercourse. They must also walk the area’s mountains to acclimatise their body and relieve their mind from any daily concerns.</p>
<p>On the day of the ritual, the patient washes with clear water, dresses respectfully and waits for the sun to set before ingesting the mushrooms on an empty stomach. The healer checks that custom has been respected and finalises the process of purification (<em>limpia</em>) by burning herbs and the aromatic resin of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copal">copal tree</a>. The patient is then asked to explain what is – physically or psychologically – wrong. A chicken or turkey’s egg is subsequently rolled over his or her head, the body, the arms and legs while prayers are chanted. When the egg is broken, the healer assesses the patient’s state of health by reading its contents. Sometimes the process stops there, sometimes the shaman chooses to place 6 or 7 pairs of hallucinogenic mushrooms in a corn husk. Hallucinogenic mushrooms are always served in pairs as they are said to be “married” (<em>casados</em>).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219370/original/file-20180517-155623-1s5nb7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219370/original/file-20180517-155623-1s5nb7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219370/original/file-20180517-155623-1s5nb7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219370/original/file-20180517-155623-1s5nb7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219370/original/file-20180517-155623-1s5nb7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219370/original/file-20180517-155623-1s5nb7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219370/original/file-20180517-155623-1s5nb7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219370/original/file-20180517-155623-1s5nb7h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Illustration from Roger Heim, <em>Nouvelles investigations sur les champignons hallucinogènes</em>, with the collaboration of R. Cailleux, R. Gordon Wasson, P. Thévenard, edition of the Museum of Natural History (1966).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DR</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From scientific to psychedelic exploration</h2>
<p>In the middle of the 1950s, three scientists explored together the Sierra Mazatec, by car and on horseback, in search of the lost mushrooms.</p>
<p>In 1953, <a href="http://botlib.huh.harvard.edu/libraries/wasson.htm">Robert Gordon Wasson</a>, a North American banker with a passion for mycology, was among the first to discover the continuance of the ritual use of hallucinogenic mushrooms among the Mazatecs. In the village of <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/huautla-de-jimenes">Huautla de Jímenez</a> (in the state of Oaxaca, about 10 hours away from Mexico City), Wasson met the shaman <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yGNWBEwvlU">María Sabina</a>. Robert Heim, the renowned mycologist and professor for the National Museum of Natural History of Paris, was the scientific guarantor of the mission. The third, <a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Sun-God-Savior-Guy-Stresser-Pean/9781607321378">Guy Stresser-Péan</a>, a connoisseur of indigenous languages and cultures, was their guide. Together, they launched into a vast multidisciplinary survey that mingled botanical, linguistic and ethnographic approaches.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219372/original/file-20180517-155558-5gozpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219372/original/file-20180517-155558-5gozpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219372/original/file-20180517-155558-5gozpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219372/original/file-20180517-155558-5gozpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219372/original/file-20180517-155558-5gozpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219372/original/file-20180517-155558-5gozpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219372/original/file-20180517-155558-5gozpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From left to right: Robert Heim, Guy Stresser-Péan and Robert Gordon Wasson with the healer María Sabina.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DR</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the other side of the world, in Paris, the eminent psychiatrist Jean Delay, head of the Institute of Psychology of the University of Paris, tested psilocin-based medication on patients with mental disorders. This road of enquiry lead to a documentary produced by <a href="https://www.ina.fr/video/CPF86609218">Pierre Thévenard</a> in 1963 and a mammoth piece of research, <em>Les champignons hallucinogènes du Mexique</em>. It was published in 1958 by the French Museum of Natural History.</p>
<p>The scientific conclusions of these studies quickly spread beyond academia. Eager for new experiences, backpackers travelled the roads of the Sierra Madre in search of María Sabina. Touring Mexico even became an initiatory journey for any follower of the <a href="https://www.mexico.mx/en/articles/maria-sabina-disney-lennon-morrison-oaxaca-en">psychedelic vogue</a>, including figures as diverse as John Lennon, Jim Harrison, Aldous Huxley and Walt Disney.</p>
<h2>Travelling back in time</h2>
<p>If the shaman is said to have the ability to heal and to see the future, the historian has the power to travel back in time. Let us therefore take a leap back several centuries to the aftermath of the Spanish colonisation of the Americas.</p>
<p>In Mexico, a few years after the <em>Conquista</em>, the Franciscan, Toribio de Benavente, known as <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jah/article/38/1/95/717598">Motolinía</a> and famous for being a great defender of the Indians, offered information in his <em>History of the Indians of New Spain</em>. Published in Castilian in 1558, this work explains that certain mushrooms were eaten with honey, perhaps as a means of preserving the mushrooms and thus implying that they were transported and marketed.</p>
<p>Motolinía chronicles hellish visions supposedly experienced by the Indians who ingested them – threatening snakes, writhing worms escaping from their thighs, suicidal tendencies. Motolinía’s conclusion was that the sacred mushrooms were the work of the devil. Like many other native customs, the rituals related to the mushrooms were thus condemned and prohibited by the clergy. Consequently, they survived only in the deepest, most isolated villages of the Altiplano. Clearly, the mushrooms’ name, “the flesh of God”, their divinatory potentialities and their mode of consumption was too close to the Eucharist.</p>
<p>Yet the Christianisation of the indigenous masses never brought about the complete demise of the cult of the sacred mushrooms. Even today, they are locally known as the <em>santos niños</em> – sacred children. The continuance of their consumption denotes an <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-hypotheses-2000-1-page-121.htm">incomplete and superficial acculturation</a>.</p>
<h2>What archaeology teaches us</h2>
<p>The only formal traces left of the importance played by hallucinogenic mushrooms in the rituals, the pharmacopoeia and more generally in the worldviews of the Mesoamerican peoples, are known to us through archaeology.</p>
<p>Near the pyramids of Teotihuacan, in the sumptuous residences of the megacity, archaeologists have uncovered frescoes dating back to the classical period (300-600 A.D.). The <a href="https://uncoveredhistory.com/mexico/teotihuacan/tepantitla/">fresco of Tepantitla</a>, reproduced in the Teotihuacan hall of the National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico, is a representation of the paradise of Tlaloc, the god of rain, provider of water and lush vegetation. His Eden, called Tlalocan, is populated and luxuriant.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219373/original/file-20180517-155569-1o096ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219373/original/file-20180517-155569-1o096ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219373/original/file-20180517-155569-1o096ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219373/original/file-20180517-155569-1o096ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219373/original/file-20180517-155569-1o096ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219373/original/file-20180517-155569-1o096ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219373/original/file-20180517-155569-1o096ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219373/original/file-20180517-155569-1o096ue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The fresco of Tepantitla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DR</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the fresco, from left to right, a man dressed in a white toga can be seen picking the flowers of a large, unidentified plant. Nearby is a corn plant, the very hallmark of Mesoamerican civilisation. In the centre of the image is a magnificent representation of <em>Datura stramonium</em>, known as jimson weed or devil’s grass in English. Dear to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/19/arts/mystery-man-s-death-can-t-end-mystery-fighting-over-carlos-castaneda-s-legacy.html">Carlos Castaneda</a>, the plant has highly hallucinogenic effects that appear to be affecting the man sitting beneath. Next comes a cocoa tree, and in the bottom-right corner, on the shore of the lake that flows into the Tlaloc River, there are three mushrooms, associated with sea-shells. Above, a man is crying. A stream springs from his lungs – he has just perished from drowned. He is surrounded by butterflies representing the souls of the dead.</p>
<h2>Hallucinogenic mushrooms and religion</h2>
<p>Other traces show that the use of mushrooms dates back to even earlier times. This is the case of more than 200 <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-antiquity/article/mushrooms-drugs-and-potters-a-new-approach-to-the-function-of-precolumbian-mesoamerican-mushroom-stones/09D98F93F965D470BCB21F47920F7835">“stone mushrooms”</a> found in Chiapas and Guatemala in Quiché and Mam lands. Some date from the older, pre-classical period, more than 3,000 years ago. About 30 centimetres high, the sculptures were first interpreted as being phallic representations before being identified as fungi. Their use remains uncertain, but they may have been used as pestles (<em>molcajete</em>) to grind corn, mushrooms or perhaps to sanctify food in general. They are most often associated with animals: jaguars, toads, or in the photo below: a rabbit and a coati. Are these individual figures representations of the <em>nahualli</em> (the animal doubles of human beings)?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219376/original/file-20180517-155616-1p1g5ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219376/original/file-20180517-155616-1p1g5ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219376/original/file-20180517-155616-1p1g5ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219376/original/file-20180517-155616-1p1g5ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219376/original/file-20180517-155616-1p1g5ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219376/original/file-20180517-155616-1p1g5ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219376/original/file-20180517-155616-1p1g5ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219376/original/file-20180517-155616-1p1g5ky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stone mushrooms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DR</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Based on such issues, ethnobotanists such as Robert Gordon Wasson have offered bold readings of practices of ancient societies. Given the parallels between the consumption of agaric mushrooms by Siberian shamans and the Mesoamerican cults of <em>teonanacatl</em>, it has been suggested that the knowledge of psychotropic mushrooms goes back to the first settlements of the American continent and that their hallucinatory effects could be at the root of the continent’s religious practices.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Translated from the original French by S. Kraitsowits and Leighton Kille.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115033/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arnaud Exbalin ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Before being qualified as “magic”, certain mushrooms were considered sacred by the ancient peoples of Mexico. We explore their history and relationship to Mesoamerican religion and medicine.Arnaud Exbalin, Maître de conférence, histoire, Labex Tepsis – Mondes Américains (EHESS), Université Paris Nanterre – Université Paris LumièresLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1013022018-11-04T13:54:04Z2018-11-04T13:54:04Z‘Microdosers’ of LSD and magic mushrooms are wiser and more creative<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243564/original/file-20181101-83635-1kv8tfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Books such as Ayelet Waldman's _A Really Good Day_ and Michael Pollan's _How to Change Your Mind_ have drawn popular attention to the practise of 'microdosing' psychedelics.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We just ran the first ever <a href="https://cos.io/prereg/">pre-registered scientific study</a> on the microdosing of psychedelics and found some very promising results. </p>
<p>We compared people who microdose — that is, who take a psychedelic substance such as LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) or “magic” mushrooms (psilocybin) in very small quantities — with those who don’t, and found that microdosers had healthier scores on key mental health and well-being measures. </p>
<p>Specifically, we found that microdosers scored higher on measures of <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00405">wisdom</a>, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000096">open-mindedness</a> and <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2010.06.001">creativity</a>.</p>
<p>Microdosers also scored lower on measures of <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10608-009-9229-y">dysfunctional attitudes</a> and <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000096">negative emotionality</a>, which is very promising. </p>
<h2>Subtle changes, not hallucinations</h2>
<p>Psychedelics microdosing can mean taking five to 20 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microgram">micrograms</a> of <a href="https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/LSD">LSD</a>, 0.1 – 0.3 grams of dried <a href="https://psychonautwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Psilocybin_mushrooms">psilocybin-containing mushrooms</a> or very low doses of more exotic substances, like <a href="https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/1P-LSD">1P-LSD</a>, <a href="https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/ALD-52">ALD-52</a> or <a href="https://psychonautwiki.org/w/index.php?title=4-AcO-DMT">4-AcO-DMT</a>. </p>
<p>No matter the substance, microdosing implies a dose so low that the individual experiences only subtle changes, not hallucinations. People are not “tripping” on a microdose; they just go about their regular day, whether that means studying at school, going to work or taking care of the kids at home.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232409/original/file-20180816-2924-l41uhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232409/original/file-20180816-2924-l41uhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232409/original/file-20180816-2924-l41uhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232409/original/file-20180816-2924-l41uhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232409/original/file-20180816-2924-l41uhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232409/original/file-20180816-2924-l41uhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232409/original/file-20180816-2924-l41uhp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Microdosers score higher on ‘wisdom,’ meaning the ability to consider multiple perspectives, be in tune with their emotions and feel a sense of connection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There has been no published science on whether microdosing works, but despite this, microdosing for self-enhancement and mental health has hit the media. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/article/lsd-microdosing-drugs-silicon-valley">a 2016 article in <em>Wired</em> magazine</a> described young professionals in San Francisco and Silicon Valley microdosing to enhance their creativity and focus, and to gain a competitive advantage. </p>
<p>Ayelet Waldman attributed her increased well-being to microdosing in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30212082-a-really-good-day"><em>A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage and My Life</em></a>. More recently, Michael Pollan’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36613747-how-to-change-your-mind"><em>How to Change Your Mind</em></a> has further attracted mainstream attention to psychedelics. </p>
<h2>Higher wisdom and creativity</h2>
<p>No experimental study has evaluated psychedelic microdosing, and neither did we.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randomized_controlled_trial">Randomized placebo-controlled trials</a> are needed to talk definitively about the effects of microdosing. In the meantime, we investigated the experiences of people who already microdose. </p>
<p>Our survey investigated the relationship between microdosing psychedelics and mental health. We recruited participants online, especially from <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/microdosing/">Reddit’s microdosing community</a>. </p>
<p>We asked our study participants about their microdosing patterns by having them fill in some <a href="https://osf.io/jmcrh/">questionnaires</a>. As firm believers in <a href="https://theconversation.com/opening-up-the-future-of-psychedelic-science-101303">Open Science</a>, we have openly shared all our materials and <a href="https://osf.io/g5cwy/">you can find them here</a>. Our findings are soon to be published in <em>Psychopharmacology</em> and you can access the <a href="https://dx.doi.org/%2010.31234/osf.io/gk4jd">preprint here</a>.</p>
<p>We found that microdosers scored higher on “wisdom,” but <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom">wisdom is a tricky thing to define</a>. In this context, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00405">“wisdom” implies considering multiple perspectives</a>, learning from mistakes, being in tune with emotions and people and feeling a sense of connection. Using this definition, microdosers were more “wise.”</p>
<p>They were also more creative <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openness_to_experience">and open</a>. If wisdom is tricky, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity">creativity is even more so</a>. In this case, creativity meant finding <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1931-3896.2.2.68">unusual uses</a> for regular household objects: A brick and a knife. Microdosers came up with more useful, unusual and unique uses for these objects. This is a well-validated measure of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergent_thinking">divergent thinking</a>, though certainly not the be-all and end-all of creativity. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243567/original/file-20181101-83638-ralq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243567/original/file-20181101-83638-ralq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243567/original/file-20181101-83638-ralq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243567/original/file-20181101-83638-ralq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243567/original/file-20181101-83638-ralq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243567/original/file-20181101-83638-ralq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243567/original/file-20181101-83638-ralq6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Microdosing could involve the placebo effect. We need randomized placebo-controlled trials to test its safety and efficacy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Microdosers also scored lower on measures of <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10608-009-9229-y">dysfunctional attitudes</a> and <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000096">negative emotionality</a>. What does that mean?</p>
<p>Well, dysfunctional attitudes and negative emotionality (aka <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism">neuroticism</a>) <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2012.01.008">are bad</a>. Dysfunctional attitudes are beliefs such as, “<a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10608-009-9229-y">my value as a person depends greatly on what others think of me” or “if I ask a question, it makes me look inferior.</a>” Neither of these are true, and they are unhealthy to believe as they imply vulnerability to stress and depression. </p>
<p>Microdosers endorsed less of these unhealthy beliefs. Likewise, high negative emotionality means a higher likelihood of having a <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2013.04.003">mental health disorder</a>, and microdosers had lower negative emotionality.</p>
<h2>An exciting future for clinical science</h2>
<p>Our results are promising. As promising as they seem, we don’t know whether microdosing actually <em>caused</em> any of these differences. </p>
<p>Maybe people with better mental health were more likely to experiment with microdosing, or perhaps there is some unknown cause that made people both more likely to microdose and to be creative. </p>
<p>At this point, we simply don’t know what caused the differences between the groups — just that these differences existed. We need to run controlled lab studies to actually find out. </p>
<p>Our preliminary work also shows that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325953676_The_Benefits_and_Drawbacks_of_Microdosing_Psychedelics">people report downsides</a> to microdosing. For example, some people found microdosing increased anxiety and mood-instability; increased aches, pains and gastrointestinal distress were also relatively common.</p>
<p>The most common drawback was that microdosing is illegal. Did we forget to mention that? Yes, psychedelics are totally illegal! </p>
<p>LSD and psilocybin were made illegal in the <a href="https://www.un-ilibrary.org/drugs-crime-and-terrorism/the-international-drug-control-conventions_814e78a6-en">1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances</a> and <a href="https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=VI-18&chapter=6&clang=_en">remain so today</a>. The exact laws differ depending on where you live, and using analogue substances can sometimes be a legal grey area but, for the most part, microdosing makes you a criminal.</p>
<p>What we need now are controlled lab experiments — <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randomized_controlled_trial">randomized placebo-controlled trials</a> of psychedelic microdosing to test safety and efficacy. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/project/Microdosing-Psychedelics">Microdosing research</a>, alongside full-dose <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/topics/psychedelics-5853">psychedelics</a>, promises an exciting future for clinical science and the study of human flourishing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101302/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>According to new research, individuals who take small regular doses of psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin mushrooms score higher on mental health, well-being and creativity.Thomas Anderson, PhD student, University of TorontoRotem Petranker, PhD student in Clinical Psychology, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1005792018-08-15T23:02:57Z2018-08-15T23:02:57ZThe real promise of LSD, MDMA and mushrooms for medical science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229652/original/file-20180727-106496-1ceklm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scientific pursuits need to be coupled with a humanist tradition — to highlight not just how psychedelics work, but why that matters. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Psychedelic science is making a comeback. </p>
<p>Scientific publications, therapeutic breakthroughs and cultural endorsements suggest that <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/article-after-decades-of-dormancy-psychedelic-research-makes-a-comeback/">the historical reputation of psychedelics</a> — such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), mescaline (from the peyote cactus) and psilocybin (mushrooms) — as dangerous or inherently risky have unfairly overshadowed a more optimistic interpretation. </p>
<p>Recent publications, like Michael Pollan’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/529343/how-to-change-your-mind-by-michael-pollan/9781594204227/"><em>How to Change your Mind</em></a>, showcase the creative and potentially therapeutic benefits that psychedelics have to offer — for mental health challenges like depression and addiction, <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/hallucinogenic-drugs-help-cancer-patients-deal-%20their-fear-death">in palliative care settings</a> and for personal development. </p>
<p>Major scientific journals have published articles showing <a href="http://www.maps.org/resources/psychedelic-bibliography">evidence-based reasons for supporting research in psychedelic studies</a>. These include evidence that <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0269881116675513">pscilocybin significantly reduces anxiety in patients with life-threatening illnesses</a> like cancer, that MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetaminecan; also known as ecstasy) <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0269881112464827">improves outcomes for people suffering from PTSD</a> and that <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0269881111420188">psychedelics can produce sustained feelings of openness that are both therapeutic and personally enriching</a>. </p>
<p>Other researchers are investigating the traditional uses of plant medicines, such as ayahuasca, and exploring <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0361923016300454#!">the neurological and psychotherapeutic benefits of combining Indigenous knowledge with modern medicine</a>.</p>
<p>I am a medical historian, exploring why we now think that psychedelics may have a valuable role to play in human psychology, and why over 50 years ago, during the heyday of psychedelic research, we rejected that hypothesis. What has changed? What did we miss before? Is this merely a flashback?</p>
<h2>Healing trauma, anxiety, depression</h2>
<p>In 1957, the word <em>psychedelic</em> officially entered the English lexicon, introduced by <a href="https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1957.tb40738.x">British-trained and Canadian-based psychiatrist Humphry Osmond</a>. </p>
<p>Osmond studied mescaline from the peyote cactus, synthesized by German scientists in the 1930s, and <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4614-0959-5_22">LSD, a laboratory-produced substance created by Albert Hofmann at Sandoz in Switzerland</a>. During the 1950s and into the 1960s, more than 1,000 scientific articles appeared as researchers around the world interrogated the potential of these psychedelics for healing addictions and trauma. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229658/original/file-20180727-106496-gys7ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229658/original/file-20180727-106496-gys7ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229658/original/file-20180727-106496-gys7ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229658/original/file-20180727-106496-gys7ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229658/original/file-20180727-106496-gys7ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229658/original/file-20180727-106496-gys7ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229658/original/file-20180727-106496-gys7ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this January 1967 file photo, Timothy Leary addresses a crowd of hippies at the ‘Human Be-In’ that he helped organize in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Calif.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Bob Klein)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But, by the end of the 1960s, most legitimate psychedelic research ground to a halt. Some of the research had been deemed unethical, <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/The-Search-for-the-Manchurian-Candidate/">namely mind-control experiments conducted under the auspices of the CIA</a>. Other researchers had been discredited for either unethical or self-aggrandizing use of psychedelics, or both. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.salon.com/2013/12/14/timothy_learys_liberation_and_the_cias_experiments_lsds_amazing_psychedelic_history/">Timothy Leary was perhaps the most notorious character in that regard</a>. Having been dismissed from Harvard University, he launched a recreational career as a self-appointed apostle of psychedelic living. </p>
<p>Drug regulators struggled to balance a desire for scientific research with <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jhmas/article-abstract/69/2/221/748833">a growing appetite for recreational use, and some argued abuse, of psychedelics</a>. </p>
<p>In the popular media, <a href="http://www.saynotodrugs.in/facts-about-lsd/">these drugs came to symbolize hedonism and violence</a>. In the United States, <a href="https://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2017/03/30/lsd-insight-or-insanity-1968/">the government sponsored films aimed at scaring viewers about the long-term and even deadly consequences of taking LSD</a>. Scientists were hard-pressed to maintain their credibility as popular attitudes began to shift.</p>
<p>Now that interpretation is beginning to change.</p>
<h2>A psychedelics revival</h2>
<p>In 2009, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/30/drugs-adviser-david-nutt-sacked">Britain’s chief drug adviser, David Nutt, reported that psychedelic drugs had been unfairly prohibited</a>. He argued that substances such as alcohol and tobacco were in fact much more dangerous to consumers than drugs like LSD, ecstasy (MDMA) and mushrooms (psilocybin). </p>
<p>He was fired from his advisory position as a result, but <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673610614626">his published claims helped to reopen debates on the use and abuse of psychedelics</a>, both in scientific and policy circles.</p>
<p>And Nutt was not alone. Several well-established researchers began joining the chorus of support for new regulations allowing researchers to explore and reinterpret the neuroscience behind psychedelics. Studies ranged from those <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/113/17/4853.short">looking at the mechanisms of drug reactions</a> to those <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-017-4771-x">revisiting the role of psychedelics in psychotherapy</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231973/original/file-20180814-2903-yn3fhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231973/original/file-20180814-2903-yn3fhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231973/original/file-20180814-2903-yn3fhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231973/original/file-20180814-2903-yn3fhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231973/original/file-20180814-2903-yn3fhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231973/original/file-20180814-2903-yn3fhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231973/original/file-20180814-2903-yn3fhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this April 2010 photo, one gram of psilocybin is seen on a scale at New York University, where a study investigated the effects of hallucinogenic drugs on the emotional and psychological state of advanced cancer patients.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2017, Oakland, Calif., hosted the largest gathering to date of psychedelic scientists and researchers. Boasting attendance of more than 3,000 participants, <a href="http://psychedelicscience.org/">Psychedelic Science 2017</a> brought together researchers and practitioners with a diverse set of interests in reviving psychedelics — from filmmakers to neuroscientists, journalists, psychiatrists, artists, policy advisers, comedians, historians, anthropologists, Indigenous healers and patients. </p>
<p>The conference was co-hosted by the leading organizations dedicated to psychedelics — <a href="http://www.maps.org/resources/psychedelic-bibliography">including the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)</a> and <a href="http://beckleyfoundation.org">The Beckley Foundation</a> — and participants were exposed to cutting-edge research.</p>
<h2>Measuring reaction, not experience</h2>
<p>As a historian, however, I am trained to be cynical about trends that claim to be new or innovative. We learn that often we culturally tend to forget the past, or ignore the parts of the past that seem beyond our borders. </p>
<p>For that reason, I am particularly interested in understanding the so-called psychedelic renaissance and what makes it different from the psychedelic heyday of the 1950s and 1960s.</p>
<p>The historic trials were conducted at the very early stages of the pharmacological revolution, which ushered in new methods for evaluating efficacy and safety, culminating in the randomized controlled trial (RCT). Prior to standardizing that approach, however, most pharmacological experiments relied on case reports and data accumulation that did not necessarily involve blinded or comparative techniques. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231972/original/file-20180814-2894-1mobpn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231972/original/file-20180814-2894-1mobpn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231972/original/file-20180814-2894-1mobpn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231972/original/file-20180814-2894-1mobpn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231972/original/file-20180814-2894-1mobpn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231972/original/file-20180814-2894-1mobpn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231972/original/file-20180814-2894-1mobpn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shaman Pablo Flores pours ayahuasca into a plastic cup during a sacred ceremony in the Peruvian Jungle in May 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Martin Mejia)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Historically, scientists were keen to separate pharmacological substances from their organic cultural, spiritual and healing contexts — the RCT is a classic representation of our attempts to measure reaction rather than to interpret experience. Isolating the drug from an associated ritual might have more readily conveyed an image of progress, or a more genuine scientific approach. </p>
<p>Today, however, psychedelic investigators are beginning <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/the-profound-power-of-an-amazonian-plant-and-the-respect-it-demands/article27895775/">to question the decision to excise the drug from its Indigenous or ritualized practices</a>. </p>
<p>Over the past 60 years, we have invested more in psychopharmacological research than ever before. American economists estimate <a href="http://www.dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0009.2005.00347.x">the amount of money spent on psychopharmacology research to be in the billions annually</a>. </p>
<h2>Rethinking the scientific method</h2>
<p>Modern science has focused attention on data accrual — measuring reactions, identifying neural networks and discovering neuro-chemical pathways. It has moved decidedly away from larger philosophical questions of how we think, or what is human consciousness or how human thoughts are evolving. </p>
<p>Some of <a href="http://www.mqup.ca/psychedelic-prophets-products-9780773555068.php">those questions inspired the earlier generation of researchers to embark on psychedelic studies in the first place</a>.</p>
<p>We may now have more sophisticated tools for advancing the science of psychedelics. But psychedelics have always inspired harmony between brain and behaviour, individuals and their environments, and an appreciation for western and non-western traditions mutually informing the human experience. </p>
<p>In other words, scientific pursuits need to be coupled with a humanist tradition — to highlight not just how psychedelics work, but why that matters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100579/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erika Dyck receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Council (Canada).</span></em></p>Once associated with mind-control experiments and counter-cultural defiance, psychedelics now show great promise for mental health treatments and may prompt a re-evaluation of the scientific method.Erika Dyck, Professor and Canada Research Chair in the History of Medicine, University of SaskatchewanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/851582017-12-14T03:56:25Z2017-12-14T03:56:25ZStinkhorns, truffles, smuts: The amazing diversity – and possible decline – of mushrooms and other fungi<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199068/original/file-20171213-27583-1ri1hrn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Autumn edible mushrooms, mostly Boletus edulis.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bunch-autumn-edible-mushrooms-mostly-boletus-164559062">www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>“Whatever dressing one gives to mushrooms…they are not really good but to be sent back to the dungheap where they are born.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>French philosopher Denis Diderot thus dismissed mushrooms in 1751 in his “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Encyclopedie">Encyclopedie</a>.” Today his words would be dismissed in France, where cooks tuck mushrooms into crepes, puff pastry and boeuf Bourguignon (beef Burgundy), to name just a few dishes.</p>
<p>The French aren’t alone. Mushrooms and their biological relatives feature in global cuisines from Asia to sub-Saharan Africa. Here in North America, they are part of many holiday meals, from humble stuffed mushroom caps to a single costly truffle shaved over pasta. Late fall is wild-mushroom foraging season in much of the United States, so it’s a good time to learn about these fascinating organisms – and to know that some popular species are declining. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FRiWsY_jN6g?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Truffle hunting in Italy’s Piedmont has a long tradition, but unlicensed hunters are damaging the environment and killing animals.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fungi, not vegetables</h2>
<p>Human experience with mushrooms dates back thousands of years, including references from China, Africa, Greece and Rome. One of the first is attributed to Euripides (A.D. 450-456), who commented on the death of a mother and her family from mushroom poisoning. Indeed, a few species are poisonous – notably, <em>Amanita phalloides</em>, the so-called death cap mushroom, which <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6621a1.htm">sickened 14 people</a> in California in 2016. Three required liver transplants.</p>
<p>All the more reason to learn some mycology – the science of fungi. This mega-diverse group of organisms is biologically distinct from its better-known counterparts, plants (<em>Plantae</em>) and animals (<em>Animalia</em>). Along with mushrooms, it includes such curiosities as <a href="http://forest.mtu.edu/research/hwbuck/hardwood_defects/conks.html">conks</a>, <a href="http://homeguides.sfgate.com/puffball-fungi-grass-61525.html">puffballs</a>, <a href="http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/dec2003alt.html">earthstars</a>, <a href="https://www.bbg.org/news/nastiest_mushroom_ever">stinkhorns</a>, <a href="https://hort.uwex.edu/articles/birds-nest-fungi/">birds-nests</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/truffle-fungus">truffles</a>, <a href="http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/morel.html">morels</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/mold-fungus">molds</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/rust">rusts</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/smut">smuts</a>. </p>
<p>Unlike plants, fungi do not have chlorophyll, the pigment in plant leaves that converts light energy to chemical energy through photosynthesis. Instead, fungi are decomposers: They release enzymes that break down tissues from living and dead plants and animals to nourish them as they grow.</p>
<p>Most fungi grow in or on a natural substrate, such as dead logs or manure (Diderot was not wrong to say that they came from a dung-heap). Commercial mushroom growers use materials such as straw or coffee grounds. Mushroom spores put out filaments (<em>hyphae</em>) that form a network (<em>mycelium</em>). This is the organism’s feeding stage, and in some species can grow to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/science/humongous-fungus-armillaria-genes.html">an enormous extent</a>, largely hidden in the soil. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199070/original/file-20171213-27583-y3y4w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199070/original/file-20171213-27583-y3y4w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199070/original/file-20171213-27583-y3y4w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199070/original/file-20171213-27583-y3y4w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199070/original/file-20171213-27583-y3y4w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199070/original/file-20171213-27583-y3y4w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199070/original/file-20171213-27583-y3y4w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199070/original/file-20171213-27583-y3y4w.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Oyster mushroom mycelium growing in a petri dish on coffee grounds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Oyster_mushroom_%28Pleurotus_ostreatus%29_mycelium_in_petri_dish_on_coffee_grounds.JPG">Tobi Kellner</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Almost miraculously, in response to a range of environmental cues such as moisture and temperature, this network produces “fruiting bodies,” or reproductive structures, that typically erupt out of the substrate. These structures are what we think of as mushrooms. They come in many sizes, shapes and colors, and can either persist or appear and then disappear in a matter of hours or days.</p>
<p>The mysterious origin of these seemingly magical apparitions has fascinated humans for millennia. Certain species <a href="https://gardencollage.com/inspire/wild-earth/myth-lore-fairy-ring/">erupt naturally in circular formations</a>, which are widely known as “fairy rings” and linked in European folklore with fairies and other magical creatures. Many accounts claim that psilocybin mushrooms, which contain hallucinogenic compounds, have been <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/14/psychedelic-mushrooms-facts_n_6083436.html">used for mind-altering purposes for millennia</a>. Today they are being studied as a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-13282-7">possible treatment for depression</a>.</p>
<h2>Abundant but also at risk</h2>
<p>Even after more than 200 years of exploration, scientists estimate that only about 5 percent of a likely 1.5 million species of fungi have been described and named. Of those, roughly 10 described species have been “domesticated” and form the basis of the global cultivated mushroom industry, which has an annual value estimated at <a href="https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/05/16/985506/0/en/Global-Mushroom-Market-Size-Share-Expected-to-Reach-59-48-Billion-by-2021-Zion-Market-Research.html">over US$35 billion and rising</a>. A 2004 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/y5489e/y5489e.pdf">report</a> documented use of more than 1,100 species in over 80 countries.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199071/original/file-20171213-27597-1smehje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199071/original/file-20171213-27597-1smehje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199071/original/file-20171213-27597-1smehje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199071/original/file-20171213-27597-1smehje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199071/original/file-20171213-27597-1smehje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199071/original/file-20171213-27597-1smehje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199071/original/file-20171213-27597-1smehje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199071/original/file-20171213-27597-1smehje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Meilinger Lab pdf.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meilinger_Lab_4.pdf">Bradley Meilinger</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Detailed studies have helped to dispel the commonly held view that mushrooms are a low-calorie food with little nutritional benefit. We now know that they are typically low in fat, sodium and carbohydrates, but high in <a href="https://www.med.umich.edu/docs/tip-2014/mushrooms-0614.pdf">vitamin D</a>, <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f7b4/834d5a9c43bf507d04f3e4879ab3262e6de2.pdf">potassium and antioxidants</a>. In short, mushrooms are increasingly recognized as nutritional powerhouses.</p>
<p>Historically, mushrooms were eaten mostly at subsistence levels in rural communities in developing countries. Recently, however, an export trade has developed for wild varieties, moving mainly from poor to rich countries. This growing demand reflects recognition of wild edible mushrooms’ nutritional value, but has also been linked to a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-8809(91)90052-Y">decline</a> in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/28/news/lucrative-harvesting-of-edible-mushrooms-puts-supply-in-danger.html?pagewanted=all">numbers and diversity</a> of mushroom fruiting bodies in traditional centers of high consumption, such as Europe and Japan. </p>
<p>This trend is a serious concern for scientists, who are continuously learning more about the important ecological roles that fungi play. Some form relationships with plant roots that sustain the growth of native forests and commercial tree plantations. As decomposers, fungi also recycle nutrients from dead matter in many different types of habitats. </p>
<p>There are vast gaps in our knowledge about fungal biodiversity and how these organisms are affected by trade, land management practices, air pollution, habitat loss and global climate change. One recent study <a href="https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.570">identified three unknown species</a> of porcini in a packet of dried Chinese mushrooms purchased in a London grocery store. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199072/original/file-20171213-27562-1qk72vo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199072/original/file-20171213-27562-1qk72vo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199072/original/file-20171213-27562-1qk72vo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199072/original/file-20171213-27562-1qk72vo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199072/original/file-20171213-27562-1qk72vo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199072/original/file-20171213-27562-1qk72vo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199072/original/file-20171213-27562-1qk72vo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199072/original/file-20171213-27562-1qk72vo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Huitlacoche, a fungus that grows naturally on corn, is harvested as a delicacy in Mexico.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/58hPt2">Russ Bowling</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many countries are developing or have published <a href="http://www.britmycolsoc.org.uk/mycology/conservation/red-data-list/">Red Data Lists of threatened fungi</a>. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature is accepting information for a <a href="http://iucn.ekoo.se/en/iucn/welcome">Global Fungal Red List Initiative</a> that aims to assess and classify at least 300 species of threatened fungi.</p>
<p>Mycologists like me are also a dwindling resource. The number of positions at universities, research institutes and botanic gardens has declined in recent years. Inventorying, describing and understanding the impacts of human-induced and natural disturbances on fungal communities is a huge and challenging task, and an essential step toward determining whether harvesting wild fungi at the current level <a href="https://doi.org/10.1300/J091v13n03_08">is sustainable</a>. But this work is starting to gain momentum. Finally, humans are starting to see fungi not just as commodities or as biological organisms, but also as important contributors to ecosystem function that are worthy of conservation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85158/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Weir receives funding from the National Science Foundation to inventory, describe and investigate the evolutionary history of certain types of fungi. </span></em></p>The global mushroom industry is worth $35 billion yearly and growing. But mushrooms and other fungi play important ecological roles that scientists are still learning about – and some may be endangered.Alexander Weir, Professor of Environmental and Forest Biology, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and ForestryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/173442013-08-28T20:20:20Z2013-08-28T20:20:20ZShroom to grow: Australia’s missing psychedelic science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30058/original/x57jszyd-1377649069.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C1%2C952%2C997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Recent studies show psychedelics can have a positive effect on a range of mental health issues.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A recent <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0063972">Norwegian study</a> on psychedelic drugs and psychological well-being not only highlighted fewer mental health issues among users of these drugs but also underscored the reinvigoration of scientific research in a field maligned since the moral panic of the 1960s. </p>
<p>Psychedelics are a broad category of drugs that profoundly alter perception. Examples include LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide), mescaline (found in some cacti), psilocybin (found in some mushrooms), dimethyltryptamine (found in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0042421">ayahuasca</a>) as well as ketamine and methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). </p>
<p>Plant-based psychedelics have been integral to healing practices for thousands of years in a number of cultures, including <a href="http://nativeamericanchurches.org/spirituality/">native Americans</a>, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/tribe/tribes/babongo/index.shtml">African Bwiti</a> and the Mazatecs. </p>
<p>Western research into the therapeutic potential of psychedelics commenced in the middle of the 20th century, but quickly became conflated with the counter-cultural movement in the United States, Europe and Australasia. </p>
<p>A moral panic ensued, leading to the prohibition of psychedelics and cessation of research. But psychedelic science is now re-emerging as a mature and credible discipline. </p>
<p>In addition to the Norwegian research, a number of other studies have recently demonstrated the powerful positive effects of psychedelics, including <a href="http://jop.sagepub.com/content/25/11/1453.short">personality changes</a>, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20819978">reduced anxiety and depression</a> associated with end-of-life cancer and long-term relief from <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573678/">post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)</a>. </p>
<p>Overseas, psychedelic research programs are increasing exponentially and can be found at prominent institutions such as <a href="http://www.bpru.org/cancer-studies/">Johns Hopkins School of Medicine</a>, <a href="http://www.nyucanceranxiety.org/">New York University</a> and <a href="http://www.harboruclapsych.com/charles-s-grob-m-d/">UCLA</a>. </p>
<p>But there’s a surprising absence of any such activity in Australia. </p>
<h2>Australian research programs?</h2>
<p>There’s a general reluctance among Australian researchers to explore the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. This might be partly attributed to the illicit status of the drugs, which, some suggest, has created a <a href="http://theconversation.com/psychedelic-drug-use-linked-to-fewer-mental-health-problems-17295">bureaucratic impediment to medical progress</a>. </p>
<p>The illegal status of psychedelics is ostensibly based on their potential to cause harm. But these drugs are not addictive and have been consistently ranked by experts <a href="http://www.sg.unimaas.nl/_OLD/oudelezingen/dddsd.pdf">as being low risk</a>. </p>
<p>Rather than remaining prohibited because they are harmful, the perception of psychedelics as harmful is maintained in order to justify their prohibition. </p>
<p>An <a href="http://informahealthcare.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1080/16066350701794972">analysis of Australian discourse</a> about psychoactive substance use explains this process in terms of the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395912001971">dominant pathogenic narrative of drugs</a>, which limits discussion to their harm. </p>
<p>Since Australian government funding is directed towards research that seeks to provide evidence of drug-related harm, the pathogenic narrative is self-reinforcing.</p>
<h2>The pathogenic narrative</h2>
<p>Without funding, it’s difficult for researchers to establish programs that seek to examine the positive benefits of banned drugs. And there’s little financial incentive for the private sector to invest in such research as psychedelics are not patentable because they aren’t “novel”, or because they’re derived from natural sources.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30063/original/sky5dn53-1377649683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30063/original/sky5dn53-1377649683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30063/original/sky5dn53-1377649683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30063/original/sky5dn53-1377649683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30063/original/sky5dn53-1377649683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30063/original/sky5dn53-1377649683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30063/original/sky5dn53-1377649683.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Australia shoulders a heavy burden of psychological disease, particularly stress, anxiety and trauma.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The financial incentive to demonstrate drug harm also often leads to bad science. Researchers reporting on the harms of MDMA, for instance, often use the terms <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22831704">MDMA and ecstasy interchangeably</a>. </p>
<p>But there are distinct differences between pharmaceutical-grade MDMA and street ecstasy pills, which usually have a range of chemicals <a href="http://www.ecstasydata.org/">mixed with MDMA</a>, or have no MDMA in them at all. </p>
<p>Observational studies are limited in furthering our <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3053129/">understanding of MDMA’s pharmacology</a> because poly-drug use (using many drugs at the same time), and the environments in which they are used, might contribute to many of the observed harms. </p>
<p>When MDMA has been administered in <a href="http://www.maps.org/research/mdma/MDMA_FINAL%20_IB-edition-7_1Aug13.pdf">clinical settings</a>, the adverse effects reported in the aforementioned research haven’t been observed. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://theconversation.com/psychedelic-drug-use-linked-to-fewer-mental-health-problems-17295">recent Norwegian finding</a> that psychedelic use is associated with decreased incidence of mental health problems provides further support for “the safety of clinical research and treatments using psychedelics”.</p>
<h2>Why it’s time to get on board</h2>
<p>Like many other countries, the Australian community is facing unprecedented levels of psychological disease, notably stress, anxiety and trauma. Their cumulative financial costs have been estimated at around <a href="https://www.medibankhealth.com.au/files/editor_upload/File/Mental%20Health%20Exec%20Report.pdf">A$28.6 billion</a>. </p>
<p>Mental illness also has a significant social cost, including its <a href="http://www.wesleymission.org.au/releases/120514.asp">impact on families</a>.</p>
<p>Current medical responses are effective in many, but not all, cases. Alternative approaches, including psychedelic therapy, offer hope to many who are resistant to current treatments.</p>
<p>Unlike conventional pharmacotherapies (antidepressants or mood stabilisers) that typically require ongoing and sometimes lifelong administration, the therapeutic use of psychedelics generally involves one or two doses of the drug under the supervision of trained therapists. </p>
<p>Most psychedelics also have large margins for safety, and the duration of their actions and contraindications are largely well understood. </p>
<p>This has clear benefits in terms of cost, safety and tolerability, as well as mitigating the risk of scheduled drugs being diverted into the community. But psychedelic psychotherapy requires the training of therapists in psychedelic treatments, which could take time and resources.</p>
<p>Global research into psychedelic therapy is gathering pace, notably in the United States. A significant player is the <a href="http://www.maps.org">Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies</a> (MAPS), which is supporting clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD in the <a href="http://www.maps.org/research/mdma/">US, Switzerland, Israel, Canada</a> and the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/sep/30/ecstasy-trial-ptsd-sufferers">United Kingdom</a>. MAPS is very supportive of a similar clinical trial in Australia.</p>
<p>Globally, the re-emergence of psychedelic therapy is still in its early stages. It’s widely acknowledged that clinical research is required to establish the safety and optimise the efficacy of these promising approaches. </p>
<p>Australia has a pressing need to explore a range of options to deal with mounting challenges to mental health and general well-being. We believe that it’s imperative for the country to join the psychedelic renaissance, and initiate well-planned and adequately-funded, formal psychedelic research.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Bright is vice-president of PRISM, a not-for-profit organisation that facilitates psychedelic research in Australia (<a href="http://prism.org.au">http://prism.org.au</a>)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Williams is president of PRISM, a not-for-profit organisation that facilitates psychedelic research in Australia (<a href="http://prism.org.au">http://prism.org.au</a>)</span></em></p>A recent Norwegian study on psychedelic drugs and psychological well-being not only highlighted fewer mental health issues among users of these drugs but also underscored the reinvigoration of scientific…Stephen Bright, Registered psychologist and sessional academic, Curtin UniversityMartin Williams, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.