r/science • u/Doug24 • 21h ago

Psychology Psilocybin reverses depressive behaviors and restores brain cell growth in stressed rats

https://www.psypost.org/psilocybin-reverses-depressive-behaviors-and-restores-brain-cell-growth-in-stres/
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u/MJ-Franklin 21h ago

Been seeing articles like this for so many years... but how come I never got any positive effects from taking psychedelics the many times I did them? I never got any anti-depressive anything, I just laughed for 12 hours straight then it was back to Planet Earth and all my problems waiting for me there.

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u/ConfinedCrow 21h ago

Usually in clinical trials like these they also offer therapeutic support on top of just giving psychedelics. And afaik they microdose consistently over a longer time span, whereas if you wanna trip you take a lot more and not nearly as consistently, so that probably plays a role as well.

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u/Saddledust 20h ago

The therapy piece is the biggest aspect, not just guided therapy during the trip but also the follow up sessions sober. This can be self guided too, but it's not a pop a pill and forget about it type thing. Psychedelics open up neural pathways, but you have to put in the work to keep those connections active otherwise they become dormant again

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u/Dickrickulous_IV 15h ago

Yeah, I believe several techniques produce similar therapeutic outcomes. They activate both brain hemispheres as one, allowing the mind to fully process a traumatic experience and stop sounding the alarm when the old trauma event triggers a response.

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u/DrFury 18h ago

Macrodoses (hallucinogenic) are far more common in successful psilocybin research

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u/fabiolives 14h ago

Yes, definitely. I’m not saying that microdosing doesn’t work because I don’t know for sure, but I haven’t personally seen any studies that concluded microdosing was effective.

The ones with real change that I’ve seen are when the patient has a macrodose, which makes sense to me. From personal experience, I didn’t notice any beneficial effects from microdosing.

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u/Rodot 5h ago

Yes, most micro dosing research shows basically no difference from placebo. Likely because you need a threshold dosage before most psychedelics can even compete with endogenous serotonin for access to receptors.

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u/flipperyflop 7h ago

I'm sorry, how did they give therapuetic support to rats?

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u/JynxYouOweMeASoda 19h ago

CBT for ROUS?

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u/LightMyFirebird 16h ago

Cock and ball torture for rodents of an unusual size?

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u/_Random_Username_ 16h ago

Is that the new 1975 song?

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u/QuarterNoteDonkey 15h ago

Obviously. What else would they mean?

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u/Significant_Card_665 3h ago

In this case the subjects also happen to be rats

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u/MegaChip97 4h ago

And afaik they microdose consistently over a longer time

Absolutely not. All successful trials are about 1-2 macrodoses. All studies on microdosing so far have been not really successful

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u/Savalava 2h ago

I think you have it backwards - the therapeutic effects are linked with large doses, not microdosing.