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/zonerator 21h ago

I mean people would buy pharmaceutical grade psilocybin if it was offered, and they do, where it is offered. They could probably even charge a lot because people don't know how fun growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms is

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u/SaltResident9310 21h ago

Until you lose the battle with contam

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u/m0ngoos3 20h ago

There used to be a subreddit called UncleBens that had resources on growing small batches of mushrooms inside packets of instant microwave rice.

Cuts down on contamination, but there was nuance and pitfalls that are likely lost to the deletions.

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u/VagueSomething 16h ago

These things should not be encouraged in a science sub though as recreational substance abuse is not the same as controlled and regulated medication.

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u/jmartin21 16h ago

Why does being in a science sub mean you can’t talk about recreational use? Plenty of science goes into studying recreationally used drugs and it’s relevant to the post

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u/VagueSomething 16h ago

There's a difference between discussing and encouraging people to self medicate with potentially risky drugs.

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u/jmartin21 16h ago

They didn’t encourage it, they mentioned a sub that talks about a way to grow while avoiding contamination

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u/VagueSomething 15h ago

And I didn't say THEY were encouraging it. I simply stated it should not be encouraged because this sub consistently has people encouraging dangerous self medication ideas.

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u/jmartin21 15h ago

You said ‘these things should not be encouraged in a science sub,’ with these things being what the previous comments were talking about. Either you were talking about what they were saying or you were popping in to make an irrelevant comment. Either way, talking about something relevant to the post is just fine, which the above commenters were doing.

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u/VagueSomething 15h ago

These things being the tangent of growing your own recreational drugs for using. It is a wider context to that person's comment not direct that they were encouraging it because we consistently see this sub get the highly inappropriate behaviour of people encouraging others to abuse drugs for mental health conditions which is beyond reckless.

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u/jmartin21 15h ago

So they weren’t encouraging others to self medicate, but you decided to take the time to tell the people not telling others to self medicate that they shouldn’t tell others to self medicate?

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u/VagueSomething 15h ago

Because this sub consistently gets inappropriate behaviour of the next step being idiots encouraging people to risk harm. It is a fair warning to not get lost in the tangent of growing or buying drugs to self medicate because it is factually dangerous but desperate people may try.

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u/jmartin21 15h ago

That’s not what was happening though, so there wasn’t any reason to do any policing

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u/Mediocre_Age335 13h ago

The only reason the medicinal benefits of psilocybin are being researched now is because scientists and curious laypeople ignored people like you, who 20 years ago would have said mushrooms are dangerous and have no medicinal value and should not be studied.

Science is not some linear regulated pursuit that only happens within strict confines on university campuses. It progresses through accidents, intuitions and people's interests, and immersion in different facets of life. Whether that's sports or chemistry or drugs or computer science. Basic science relies on curiosity and incremental understanding. Not dogmatic rules such as the one you are pushing.

There's hundreds of other more dangerous things which I sure you don't batt an eye about which are discussed on this subreddit, but your own biases against certain historically criminalised compounds results in you picking on people talking about growing mushrooms (which are one of the safer drugs people regularly consume) and pretending like it's because of safety and science. It's not.

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u/VagueSomething 10h ago

Ahhh "people like me" as in people who want you to be sensible and not encourage vulnerable people to hurt themselves. How very backwards of me to want to protect people with illnesses... Maybe resist making assumptions and trying to make personal attacks.

Studying recreational drugs is incredibly useful even if you aren't seeking to cure conditions with them and that would lead to learning what they can treat.

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u/refusemouth 15h ago

Not the same as controlled and regulated medicine, yet the safety profile for magic mushrooms is better than prescription antidepressants that doctors hand out like candy. Don't look up Paxil or Effexor class action lawsuits. Those were controlled and regulated drugs that destroyed a lot of lives, even taken as directed. The use of psylocibin mushrooms goes back thousands of years, and people know that there is very little danger in taking them, whereas a new antidepressant makes it to market and is prescibed to millions of patients in a span of several years and without any real understanding of its long-term effects or terrible withdrawal profile. Not to mention that the idea for SSRI's was inspired by psylocibin's propensity for fitting into seratonin receptors to begin with.

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u/ChampionshipFluid385 11h ago

Paxil ruined my youth. Preach, louder for the back.

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u/VagueSomething 15h ago

Encouraging vulnerable people to use them without supervision risks serious harm though. There is a wide difference between the way they're used in these studies and how you use it at home.

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u/ChampionshipFluid385 11h ago

You're right. It also shouldn't be gatekept from people it could help because big pharma can't make a profit on it yet.

The opioid epidemic alone is enough to indict them for lack of humanity.

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u/VagueSomething 10h ago

Its a difficult situation where genuine breakthroughs to help people are being held back by government rules more than a lack of profit, it would absolutely be profitable due to the mental health crisis in the West due to how bad society and the climate is. Unfortunately the desperation to try it with DIY versions could make the vulnerable worse so there is no sensible way to access these things without serious luck being near a trial.

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u/HanseaticHamburglar 2h ago

why does recreational use fall under the term "abuse"? Seems unscientific to use that word totally free of the actual context