Magic mushroom compound found to break depression cycle

A compound was found in Magic mushrooms A new study suggests that depression can be treated by reducing the brain activity that keeps people trapped in negative thinking cycles.

Millions of people around the world are struggling with depression Women like it more than men Living with the condition.

This differs from regular depressed mood swings because patients feel that loss of joy Or no interest in activities most of the day, almost every day, for several weeks.

While talk therapy and antidepressants are commonly prescribed for patients struggling with this condition, research shows that they may not work for everyone.

But the exact reason why people with depression develop such a long-lasting illness is not clear.

In recent years, psilocybin, a psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms, has been widely tested for its antidepressant properties because it appears to have long-lasting effects on the brain after only a single dose.

Now, a new study has shown how psilocybin breaks negative thinking to prevent depression.

Scientists at Cornell University showed that psilocybin weakens the brain activity loops that can lock people into trances.

“Ruminating is one of the main points of depression, where people have unhealthy attention spans and keep focusing on the same negative thoughts,” said Alex Kwan, author of the study published in the journal Nature. Room.

“By reducing some of these feedback loops, our findings are consistent with the interpretation that psilocybin may rewire the brain to break or at least weaken that cycle,” Dr. Kwan said.

In the study, scientists combined the magic mushroom compound with an unexpected partner – the rabies virus.

Researchers used a lab-made form of the rabies virus to explore how psilocybin moves through the brain.

“Here we use the rabies virus to read the connectivity in the brain, because these viruses are engineered in nature to transmit between neurons. That’s how they are so lethal. It jumps a synapse and goes from one neuron to another,” Dr. Kwan explained.

Scientists injected a dose of psilocybin into the forebrain of rats.

A day later, the mice were injected with a type of rabies virus that can transmit into nerve cells and label the associated neurons with fluorescent proteins.

After the virus grew in mice for a week, researchers imaged and compared the brains of mice that received psilocybin plus rabies compared to mice that received only the virus.

Imaging comparisons showed that psilocybin weakened recurrent connections in the forebrain of rats.

This means that the magic mushroom compound may prevent the formation of loops that keep depressed people focused on negative thoughts.

The findings confirm that psilocybin can rewire brain circuitry associated with depression.

“This opens up a lot of possibilities for treatment science, how you can avoid some of the negative plastics and then specifically enhance the positive ones,” Dr Kwan said.