The Psilocybe cubensis genome; Psilocybin for bipolar patients; Small LSD doses improve mood
Plus: One-day ibogaine conference in Kentucky and a psilocybin ad…in The New Yorker?
Happy Friday, and welcome back to The Microdose, an independent journalism newsletter brought to you by the U.C. Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.
The genomes of wild and domesticated Psilocybe cubensis
There are dozens of species of psychedelic mushrooms, but among them, Psilocybe cubensis is perhaps the best known. But where this species originated is still a mystery — and to learn whether current Psilocybe cubensis populations could have been native to Australia, a group of Australian researchers analyzed the genomes of wild and domesticated cultivars. Their findings, published this week in Current Biology, suggest that the mushrooms were introduced to Australia sometime in the 20th century, possibly via South Africa or India. They also show that domesticated mushrooms have far less genetic diversity than the wild P. cubensis they sampled, and that domesticated mushrooms, often sold as strains with names such as Golden Teacher or Penis Envy (a name the researchers avoided by calling it “p-envy” instead), were derived from the same few natural populations. “Domestication of P. cubensis has selected for magic mushrooms that can be grown with ease in basements, bathrooms, or under beds, or that have produced characteristic phenotypes from limited underlying genetic diversity. Whether these cultivars can now survive in natural conditions is unknown,” the authors write. “Industries that produce psilocybin from P. cubensis will ultimately benefit from incorporation of new genetic diversity to bring new traits into cultivation.”
Open-label COMPASS study suggests psilocybin-assisted therapy decreases depressive symptoms in bipolar patients
On Wednesday, JAMA Psychiatry published results from a small nonrandomized study in which people with type two bipolar disorder received psilocybin-assisted therapy to treat depressive symptoms. The study was conducted at Baltimore’s Sheppard Pratt hospital and was sponsored by psychedelics company COMPASS Pathways. The study followed fifteen participants who received three sessions of therapy before receiving psilocybin, and who spent three to six weeks before psilocybin administration tapering off their antidepressants and other medications prescribed for mental health issues. They were also asked a series of questions about their mental health in a standard psychological rating scale called MADRS. Next, they received a single 25 mg dose of psilocybin and had a therapy integration session the following day, then two more sessions over the next two weeks. For the following twelve weeks, researchers followed up with participants to readminister the MADRS psychological rating scale six more times.
Three weeks after the psilocybin session, all participants showed lower MADRS scores. The MADRS scale ranges from 0 to 60; most participants in the study initially scored in the 25-40 range, demonstrating what’s considered moderate to severe depression. One week after treatment, their MADRS scores showed an average reduction of 24 points. By week 12 of the study, 12 of the 15 participants met criteria for being “in remission” from depressive symptoms. “There was an association between general intensity of the psychedelic experience and clinical benefit. In particular, individuals in whom psilocybin administration had little subjective impact showed little clinical benefit,” the researchers wrote.
One common criticism of what are called “open-label” studies like this one is that both the participants and researchers know they are using psilocybin and therefore their expectations about the drug’s efficacy (or lack thereof) could affect the study’s outcomes.
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Small amounts of LSD could improve depressive symptoms
Thus far, the limited research on microdosing psychedelics has yielded mixed results. This week, a new study published in Neuropsychopharmacology suggests that small amounts of LSD could have positive effects on mood. In the study, University of Chicago researchers studied two groups of adults: 20 who scored high on a scale measuring depressive symptoms, and 19 with low scores. Participants were brought into the lab for two 5-hour sessions roughly a week apart — in one session, they received a placebo, and in the other, a 26 µg dose of LSD. (A note on dosage: 26 µg is often regarded as the “minimum recognizable dose” of LSD; as a result, this may be larger than a typical microdose, as microdosers aim not to feel subjective effects of the drug they’ve taken. But 26 µg is still significantly less than a typical dose of LSD, which usually ranges between 50-100 µg.)
The researchers write that people in both groups reported feeling the effects of the LSD dose, but those in the high depression scores group said they felt significantly stronger effects, including positive ones such as feelings of elation. Those participants also reported a larger decrease in depression scores after taking LSD than when they received a placebo.
Kentucky holds ibogaine summit
Last week, Momentum Events — the event planning company that has helped produce recent psychedelic gatherings like MAPS’s Psychedelic Science 2023 and Horizons 2022 — hosted a day-long event called The Kentucky Summit on Exploring Breakthrough Therapeutic Potential for Opioid Use Disorder. Held at a small expo center just outside Louisville, the event began with an opening prayer, and its line-up included mostly out-of-state speakers discussing the addiction treatment potential of ibogaine, a psychoactive substance found in a plant from West Africa. Speakers included MAPS founder Rick Doblin as well as founders of DemeRx and atai, who have a joint venture to develop ibogaine treatments. (DemeRx is partially owned by atai; atai was also the main sponsor of the event.)
The timing and topic of the summit is hardly a coincidence; the state’s Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission is considering a proposal to use $42 million of the state’s $842 million settlement from opioid manufacturers and distributors to advance ibogaine research. “We were very well aware of what was happening with the commission here,” Momentum’s founder Ben Greenzweig told KET, Kentucky’s PBS affiliate. The vote “represented a seismic opportunity,” Greenzweig said, and the conference could be a chance to address the “massive education gap” around psychedelics research.
Mysterious psilocybin microdosing ad in The New Yorker
In a recent issue of The New Yorker, a group called SoulCybin took out a one-page advertisement for “psilocybin microdosing.” Stanford professor Boris Heifets tweeted a photo of the spread, which promises readers a “free sample pack”:
The link in the ad leads to a short letter addressed to “beloved one,” explaining that all new members must sign up and accept a membership agreement. (The agreement includes stipulations like attesting that “I do not represent any Local, State or Federal agency, governmental agency, non governmental agency or organization whose purpose is to regulate and approve products or services, or to carry out any mission of enforcement, entrapment or investigation.”) The site states that SoulCybin is an “integrated auxiliary” of Sovereign Heart Nation Ministry, whose website reads “coming soon.” The site does not indicate who is behind the effort — but when The Microdose first saw it, there was an ad at the top that could provide a clue. The ad is for a program called “The Journey,” which links to a video by Trinity de Guzman. De Guzman runs a group called Ayahuasca Healings, which in 2016 falsely claimed to be the first legal ayahuasca church in the U.S. In 2020, journalist Russell Hausfeld wrote in Psymposia that “Ayahuasca Healings has repeatedly been accused of being, at best, a scam.” To be clear, selling psilocybin online, or anywhere else, is illegal under federal law and the laws of nearly all states.
Denver’s alt-weekly Westword reports on a business that purportedly sells psychedelics support services while providing the mushrooms for free — a legal gray space given the state’s new psychedelics laws.
Ecstatic Integration delves into the history of a psychedelic therapy training program run by the AWE Foundation and former students’ concerns about how the program was advertised and the behavior of its founders.
Prosecutors have downgraded charges against a former Alaska Airlines pilot who was accused of trying to turn off a plane’s engines mid-flight. The pilot told investigators he’d taken psychedelic mushrooms 48 hours before the incident and that he thought he was “in a dream.” Originally, he was charged with 84 counts of attempted murder; those have been changed to 84 counts of reckless endangerment, the Associated Press reports.
The latest McSweeney’s short imagined monologue: “A Garnet Hill Lady Does MDMA.”
The Ferriss-UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship program is awarding ten $10,000 grants to journalists. Applications are due January 31.
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