- Depression is one of the most common mental health issues people face, and sometimes doctors treat symptoms with medications.
- One pharmaceutical route scientists are studying is using psychedelics such as LSD and psilocin to treat depression.
- However, psychedelics can cause hallucinations, which can be problematic since they can contribute to psychosis or put someone in an unsafe situation.
- In a new study out of Finland, researchers found that the mechanism that causes antidepressant benefits is separate from the mechanism that causes hallucinations.
While there are many antidepressant medications doctors prescribe to treat clinical depression, not everyone responds to them.
Finding the right medication and dose can be difficult, and sometimes people simply do not respond well to typically prescribed antidepressants, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs).
This issue led researchers to look into alternative ways of treating depression, and one avenue researchers have been exploring is psychedelics. Some psychedelics may be able to alleviate depression symptoms, but they can also cause hallucinations.
In a study led by researchers from the University of Helsinki in Finland, scientists explored a way to get the benefit of psychedelics without hallucinations. The study is published in
The caveat, however, is that psychedelics such as LSD and magic mushrooms can cause people to hallucinate, which is not ideal since that can potentially trigger psychosis and unsafe behaviors.
This drove the researchers in the current study to look into the mechanisms that give psychedelics both their antidepressant and hallucinogenic effects to see if the latter could be blocked.
According to the authors, they learned through a
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