Can Psychedelics Treat PTSD?
Veronika Rivero
Traumatic events are known to cause or worsen mental illness in humans. Depending on the severity of the symptoms caused by the trauma, a person can be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
PTSD is classified as a mental health condition. It is characterized through the symptoms of flashbacks, panic attacks, sleep disturbances, and poor concentration. Usually, these symptoms persist for years after the traumatic event occurs. PTSD can even escalate into more serious illnesses like depression. In case studies, it has been observed that PTSD is a prime risk factor for suicide. Individuals diagnosed are 54% more likely to commit suicide.
Considering the unfortunate statistics associated with PTSD and suicide, one would think that there is an official treatment. Surprisingly, there is not; at least, not any approved by the FDA. While there are approved therapies such as cognitive repair therapy and some prescription medicines, they reach minimal levels of success. In many instances, the FDA has approved prescription medicines to PTSD patients that are addictive. This can cause other issues. Antidepressants or benzodiazepines that are often prescribed to PTSD patients are highly addictive. These drugs hijack the reward systems in our brains and cause humans to develop a long term tolerance to them. This results in having to take more and more of the antidepressants to reach the same effect or experiencing withdrawal symptoms when a patient stops taking them.
Antidepressants have proven to be an unsuccessful treatment for PTSD. However, psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin, ayahuasca, MDMA, and mescaline have shown promise in many animal studies. A 2013 study from the University of South Florida found that psilocybin stimulates neurogenesis—the growth and repair of brain cells in the hippocampus, which is the brain’s center for emotion and memory. In the study, mice that were given psilocybin overcame fear conditioning far better than mice that were given a placebo. This could be the perfect treatment for PTSD patients who fall into the same trauma cycle over and over again.
After having success in the lab, scientists began to conduct experiments to see if they could achieve similar results. They were able to replicate this success for humans. There have been several clinical trials that prove psychoactive substances are significantly more effective at treating PTSD than prescribed medications and therapies. In one study published in the Lancet Psychiatry, doctors treated twenty-six war veterans diagnosed with PTSD. During two day long psychotherapy sessions, researchers gave veterans two full doses of MDMA. In a follow-up one month after the second therapy session, researchers found that symptoms of PTSD were effectively eliminated in 68 percent of the study’s participants.
The success of the trials were not limited to people who have PTSD. Clinical trials were conducted involving patients with depression, addiction, or even death-centered anxiety. The results of the trial proved that taking psychedelic drugs as a form of psychotherapy is successful. In 2016, twenty-nine cancer patients suffering from anxiety or depression were given psilocybin. Results showed that the psilocybin reduced cancer-related anxiety, hopelessness, and dread immediately after the dose. At 6.5 months, 60% to 80% of the psilocybin group continued to report improvements in depression and anxiety.
Psychedelic therapy is still in its early stages of development, but through increasingly positive results, it is becoming more mainstream. In fact, some clinics (even in New Jersey) are already adopting the therapeutic methods of psychedelic therapy. This is the first time that modern society is adopting the official use of psychedelics for medicine. However, many cultures have been utilizing psychedelics in similar practices for thousands of years. If you enjoyed reading about the benefits of psychedelics as a form of treatment, tune in next month to learn about the history of psychedelic medicine in ancient cultures.
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