According to a scientist over in the UK, psychedelic drugs could have the potential to treat people suffering from major depression.
If you’re feeling down what’s the best thing to do? Stick on ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ while chowing down on some magic mushroom soup? Well, according to Professor David Nutt of Imperial College London, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, known as psilocybin, could help treat major depression.
But how does getting high as a kite help with depression we hear you ask? Well, Nutt and his colleagues found that psilocybin shuts down the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) regions of the brain.
This apparently helps sufferers of depression to remember happy experiences and to forget the bad ones.
“Psychedelics are thought of as ‘mind-expanding’ drugs so it has commonly been assumed that they work by increasing brain activity. But, surprisingly, we found that psilocybin actually caused activity to decrease in areas that have the densest connections with other areas.”
For more on the story check out The Guardian’s article here.
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