© NYU Langone Health via APThis photo provided by NYU Langone Health in August 2022 shows an example of a psilocybin capsule used in a study which helped heavy drinkers cut back or quit entirely, published Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022, in JAMA Psychiatry. While it’s not known exactly how psilocybin works in the brain, researchers believe it increases connections and, at least temporarily, changes the way the brain organizes itself.
The compound in psychedelic mushrooms helped heavy drinkers cut back or quit entirely in the most rigorous test of psilocybin for alcoholism.
More research is needed to see if the effect lasts and whether it works in a larger study. Many who took a dummy drug instead of psilocybin also succeeded in drinking less, likely because all study participants were highly motivated and received talk therapy.
Psilocybin, found in several species of mushrooms, can cause hours of vivid hallucinations. Indigenous people have used it in healing rituals and scientists
are exploring whether it can
ease depression or help longtime smokers quit. It's illegal in the U.S., though Oregon and several cities have decriminalized it. Starting next year, Oregon will
allow its supervised use by licensed facilitators.
The
new research, published Wednesday in
JAMA Psychiatry, is "the first modern, rigorous, controlled trial" of whether it can also help people struggling with alcohol, said Fred Barrett, a Johns Hopkins University neuroscientist who wasn't involved in the study.
In the study, 93 patients took a capsule containing psilocybin or a dummy medicine, lay on a couch, their eyes covered, and listened to recorded music through headphones. They received two such sessions, one month apart, and 12 sessions of talk therapy.
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