![]() ![]() The first push came in the late 1990s, driven primarily by a US non-profit called the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). That’s part of the reason why a psychedelic revival has always been so tantalising. SSRI antidepressants work better than placebo in 1 in 5 people but don’t stop without consulting your qualified medical professional The picture is no less grim for other mental illnesses: there is a chronic shortage of new treatments and precious few ideas about where fresh options might come from. Even when they do work, there are problems, not least that coming off the drugs brings severe side effects. Despite their ubiquity – 8.5 per cent of people in the US take them – SSRIs work for just 1 in 5 people. That comes as no surprise to many psychiatrists. But recently, this idea has been called into question, as more and more studies suggest SSRIs aren’t as effective as we thought. Their success in early trials fuelled the idea that depression is caused by a deficiency in serotonin. In the meantime, treatment for depression, the most common mental illness, came to be dominated by drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which boost levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in synapses by blocking its reabsorption by neurons. The backlash meant that by 1970, they had been banned in the US, Canada and Europe. Then psychedelics escaped the lab and took off among the counterculture. “The psychedelic revival is finally bearing fruit with a series of startling results” By the mid-1960s, roughly 40,000 people had been given LSD as part of treatments for all manner of mental illnesses, from obsessive compulsive disorder to addiction, depression and schizophrenia. ![]() The idea that might be used to treat mental illness emerged in the 1950s, a decade or so after Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann first described his experiences of taking LSD. If the latest results stand up to closer scrutiny, they will transform the way we understand and treat mental illnesses.įeted the healing powers of psychedelic drugs many times, but can they ever deliver on the hype? Now there is a growing band of respected scientists whose rigorous work is finally bearing fruit – not only in terms of benefits for patients, but also unprecedented insights into how psychedelics reset the brain. The catch is that these substances, known as psychedelics, have been outlawed for decades.Ī psychedelic renaissance has been feted many times, without ever delivering on the high hopes. They seem to be capable of alleviating symptoms for long periods, in some cases with just a single dose. There is one group of compounds that shows promise. Mental illness has reached crisis proportions, yet we still have no clear links between psychiatric diagnoses and what’s going on in the brain – and no effective new classes of drugs. “Not so much for patients with schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder or depression.” “There are great examples in other areas of medicine where we’ve seen innovation really make a difference,” says Insel. Towards the end of his 13-year tenure, Insel began publicly criticising his own organisation, and psychiatry in general, for its failure to help people with mental illness. ![]() HE WASN’T the first person to say it, and he probably won’t be the last, but Tom Insel’s accusation carried extra weight thanks to his job title: director of the US National Institute of Mental Health. ![]()
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