United States: New research indicates that psilocybin may be useful for a person that has a mental disorder that can cause eating disorders.
Key Findings from the Pilot Trial
In this double blind, placebo-controlled study published in Psychedelics on September 24, the use of Psilocybin, a mainstream chemical found in “magic” mushrooms reduced BDD symptoms by about 50%.
As reported by HealthDay, BDD leads to excessive focalization on the defects in one person’s physical appearance; it is often linked to eating disorders and other pathological behaviors, according to the scientists.
Enhanced Brain Connectivity Observed
In this pilot trial, eight participants diagnosed with hard-to-treat BDD got a single dose of 25 milligrams of psilocybin.
And the data obtained from the imagery analysis demonstrated that the biomarkers of psilocybin substantially rose in connectivity within the network linked to emotion, cognition, as well as self-processing.
Those who reported the most strengthening in these links showed the greatest improvement in these BDD scores in a week.
Need for Further Research
The findings support a trend reflected in previous studies echoing that substances such as psilocybin have therapeutic effects and can make the brain more plenteous in its complexity councils, stated a team of researchers with the New York State Psychiatric Institute with Chen Zhang, research assistant, leading it.
“Psilocybin appears to enhance signal communication between and within the brains been areas of connectivity that are typically impaired in psychiatric disorders and this may lead to optimal cognition and emotion regulation,” commented the researchers in the journal.
But according to Fur and her team, there nonetheless is a scarcity of the assessed treatment in more extensive samples of individuals diagnosed with BDD, meaning that there is a necessity in more substantial numbers of similar subjects to prove the efficiency of the treatment and how long it will last.