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Psychedelics: A Possible Cure for Mental Illness?

Anandita Lidhoo

Remedial for Mid Term Exam

“...I’d say ayahuasca is the best and worst thing I’ve ever done. I spent a week staring down all my bullshit and all my insecurities, and it was totally liberating.” recalls Sea Illing, narrating his experiences with ayahuasca at a retreat centre in Costa Rica. The plant concoction contains a naturally-occurring hallucinogen, DMT (dimethyltryptamine), for which even celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, Sting, and Chelsea Handler come from afar. Their experiences are dictated by certain repressed memories that are activated during the high, suggesting that its users get to experience past traumas with a new perspective. They return from the experience liberated and more at peace than they have been before.
Ayahuasca is just one agent of the psychedelics debate, where LSD, psilocybin (“shrooms”), and other hallucinogens are all being claimed to help with depression and anxiety. One main reason psychedelics are supposed to soothe mental illness concerns is because of a phenomenon users may be familiar with- “ego death” or “dissolution,” the disappearance of a sense of self.  It is said that when people report the feeling of “ego death,” there is a prominent drop in activity levels of the default mode network (DMN) of the brain. Michael Pollan, author and deep thinker, argues, “In the book, I reproduce an image of the wiring of the brain on a placebo and on psilocybin [the psychedelic compound produced in magic mushrooms], and it suggests that the altered states of consciousness people experience during trips may be the result of areas of the brain being rewired in ways that alleviate anxiety and depression and obsession and various other addictive behaviors (Illing, 2018).”

The image, from Michael’s book, How to Change Your Mind, is taken from a study conducted in 2014 on 15 individuals under the effects of placebo (left) or psilocybin (right). The activity levels in the brain are drastically different in both (Petri et al., 2014).


Pollan would call the default mode network the home of the ego, arguing, “When you look at the brains of people who are on psilocybin or LSD or other psychedelics, you find that the DMN goes quiet; it doesn’t shut down completely, but it’s significantly diminished. And when this happens, people experience a temporary death of the ego (Illing, 2018).” This process exhorts the formation of new connections in the brain, convincing several researchers that psychedelics are the new method of combating mental illnesses. Since many suffering from mental illness describe it as feeling antagonised by the self and disconnected from the world, a drug that causes the brain to form new connections with the environment of the user is an excellent solution. To exemplify, patients with life-threatening cancer have responded well to psychedelic treatment in dealing with their depressive and anxious symptoms due to the illness. Patients reported feeling less “impending doom” and felt connected to the space around them.
While the benefits may seem incredible and revolutionary, it is important not to ignore the outcomes of usage of such drugs in high dosages: “Preclinical studies which measured schizophrenic endophenotypes such as prepulse inhibition and other information processing deficits (Geyer and Braff, 1987) support this theory that use of serotonergic hallucinogens may have a central role in the onset of psychiatric disorder” (De Gregorio, Enns, Nuñez, Posa, & Gobbi, 2018). However, it is also imperative to register that in low-doses and controlled clinical settings, LSD and serotonin hallucinogens have been proven themselves as possible mood disorder treatments.
While a seemingly elegant resolve, hallucinogenic drugs have earned a reputation for themselves over the years, causing several to speak up against such research findings. Furthermore, many fear that it is easy for users to justify their addictions to such drugs and high doses, worsening the drug abuse climate in the world. As more and more suffering from depression or anxiety microdose and go about their usual lives, such stigmas will soon be countered.
For now, we are potentially looking forward to the prospect of a healthier relationship with hallucinogens, and our minds.






References List
De Gregorio, D., Enns, J. P., Nuñez, N. A., Posa, L., & Gobbi, G. (2018). d-Lysergic acid diethylamide, psilocybin, and other classic hallucinogens: Mechanism of action and potential therapeutic applications in mood disorders. Progress in Brain Research.. Retrieved December 18, 2018, from https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30471683
Illing, S. (2018a, November 10). What an ayahuasca retreat showed me about my life. Retrieved December 18, 2018, from https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/2/19/16739386/ayahuasca-retreat-psychedelic-hallucination-meditation


Illing, S. (2018b, August 25). How psychedelic drugs might transform how we treat depression and mental illness. Retrieved December 18, 2018, from https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/21/17339488/psychedelics-mental-health-michael-pollan-lsd-psilocybin
Petri, G., Expert, P., Turkheimer, F., Carhat-Harris, R., Nutt, D., Hellyer, P. J., & Vaccarino, F. (2014, December 6). Homological scaffolds of brain functional networks. Retrieved December 18, 2018, from https://royalsocietypublishing.org/action/cookieAbsent
Ross, S., Bossis, A., Guss, J., Agin-Liebes, G., Malone, T., Cohen, B., . . . Schmidt, B. L. (2016). Rapid and sustained symptom reduction following psilocybin treatment for anxiety and depression in patients with life-threatening cancer: a randomized controlled trial. Retrieved December 18, 2018, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0269881116675512

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