The UK made headlines when regulators gave the green light to clinically test the psychedelic drug, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), to treat clinical depression. Known to cause powerful hallucinogenic trips, DMT (or the “spirit molecule”) will first be given to healthy patients. It is expected to be followed in a second trial with patients who are depressed, alongside psychotherapy.
There are currently no FDA approved DMT-based medication on the market, but a research study has shown patients with depression and anxiety can significantly benefit from psychedelics with psychotherapy in a group setting.
The positive health benefits are due to DMT’s ability to “breaks up all of the ruminative thought processes in your brain… and hugely increases the making of new connections.” The psychotherapy session afterwards helps to make sense of those settled pieces and work toward a beneficial change.
Carol Routledge, chief scientific and medical officer at Small Pharma, believes the DMT drug could help a range of depression and anxiety-related disorders including “PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and substance abuse.”
Found in South America, DMT is a drug that has been used for hundreds of years in rituals consumed in “ayahuasca brew.” There is a potential risk factor in the fact that DMT is a controlled substance on the same level as crack cocaine, cocaine, heroin, LSD, shrooms and meth.
The success of this trial rests in how many patients experience positive results in the controlled setting. I’m hopeful that medical professionals in the UK can learn more about how the brain functions with anxiety and depression through this clinical trial. If they can find a lasting medication with little side effects, this could be extremely groundbreaking.
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