Original title: Psilocybin with psychological support for treatment-resistant depression: an open-label feasibility study
Twelve people with depression that had not improved enough with treatment took psilocybin in two sessions, with psychological support before, during, and after. Their symptoms were measured before treatment and over the next three months. On average, depression scores were lower one week and three months after the higher dose. Everyone tolerated the sessions, though people had temporary effects such as anxiety or confusion; because there was no comparison group, the study cannot show that psilocybin caused the improvement.
Imagine trying a new recipe when you are not sure whether your oven heats evenly. You make the dish, taste it, and check again later, but without cooking a different version for comparison, you cannot tell what caused the result. In this paper, the dish is the patients' change in depression symptoms, and the missing comparison is a group that did not receive psilocybin.
Treatment-resistant depression has not improved enough with earlier treatments. This study suggests that psilocybin given with psychological support may be worth testing further, but its small size and lack of a comparison group mean it cannot show whether psilocybin caused the changes.
This was a feasibility trial with only 12 patients and no control group. Participants and researchers knew the treatment was being given, so the study cannot establish that psilocybin caused the symptom changes. The abstract supports preliminary findings, not conclusions about how well the treatment works for other patients or how it compares with other treatments.
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Psilocybin with psychological support for treatment-resistant depression: an open-label feasibility study — Robin Lester Carhart-Harris, Mark Bolstridge, James Rucker et al. — The Lancet Psychiatry — doi:10.1016/s2215-0366(16)30065-7
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.