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David Nutt

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Can psychedelic psilocybin make magic mushrooms a cure for severe depression?

NETHERLANDS MAGIC MUSHROOMS

NEWS on Magic Mushrooms. Can they be used to cure depression? The key component is something called psilocybin. The theory is that it can stop patients dwelling on their perceived inadequacies. Psilocybin turns off the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex, an area that appears to control emotion. It is a psychedelic drug.

Says Professor David Nutt (more nominative determinism at work), neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London:

“People with depression have overactive default mode networks and so ruminate on themselves, on their inadequacies, on their badness, that they are worthless, that they have failed – to an extent that is sometimes delusional. Again psilo-cybin appears to block that activity and stops this obsessive rumination.”

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Posted: 8th, April 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (9)