Canadian organization awarded grant to study magic mushrooms for treating depression

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) has become the first organization awarded a federally funded grant to study the psychedelic compound in magic mushrooms, psilocybin, as a potential treatment for depression without the psychedelic effects.

The study’s principal investigator, Dr. Ishrat Husain, said the centre has been “very motivated” to get involved in the effectiveness of psilocybin treatments.

“Most of the research is very preliminary and we can confirm whether these treatments are safe and effective and how to actually learn how we could actually adopt them in practice,” explained Husain.

Husain told CityNews there have been studies on how psilocybin, while causing potent psychedelic trips, also offers therapeutic effects for people who suffer from depression.

“When you administer psilocybin with standard research protocols … the psychedelic experience can be up to eight hours long, almost the entire day, and they need to be supported by trained members of staff so it’s very resource intensive,” said Husain.

The goal, he said, is to find out whether psilocybin is safe and effective, as well as whether it could be adopted into Canada’s current heath care system as a treatment.

In the study, 60 people who have treatment-resistant depression will be split into three different groups. Husain said one group will be administered a full dose of psilocybin plus a blocker for the serotonin brain receptor, inhibiting the drug’s psychedelic effect. Another group will be given psilocybin plus a placebo with support from clinical staff.

The third group will receive an active placebo plus the serotonin blocker.

“That will allow us to determine firstly, is psilocybin better than a dummy pill for improving depression? And also, is psilocybin effective without psychedelic effect?”

CAMH is one of the only Canadian sites for studying psilocybin treatment-resistant depression. Currently, magic mushrooms are considered a controlled substance and within the current legal framework, as clinical researchers, they are able to gain exemptions to use drug substances for research.

“So we have experience in navigating some of the loopholes that we need to access that drug preparation purposes,” said Husain.

The centre will be receiving more than $500,000 to conduct the study.

“The [study] requires quite a lot of oversight, their development and launch. So we’ve given ourselves a three-year timeline to conduct and complete the study. After that, we’ll be widely disseminating our findings, journal publications, presentations and scientific meetings.”

Husain told CityNews depression is not the only mental health condition that could potentially be treated with psilocybin.

“In very small studies, we are developing a portfolio of work in this area here at CAMH … including anxiety illnesses, OCD and other conditions as well,” he said. 

Right now, they are currently developing the clinical study and are looking forward to starting trials. Husain said they haven’t begun looking for subjects, but adds, “I’m sure we won’t have trouble given the excitement around this particular treatment in the public.”

Health Canada said the project is funded through Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Project Grant competition.

The CIHR has also launched its first-ever dedicated funding opportunity to “strengthen the evidence base and expand research into psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy through new randomized clinical trials.”

“The funding opportunity aims to foster psychedelic-related research capacity and inform the development of future larger scale clinical trials,” CIHR told CityNews.