A new psy­che­delics play­er emerges to treat men­tal health dis­or­ders — mi­nus the hal­lu­cino­genic ef­fects

One line in an aca­d­e­m­ic pa­per changed every­thing for David Ol­son.

It was 2018 when Ol­son’s lab at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis pub­lished a pa­per demon­strat­ing psy­che­delics’ abil­i­ty to pro­mote neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty. Psy­che­delics re­search has slow­ly emerged from the shad­ows in the last cou­ple decades, with the FDA ap­prov­ing the first psy­che­del­ic drug, es­ke­t­a­mine, to treat de­pres­sion in 2019. A hand­ful of com­pa­nies are now test­ing the ef­fects of oth­er com­pounds like psilo­cy­bin — the psy­choac­tive in­gre­di­ent in mag­ic mush­rooms — on a suite of men­tal health dis­or­ders.

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