by EmpathiCSubstanceS | May 9, 2018 | Addiction, Depression
The next big depression treatment might be ketamine, but how best to use it remains unknown. MICHAEL WAS ON the 55th floor of a high rise in an Asian capital, in a conference room, when his world cracked open. His heart began to race and the building felt as if it...
by EmpathiCSubstanceS | May 2, 2018 | Addiction
Despite science’s checkered history of experimenting with mind-bending drugs, Johnson insists his field of interest is “pretty nerdy stuff.” For more than 40 years, Charlie Bessant was that guy. The guy who’d slink out of every party to catch a smoke on the sly. Who’d...
by EmpathiCSubstanceS | May 2, 2018 | Addiction
I TRIED magic mushrooms out of curiosity and in middle age. I’d been on the amateur mycological circuit for a couple of years, but hallucinogenic species were rarely mentioned at the foraging expeditions and conferences I attended. It’s almost as if they were the...
by EmpathiCSubstanceS | May 2, 2018 | Addiction, Anxiety
It hurts to be left out, but for most people, social exclusion doesn’t become pathological. For people with depression, anxiety or other mental health issues, though, it can be a huge problem, worsening symptoms and creating a feedback loop of negativity. Enter...
by EmpathiCSubstanceS | May 2, 2018 | Addiction, Anxiety
hree years later Daniel Kreitman still chokes up when he talks about what he saw, and how it changed him. Kreitman, an upholsterer by trade, had taken psilocybin, a hallucinogen derived from mushrooms, in a trial at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for...
by EmpathiCSubstanceS | May 2, 2018 | Addiction, Anxiety
Patients unresponsive to conventional treatments benefit when treated with natural psychoactive compound, but researchers warn against self medication. Magic mushrooms may effectively “reset” the activity of key brain circuits known to play a role in depression, the...
