Study Examines Potential of Psilocybin
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical Institution released a study that assessed the therapuetic value of psilocybin, a pyschoactive found in "magic mushrooms." Thirty-six people participated in the study, which used Ritalin as a control. After the two month follow up to the study, the psilocybin group scored about twice as high on the three categories of changes in "positive attitudes about life and/or self," "positive mood changes," and "positive behavior changes."
Comments
Some notes on the study:
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According to the paper, of 24 participants
3 rated the experience as the single-most meaningful experience in their lifetime
13 rated it as among the 5 most meaningful experiences in their lifetime
3 rated it as among the 10 most meaningful experiences in their lifetime
4 rated it as an experience that occurs once every 5 years
1 rated it as an experience that occurs once every year
These ratings on personal meaningfulness were taken 2 months after the experience
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Although NIDA funded it, it wasn't too pleased with the study.
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The WSJ article linked above, has sloppy reporting. Consider me not surprised.
WSJ - "Two-thirds described the effects of the drug, called psilocybin, as among the five most meaningful experiences of their lives.
But in 30% of the cases, the drug provoked harrowing experiences dominated by fear and paranoia."
The reporter's conflating two different instruments. One instrument asked 24 participants to rate the experience. Among these, for two-thirds, it was among top-5. As for the fear, the journal paper says, "In post-session ratings, 11 of
the 36 total volunteers after psilocybin and none after methylphenidate rated on the States of Consciousness Questionnaire their “experience of fear” sometime during the session to be “strong” or “extreme.”".
So the two sets are not the same.
Later on.. "A third of the participants said the experience with psilocybin was the single most significant experience of their lives, and an additional 38% rated it among their top five such experiences. Just 8% of the Ritalin episodes were reported to be among the top five meaningful occurrences."
Same mistake again. The third and 38% relate to spiritual significance - the result of a separate questionnaire - whereas the 8% of Ritalin episodes refers to the personal meaningfulness questionnaire administered to the 24 participants and whose results are at the top of this post.
Posted by: daksya | July 12, 2006 07:30 PM
I couldn't find the study itself at the time of the posting, but I've now changed it accordingly. Thanks.
Posted by: Matt Nazareth | July 13, 2006 11:48 AM
Some more notes:
The post mentions "Johns Hopkins Medical Institution". There's no such thing. There are Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. The authors of this study belong to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.
The full paper is available in PDF format here. Commentaries on the paper, also PDF, here.
I think you should change the link in the post to the press release by John Hopkins.
Posted by: daksya | July 13, 2006 01:08 PM
What happened to my submitted comment?
Posted by: daksya | July 13, 2006 01:36 PM
Oh, because there were so many links, it didn't pass the spam filter.
Posted by: Matt Nazareth | July 13, 2006 06:49 PM