Psilocybin may help prevent brain damage after head injury: Rat study
Psychedelic known to reduce inflammation, enhance connections in brain
Treatment with psilocybin — the hallucinogenic agent in magic mushrooms — may help to prevent damage to the brain following mild head injuries, according to a new study done in rats.
Head injuries are an established risk factor for Parkinson’s disease, as well as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
The study, “Psilocybin as a Treatment for Repetitive Mild Head Injury: Evidence from Neuroradiology and Molecular Biology,” was published online as a preprint. It has not yet undergone peer review, the process where other scientists look over the study to ensure integrity of the data.
Repeated mild head injuries are common. People can experience them playing heavy contact sports like football, or from falls or other injuries. These mild injuries don’t damage the skull, but they do cause edema (swelling) and inflammation, which may set the stage for long-term brain damage. Studies have shown that people who experience repetitive head injuries are at increased risk of Parkinson’s and other brain diseases.
“There’s no contusion and bleeding in the brain,” Craig Ferris, PhD, co-author of the study at Northeastern University, said in a university news story. “All you see is the bump on the head from the edema on the skin. That’s perfectly fine, but if you have two or more bumps, then you’ve got these long, protracted problems.”
Increased interest in using psilocybin for medical purposes
Psilocybin, in addition to its hallucinogenic properties, has been shown to help reduce inflammation and promote new connections within the brain. In recent years, there’s been increased interest in how this molecule might be used for medical purposes.
In the study, researchers tested the effects of psilocybin on repeated mild head injury. They used adult female rats in a model that was developed to mimic what happens to people playing football.
“We impact them on the head,” Ferris said. “We don’t use anesthesia because people aren’t impacted under anesthesia. Everything we do mimics the human experience. We’ve replicated the problem as true as we could to the actual experience.”
In MRIs of the rats following these head injuries, their brains showed changes similar to what are seen in people who experience head injuries, including edema and reductions in connections between nerve cells, Ferris noted.
“Our results we get with MRIs are the same results reported in the clinic. So not only does the experience replicate, but the results from that experience translate to the human condition,” Ferris said.
The researchers found psilocybin treatment led to less edema as well as more pronounced connections between nerve cells.
‘It really did incredible things’
“It really did incredible things,” Ferris said. “What we found was that with head injuries is that functional connections go down across the brain. You give the psilocybin and not only does it return to normal, but the brain becomes hyper connected.”
The treatment also reduced levels of phosphorylated tau, a protein that’s associated with Alzheimer’s, and increased the levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and its receptor TrkB. BDNF is a protein found in the brain that helps support the growth, survival, and function of brain cells.
“I was absolutely stunned,” Ferris said. “It actually improves these neuroradiological measures associated with head injury.”
Although more research is needed to see how these findings could translate to humans, the data suggest psilocybin may help to prevent brain damage from head injuries, the researchers wrote.
“This translational model successfully bridges bench-to-bedside by replicating clinical observations and identifies [psilocybin] as a promising therapeutic agent for repetitive mild head injury and its neurodegenerative consequences,” they concluded.
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