Eduard Vieta
Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Barcelona, Head of the Psychiatry and Psychology Department at Hospital Clínic in Barcelona, and researcher at the Biomedical Research Centre in Mental Health (CIBERSAM)
The study is interesting because it uses a range of techniques to measure brain activity in order to observe the effects of psilocybin in healthy individuals who had never previously been exposed to the substance, and it uses the same participants as their own controls with a minimal dose of the psychedelic equivalent to a placebo. For this reason, there is little doubt that the observed brain changes are directly related to psilocybin.
Beyond the scientific merits of the study in terms of brain function and phenomena such as 'consciousness', measured through what the authors refer to as “'entropy' —a form of reorganisation of neural brain networks— there are, from a psychiatric perspective, two conclusions that seem particularly important due to their implications for the future use of psilocybin in patients with severe depression.
First, the observed brain changes in healthy volunteers are clearly associated with the psychedelic experience itself, which points to this experience as a potentially key element in its ability to alleviate depression. Second, the duration of the effect (at least one month) may also help explain, indirectly, why this substance can produce long-term antidepressant effects without the need for daily administration.
Naturally, these findings require replication, particularly in individuals with major depressive disorder.