Small doses for depression appear to be as effective as drinking coffee

About a decade ago In the past, several media outlets — including WIRED magazine — have focused on a strange trend at the intersection of mental health, drug science, and biohacking in Silicon Valley: microdosing, or the practice of taking a small amount of a psychedelic drug in search of gentler, more stable effects. Typically using psilocybin mushrooms or LSD, the typical microdoser sought wall-melting reductions and open-eye kaleidoscopic visuals rather than a mood and energy boost, like a gentle spring breeze blowing through the mind.

Anecdotal reports have described microdosing as a kind of psychedelic Swiss Army knife, providing everything from increased focus to increased libido and (perhaps most promisingly) reduced reported levels of depression. It was a miracle for many. Others remained cautious. Can five percent of an acid dose really do that? everyone Which? A new large-scale study by an Australian biopharmaceutical company suggests that the benefits of microdosing may be greatly exaggerated – at least when it comes to treating the symptoms of clinical depression.

A phase 2B trial of 89 adult patients conducted by Melbourne-based MindBio Therapeutics, looking at the effects of small doses of LSD in treating major depressive disorder, found that the drug was actually excel By placebo. Over an eight-week period, symptoms were measured using the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), a widely recognized tool for the clinical assessment of depression.

The study has not been published yet. But MindBio CEO Justin Hanka recently released the key findings on his LinkedIn, keen to show that his company was “ahead of the curve in microdosing research.” He called it “the strongest placebo-controlled trial ever in small doses.” She found that patients who took small doses of LSD (ranging from 4 to 20 micrograms, or micrograms, well below the hallucinogenic dose threshold) showed significantly higher feelings of well-being, but worse MADRS scores, compared to patients who were given a placebo in the form of caffeine pills. (Because patients in psychedelic trials usually expect some kind of mind-altering effect, studies are often blinded with so-called “active placebos,” such as caffeine or methylphenidate, which have their own observable psychoactive properties.)

This means, essentially, that a medium-strength cup of coffee may be more beneficial in treating major depressive disorder than a small dose of acid. This may be good news for habitual caffeine users, but less so for researchers (and biopharma startups) who rely on the effectiveness of small doses of the drug.

“This may be the nail in the coffin for the use of microdosing to treat clinical depression,” Hanka says. “It probably improves the way people with depression feel, but not enough to be clinically significant or statistically meaningful.”

Although these results are disappointing, they are consistent with the suspicions of some of the more skeptical researchers, who have long believed that the benefits of microdosing are not the result of a small drug stimulus, but rather can be traced to the so-called “placebo effect.”

In 2020, Jay Olson, then a doctoral candidate in the department of psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, conducted an experiment. He gave 33 participants a placebo, telling them it was actually a dose of a psilocybin-like drug. They were led to believe that there was no placebo group. Other researchers who were present simulated the effects of the drug, in a room treated with tripod lighting and other visual stimulants, in an attempt to orchestrate the “optimal expectation” of a psychedelic experience.

The resulting paper, titled “Stumbling into Nothing,” found that the majority of participants reported feeling the effects of the drug — despite no actual drug at all. “Our main conclusion is that the placebo effect can be stronger than expected in psychedelic studies,” Olson, now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, tells WIRED. “The placebo effects were stronger than what you would get from small doses.”