Summary: Psychedelics like magic mushrooms or LSD produce a unique experience. They are hallucinogenic. They are known to help with many health conditions like depression and other issues. However, there are safety concerns regarding their clinical use. Researchers in the new study found that VR technology can provide a similar kind of self-transcendent experience in a safe and more controlled manner.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in psychedelics like magic mushrooms or LSD. Though these are substances of abuse, it appears they might also help manage various health conditions when used under medical supervision.

Psychedelics are especially good for managing mental health disorders like depression. They might also boost mental abilities. Additionally, psychedelic experience may be beneficial even in some physical health disorders.

However, using psychedelics in clinical practice is challenging, and chances are slim that they would find wider use. These are highly controlled substances. Not only that but carrying out psychedelic therapy is also quite challenging. Additionally, once the psychedelic experience begins, a therapist has little control over it. It means that psychedelics do not work as expected in many instances.

Nonetheless, these limitations of psychedelics do not mean neglecting their benefits. Science just needs to find a safe way to induce a similar mental state. There could be many ways of doing so, like creating safer psychedelics. However, now researchers think that VR technology may be a much better way of safely inducing psychedelic-like effects.

Studies suggest that during a psychedelic experience, few things occur. They say this experience is similar to those reported by some post-stroke patients. In the state, one cannot clearly define the boundaries of the body. One loses the sensation of where the body begins and where it ends. However, this also provides strange kinds of sensations like arms and legs merging with the wall, and so on. It reduces egoic identity, and one descends into a so-called “self-transcendent experience” (STEs).

STE is a special state of mind in which the sense of self-identity diminishes temporarily, and one achieves the so-called oneness with other people and the environment. It is a kind of feeling that sometimes happens when reading a book. However, this kind of experience is much weaker when reading a book.

However, the kind of experience that occur due to psychedelics is much more intense. It is a feeling of oneness with the cosmos. It is a kind of mystic experience, almost like an encounter with God. 

Researchers say that those who had such kind of experience while taking psilocybin describe it as the most wonderful thing that ever happened to their lives.

It means that there is simply a need to find a safer way of providing such experiences. Now researchers think that perhaps the best way of doing this is by using VR technology. 

In a new program, researchers used VR experience for a group of people to create oneness with the environment and each other. They called this experience Isness. In the study, five participants experienced VR together. They were either located near each other or away. 

VR is unique in a way that it allows even people in remote locations to join each other in such an experience or a trip. Moreover, the VR program safely generates a program enabling participants to descend into self-transcendence. The VR programs help to dimmish the conventional boundaries between people, which they generally maintain from each other. 

Researchers say that in this way, VR provides an entirely new kind of experience in which their bodies fluidly merge with each other. As a result, all experience is quite blurry but unique and spiritual.

It is among the first studies to show that VR can be used for self-transcendent experiences. Thus, there is a further need to explore the technology and its benefits in other health conditions.

Summary: Fibromyalgia is a common chronic disorder causing body aches, fatigue, tenderness in various body parts, depression, sleep disorders, and more. The condition is caused by certain changes in the brain that remain poorly understood by science. Doctors treat fibromyalgia using painkillers, antidepressants, and other medications, but the treatment is far from satisfactory. However, new studies suggest that psychedelics like psilocybin or LSD may help in chronic pain treatment, as they can help reset the brain, providing long-term relief in the condition.

Fibromyalgia is among the most complex disorders to diagnose and treat. Fibromyalgia causes widespread body aches. There are multiple areas of high pain sensitivity. Not only that, but it also causes fatigue, sleep disorders, depression, and more.

However, the condition is still poorly understood by science. That is why it remains a diagnosis of exclusion. Before confirming the diagnosis, doctors would generally exclude other well-known chronic health disorders causing similar symptoms like body aches and fatigue. Its diagnosis is mainly clinical, and there are no reliable biomarkers to confirm it. Nevertheless, it is among the common causes of chronic pain. What is worrisome is that its incidence is increasing.

There is no single drug therapy that would work for all. Thus, doctors would prescribe non-inflammatory drugs and anti-seizure medications, like gabapentin, and antidepressants, to treat the condition. However, the benefit from most of these drugs is far from satisfactory, and the risk of side effects from such treatments is high. Thus, there is a need to find safe medications to treat the condition.

In recent years, doctors have understood that fibromyalgia is caused by some brain changes causing hyperalgesia and fatigue. Thus, body tenderness in the condition is rather due to changes in the brain and not due to some local inflammation. Hence, it is vital to explore drug therapies that may help alter the brain’s working. Psychedelics are known to help reset the brain and provide prolonged benefits for many brain disorders. However, psychedelic therapy still remains largely experimental in various health disorders.

Now, one of the pharma startups has decided to explore the role of psychedelics in managing fibromyalgia. A California-based company called Tryp Therapeutics has partnered with the Chronic Pain & Fatigue Research Center at the University of Michigan Medical School for a phase 2 study regarding the use of psilocybin to treat fibromyalgia.

There are many reasons to consider psilocybin. It is the psychoactive compound found in “magic mushrooms” and is known to be relatively safe. Thus, researchers do not need to spend years generating pre-clinical data, and they also do not need to start with a phase 1 study, which mainly focuses on the safety of the compound and its humans. It is because there is already sufficient information about psilocybin, and its safety in humans is established to a degree. It has the potential of becoming the best treatment for fibromyalgia.

Of course, phase 2 studies are also about safety, but they are more extensive than phase 1 studies. Moreover, they also focus on efficacy at a safe time. Thus, the possibility of starting from the phase 2 study means much savings in both financial terms and timelines.

The company will test synthetic psilocybin. Early studies suggest that psilocybin can alter neuroplasticity, alter many neural networks, and cause long-term changes in brain function. Hence, it is likely that it may help reduce hyperalgesia of central origin often found in those with fibromyalgia.

Everyone is very excited about the study, as its success may change how fibromyalgia is managed and may even affect how chronic pain treatment, opioid addiction treatment and depression management is carried out. But, of course, these are still early days, as the company is still only getting ready to file for phase 2 trials. Such a trial needs to enroll a few hundred people. However, for the US FDA to approve the drug for medical use, there would be a need for a phase 3 trial, which is much more extensive.

So, sure, there is still a way to go. Nevertheless, the news is exciting, as pharma companies have started looking beyond traditional painkillers or antidepressants to manage such conditions. Moreover, there is limited evidence that antidepressants work for fibromyalgia.

Even more interesting is that other pharma companies have also started exploring the role of psychedelics in managing fibromyalgia. Thus, another company, Mind Medicine, has announced that they are beginning their investigation regarding the use of LSD to treat chronic pain syndrome and get cluster headache relief.

To date, LSD and psilocybin are classified as Schedule 1 controlled substances; hence, they are not approved for any medical use. However, these studies may change all that.