Study reveals prolonged relief from anxiety and depression for several months after a single dose of LSD.

In a groundbreaking development, a new study on a proprietary form of LSD known as MM120 has shown promising results for the treatment of anxiety and depression. The study, conducted by Dr. David Feifel of Kadima Neuropsychiatry Institute in San Diego, was recently published in the journal of the American Medical Association.

The study involved 198 adults with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and the results suggest that higher doses of MM120 can significantly reduce anxiety and depression symptoms. Lower doses had no significant effect, but higher doses made a big difference, with improvements holding out for 12 weeks.

Jon Hamilton, reporting for NPR News, notes that the transcript of the study was created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. The study tested the efficacy of MM120, a product developed by MindMed, a biopharmaceutical company based in New York.

Robin Carhart-Harris, a psychedelics researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, has mixed feelings about the new study. While he acknowledges the potential benefits of MM120, he expresses concern about the lack of detail in the study about the delivery method of the drug. He believes it's critical to learn how to administer psychedelic drugs now, before doctors start prescribing them.

Carhart-Harris also believes that patients do better in psychedelic therapy when guided through the experience and when certain types of sensory stimulation like music are included. In the MM120 study, people could request music, but it wasn't specified in the protocol.

The improvements from higher doses of MM120 held out for 12 weeks, and the drug was out of the system by the next day. This study is giving legitimacy to research on a range of psychedelics, like psilocybin and MDMA, and MindMed has launched two larger studies of its LSD drug, one for anxiety and the other for depression, and expects results sometime next year.

With these promising results, Robin Carhart-Harris predicts a cultural shift and mindset shift around the use of psychedelics like psilocybin and magic mushrooms as medicines in the next couple of years. GAD affects about 1 in 10 people over the course of a year, and this new study offers hope for those struggling with this debilitating disorder. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

Study reveals prolonged relief from anxiety and depression for several months after a single dose of LSD.