Mental Health Disorders, Drugs, & Ayurveda

     While I was working on the brain and drug modules, I decided to reflect on my personal struggles with mental health and try to connect it to these topics. 

I began experiencing depression symptoms in 2019. At the time, I was a full-time student, had just switched my major, and was a resident assistant in the on-campus dorms. I was chronically stressed and fatigued. I was burnt out, unmotivated to work on school work, and felt really imbalanced. I wasn’t taking care of my body and it clearly was causing problems for my body and mental health. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, my symptoms worsened. There were feelings of hopelessness, extreme sadness, and feelings that I wish I could die. I was sleeping 16-18 hours a day. What started out as mild symptoms escalated into severe symptoms that were impacting my quality of life. I’ve reflected on this difficult time in my life during this class and have realized that my journey with depression connects to Ayurveda and epigenetics. 

I have several extended and nuclear family members on both sides of my family that have been diagnosed with depression. I very likely have a genetic predisposition for depression that I inherited from my parents. Each cell in my body contains these inherited genes from my parents. I found an article that mentions that one gene most commonly associated with depression is a gene called SLC6A4 (serotonin transporter gene). When the gene is turned on, it codes for a specific protein called 5-HTT. I found one review article that explains that when the SLC6A4 gene is turned off, less of these 5-HTT proteins are produced and can increase an individual's risk of developing depression.

Although I don’t know for sure if I have this gene and/or this problem, perhaps I inherited this gene from my parents.  Perhaps my SLC6A4 gene was previously turned on until I began experiencing major environmental changes in 2019-2020. The gene could have become turned off and stopped producing the 5-HTT proteins that my brain needed to function properly. As more of my cells stopped expressing that gene, my depression symptoms worsened. I asked myself this question. If my environment and my lifestyle choices had been different in 2019-2020, would I have ever developed depression? Would my symptoms have been less severe if I had behaved differently or made changes in my environment?

I currently take SSRI medication to treat my depression and it helps tremendously. The SSRI medication is also known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which basically tells my neurons to stop reabsorbing extra serotonin neurotransmitters. This allows more serotonin neurotransmitters to do their job and bind to receptors on neighboring neurons in my brain. More serotonin in my brain means that I can experience an improvement in my mental health and less severe depression symptoms. 

While I was going through the drug module, I watched a documentary series on Netflix called The Business of Drugs that talks about the production, distribution, and selling of legal and illegal drugs. I watched several of the episodes. One of the episodes talked about psychoactive drugs and how they can be used to treat PTSD and other mental disorders. In the documentary, a war veteran that was diagnosed with PTSD took some mushrooms and experienced tremendous relief. He was able to feel more relaxed and open to talking about his trauma. The mushrooms helped him to heal and better handle his trauma from his days in combat. I was extremely fascinated about how party drugs like mushrooms could potentially be used to help people with severe depression, anxiety, trauma, or PTSD. 

There is one chemical of interest in mushrooms that is being researched. A chemical called psilocybin is found in magic mushrooms and has hallucinogenic properties. I learned from one article that when psilocybin is ingested, it is broken down into psilocin, which mimics the neurotransmitter serotonin. When it interacts with 5-HT2A neuron receptors, it acts as an antagonist (meaning it stops the receptors from producing a response/message). Psilocybin is currently a schedule I drug, meaning that it currently has no official known medical uses. However, researchers believe that this chemical could be used to treat PTSD and other mental disorders. 

(Cotlow et al., 2013) studied how psilocybin affected mice who had learned a conditioned fear response. The mice had learned to associate a sound with an electric shock, and would freeze out of fear whenever they heard the sound. The group of mice who were given psilocybin in the experiment were found to not only have increased neural growth in their hippocampus (a part of the brain associated with memory and emotion), but were able to overcome their fear conditioning and resume normal behavior (even when the sound was played). Perhaps this drug could have similar effects on patients with PTSD who experience emotional/physical distress when they encounter triggers.

(Ross et al., 2016) studied how psilocybin therapy treatments could help terminal cancer patients better deal with anxiety and depression. Getting a terminal diagnosis can be a traumatic and stressful thing for many patients. This study found that a single dose of psilocybin, in combination with psychotherapy), resulted in the participants having reduced anxiety and depression. It also was associated with a decrease in feelings of hopelessness, and an increase in a feeling of life satisfaction and that their quality of life was good. Even though this study was small, the use of psilocybin (with other forms of treatment such as hospice and therapy) could help terminal patients to die with dignity and peace.

John Hopkins University has studied psychedelics since 2000 and just received their first federal grant for psychedelic research in 50 years. They have done several studies that I took time to skim over. (Johnson et al., 2014) performed a small study and found that magic mushrooms helped longtime smokers to quit. 12 of the 15 participants (80%) were smoke free at their 6-month follow up. 

I found an additional study from John Hopkins University that was published just this year.  (Gukasyan et al., 2022) found 27 participants with a long-term history of depression. This article summarizes it nicely in the John Hopkins Newsroom. The participants were given a combination of 2 doses of psilocybin and psychotherapy and had follow-ups 1 day and 1 week after the first dose and then 1, 3, 6, and 12 month follow-ups after the second dose. The participants reported having improved depression symptoms and had improved GRID-Hamilton Depression Rating scale scores. There was 58% remission reported at the 12 month follow up. 

After taking time to watch the Netflix documentary and browse through all of these studies, I really am excited to see if mushrooms will one day be considered a drug that has medical benefits and can be safely prescribed to patients. Could this drug help war veterans who have severe trauma? Could this drug be prescribed to people like me who have severe depression? Could this drug reduce suicide rates? Could this drug help empower terminal patients and help them die more comfortably? I think that this drug has the power to change the world and revolutionize therapy and medicine.