The trailer for How to Change Your Mind was released. Based on the best-selling book by Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind is a docu series that explores the world of psychedelics from a variety of perspectives. It is being released on Netflix. You can watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8LRb4jfZ9g

A new study was published this week in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, entitled: The Safety and Efficacy of Psilocybin Therapy in Patients with Cancer and Major Depressive Disorder. The study showed that beyond high tolerability of the treatment, a clinically meaningful change in depressive symptoms was discovered. After a single administration of psilocybin therapy, the average score on the Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) dropped by 19.1 points.  You can check out all the details here: https://bit.ly/43CMSFf

Could psilocybin in senior care facilities help curb the fear of death? This question was answered this week in an article featured in the Daily Mail. You can read it in its entirety here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10913333/Could-magic-mushrooms-help-curb-fear-death-care-homes.html

Did you know that the earliest depictions of psychedelic mushroom use may be cave paintings in Algeria?

Algeria’s vast Tassili n'Ajjer region, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, contains over 15,000 prehistoric drawings and engravings, making it one of the world’s foremost rock art locations. The site even includes images, dating between 9500 and 7000 BC, of shamans “with large mushrooms growing from their bodies” and levitating “humanoid figures with oversized heads.”

Italian ethnobotanist Giorgio Samorini first saw these paintings in 1988, and considers them to be some of the earliest evidence we have of psychedelic mushroom use. Now a desert, Tassili n'Ajjer was once a temperate region, and several species of psilocybin mushrooms are known to have grown there at the time the paintings were created.

You can read more about it here.