Psilocybin may prevent a debilitating side effect of chemotherapy: nerve damage that can cause lasting numbness, tingling or pain in the hands and feet. In tests in nerve samples from mice and humans, the psychedelic seemed to maintain the energy supply in nerve endings that is commonly disrupted by chemotherapy, resulting in less damage and fewer complications. This is the first time a therapy has been shown to prevent this common side effect, which lacks effective treatments and can limit access to cancer drugs.
Just one dose of psilocybin relieves symptoms of OCD for months “If these findings can be replicated in clinical trials, the implications could be substantial,” says Maria Maiaru at the University of Reading in the UK, who wasn’t involved in the research. But people with cancer shouldn’t take psilocybin, the psychedelic compound in magic mushrooms, without medical supervision. It can interact dangerously with cancer medications.” Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) affects about 75 per cent of cancer patients who undergo the treatment to some extent, said Patrick Dougherty, also at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, in a press briefing.
It is usually treated with duloxetine, an antidepressant that provides moderate pain relief. But no drug had been shown to prevent CIPN, said Amit at the briefing. CIPN occurs when chemotherapy drugs enter nerve cells and disrupt machinery around microtubules.
These are railway-like structures that usually transport mitochondria from the main body of neurons, near the spinal cord, to nerve endings in the skin. The mitochondria supply energy to maintain nerve endings, but the disruption means they wear out and retract, causing issues like tingling. The researchers wondered whether psilocybin, which has been shown to alter nerve metabolism and growth, could preserve these nerve endings.
To find out, they studied a group of mice with abdominal tumours, half of which were given two doses of psilocybin – each equivalent to a 25-milligram dose in people – via injections into the abdomen, one week apart. The remaining mice had saline injections. All of them then received daily injections of cisplatin, a type of chemotherapy that commonly causes CIPN, for one week.
After receiving cisplatin, the mice underwent pain-sensitivity tests, where they were touched with a thin plastic filament to see how they responded. Those that received psilocybin before cisplatin responded similarly to a third group of mice with cancer that didn’t receive cisplatin or psilocybin. The mice that received cisplatin without psilocybin seemed to be much more sensitive to the filament’s touch.
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