Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
Research on psilocybin for depression is promising but still early. Small, carefully run studies that combine psilocybin with therapy often find big short-term drops in depressive symptoms, and some people keep improving for months. At the same time, the trials are usually small or open-label, and scientists still need larger, well-controlled studies and longer follow-up to be sure how well and how safely psilocybin works for different people. Scientists have some ideas about how psilocybin might help. Lab and brain-imaging studies point to effects on serotonin brain receptors, more flexible brain connections (called neuroplasticity), and changes in brain networks linked to rumination. But these biological signs are not all consistently measured yet, and the best ways to test them in people are still under development. Research also notes real risks in uncontrolled use, and that many study samples lack diversity, so we do not yet know how well results apply to everyone.
This paper is a careful review of research about treatment-resistant depression. The authors looked through medical studies to see how doctors define this kind of depression, what makes it hard to assess, and which treatments have been tried. They describe drug strategies like adding lithium or thyroid hormone, switching antidepressant…
