New UC San Diego study finds psilocybin use among those with depression doesn't lead to abandoning traditional care but is linked to higher perceived unmet mental health needs.

The CDC’s John R. Lewis Undergraduate Public Health Scholars Program helps meet the need for qualified public health professionals.

A team of USC researchers has received an up to $4 million award from ARPA-H to conduct a clinical trial of psychedelic therapy and mindfulness training for depression. Researchers will compare the effects of psilocybin therapy with and without an eight-week mindfulness training program among 80 participants in Los Angeles who have depression but do not have experience with psychedelics or meditation. The goal is to test whether the two may have a synergistic effect. Psilocybin is a psychedelic compound found in certain types of mushrooms that has shown promise for treating mental health conditions such as depression and substance use disorder. In 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted “breakthrough therapy” designation to psilocybin-based treatment for major depressive disorder, opening the door to clinical research on its therapeutic effects. Previous studies of experienced meditators suggest that practicing meditation may enhance a person’s response to psychedelics. To investigate this further, the researchers developed of a structured mindfulness and meditation intervention designed to amplify and prolong the benefits of psychedelic therapy. Throughout the trial, the researchers will collect detailed data on each patient to measure the therapy’s effects. This includes EEG and MRI brain recordings; saliva, blood, and stool samples; psychological and cognitive assessments; and additional data from wearable trackers. Each patient will complete two psilocybin sessions, about one month apart. Participants in the mindfulness training group will also complete an eight-week program designed to cultivate mindful awareness, loving kindness and compassion, including daily meditation practice at home.

Neeraj Lal, PhD, Assistant Member of the Monell Center, has been awarded the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award, which recognizes exceptionally creative early-career investigators pursuing bold research with the potential to make a major impact on biomedical and behavioral science. Dr. Lal's research with Arctic ground squirrels offers new insights for developing novel treatments for multiple chronic diseases.

Chronic pain can continue long after an initial injury. When a nerve outside the brain and spinal cord (a peripheral nerve) is damaged and does not heal properly, it keeps sending constant pain signals. Over time, this non-stop bombardment of pain signals changes how your spinal cord and brain process information through sensory and emotion-associated circuits becoming hyper-reactive, turning up the volume on pain.

Current pain treatments do not work well for everyone and can cause significant side effects. Painkillers like morphine just hide the pain, but researchers at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine have identified the underlying problem. They found that when they blocked a protein called RGS4 in the dorsal root ganglia innervating the lumbar spinal cord, in an experimental model, the nervous system returned to a calm, normal state.