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An fMRI study has found evidence of a reduction in depressive symptoms after treatment with psilocybin:
A hallucinogen found in magic mushrooms can "reset" the brains of people with untreatable depression, raising hopes of a future treatment, scans suggest.
The small study gave 19 patients a single dose of the psychedelic ingredient psilocybin. Half of patients ceased to be depressed and experienced changes in their brain activity that lasted about five weeks.
However, the team at Imperial College London says people should not self-medicate.
There has been a series of small studies suggesting psilocybin could have a role in depression by acting as a "lubricant for the mind" that allows people to escape a cycle of depressive symptoms. But the precise impact it might be having on brain activity was not known.
Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression: fMRI-measured brain mechanisms (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-13282-7) (DX)
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday October 15 2017, @05:23AM (7 children)
I was with a friend when we found it. The stem was the thickness of a broom handle.
We wanted to clearly identify it so we used a field guide from the local bookstore.
My friend told me there is the hippie amanita, a toxic amanita and one that goes will with salad.
In the end we agreed it was pizza topping, but neither of us were certain so we let it rot in the fridge.
To have finally identified the species required examining the spores with a good-quality microscope. We didn't own one so we stopped at this last step.
Many years later I realized that I could get a bio student from the local university to check out the spores.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 15 2017, @05:27AM (4 children)
I went "shroom hunting" with a couple of friends in college. One guy said he was all up to try them if we found any with purple spots. Me and the other guy were just along for something to do and had no intention of trying anything we found, probably ever - but definitely not before some idiot turned themselves into a guinea pig. Anyway, wandered in some random cow pasture for about an hour, found nothing.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @06:02AM (2 children)
I also tried wandering around a cow pasture. I found more mushrooms on the lawns the way over there and back. I didn't know anything about them and threw them out.
It is legal to order a spore syringe in most of the USA, so you can start your guaranteed psilocybe cubensis [wikipedia.org] supply easily. The purple spots your friend was looking for was actually blue bruising. The first time you grow shrooms and handle them, you have an aha moment about the blue bruising. Just rubbing the stem of a fresh psilocin containing mushroom lightly should cause it to turn blue.
Instructions on how to grow them are in another thread. It is much safer to grow from a spore syringe than taking a chance with wild mushrooms.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 15 2017, @10:34PM (1 child)
I tried growing shiitake one year from plugs, had what looked like an ideal setup: swamp with downed trees. I plugged the trees and basically very little happened, ever - found out later from others that the particular weather pattern that year had really stunted everybody's shiitake crops, even when they carefully tended and watered them. In the end, even if I were growing them in a greenhouse (a very shady greenhouse, point being not on the ground in a swamp), I'd still feel uncomfortable consuming them without some significant effort in identification. Stuff like that grows when and where it wants, regardless of what you plant.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @11:55PM
Some fungi need very specific conditions to grow which can't be easily replicated yet. Such as truffles.
Psilocybe cubensis tolerates more than what some of the culinary mushrooms can.
If you follow the PF Tek [wikipedia.org] grow method or a variation on it, it will be obvious that you are getting magic mushrooms. The same techniques can be used for some culinary mushrooms.
Outdoor grows are a harsh environment with more temperature fluctuations and contaminants fighting for the same resources.
If you fuck up your indoor grow, you will not get a poisonous mushroom. You will a dead cake with mold or bacteria instead.
Some have proposed spraying a field of manure with magic mushroom spores. It does not work as well as what you can get indoors.
I looked it up and shiitake can be grown indoors [mushroompeople.com]. They say [rodalesorganiclife.com] the mushrooms have less vitamin D without exposure to sun and less nutrients if grown on sawdust or woodchips.
I would spend some time at Shroomery [shroomery.org] and research cultivation of culinary mushrooms. Some can use the same PF Tek and brown rice flour methods as magic mushrooms. Others need sawdust or logs.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday October 15 2017, @03:58PM
When it's 80 degrees F at sunrise is when you'll find them.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @06:01PM (1 child)
Back in college there was a student that thought he was buying magic mushrooms and wound up in a coma because they weren't what he thought they were.
Whether or not these mushrooms are safe for a given use, it's not just about that, but knowing what you're getting, how much to take and knowing how to take it that matter as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @08:18PM
If you grow them yourself from a spore syringe you can be sure of what you are getting. The blue bruising on the stems of fresh magic mushrooms is easy to spot.