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A woman living with dementia tried psylocibin and the results were eye-opening.
According to research published in Frontiers in Neuroscience by the medical department of Associação Cruz de Ankh in São Paulo, Brazil, an octogenarian Japanese–American woman with a 10-year history of Alzheimer’s disease was living with urinary incontinence, monosyllabic speech and a flat affect.
Alzheimer’s, a disease that causes devastating cognitive decline, can sometimes be slowed if it is caught early enough. Newsweek has previously covered some ways that the disease can be spotted early.
A Change in Demeanor
Once Alzheimer’s takes hold, there is no way to reverse its devastating effects.
After receiving a 5 mg dose of psylocibin mushrooms, the woman’s nervous system appeared to kick into high gear, according to the researchers, and she appeared to experience hypothermia—a known side effect of psylocibin—along with “profuse” sweating.
Finally, according to the researchers, she appeared to enter a “prolonged deep sleep-like state.”
After the initial effects wore off, however, the woman’s demeanor began to change.
First, some memories seemed to return. After 19 hours, the woman began speaking autobiographically and demonstrated memory of real events.
Roughly a day removed from her dosage, the researchers said the woman appeared to have increased alertness and she began to recognize her family.
On the second day, the woman was able to move around more easily. That day and the next, she started dressing herself, showing—as the researchers put it—”spontaneous initiative.”
The woman also showed major improvements in her continence on days two and three with dry diapers, even at night.
By days six and seven, the woman was showing sustained eye contact, reciprocal smiling and working memory.
A Month Later
A month after her dose, the woman was still continent and was still showing improvements in her memory compared to the baseline.
A second, smaller dose of psylocibin was administered, and according to the researchers, it “was associated with greater verbal expressivity, improved facial mimicry, spontaneous humor, emotionally valanced autobiographical imagery and increased agility while walking.”
The researchers added that at one point, the woman—unprompted—expressed that “It is pleasant to come here,” as well as other positive sentiments.
A Case for Future Investigations
Importantly, the researchers did not say that psylocibin can cure dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, writing explicitly that their findings “do not imply disease reversal.”
Rather, they said that the case “should be understood primarily as a detailed observational description intended to generate hypotheses for future controlled investigation.”
Newsweek has reached out to the researchers for comment via email.
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