Is there more to magic mushrooms than psilocybin?

A facility in Vancouver, Canada, operated by Filament Health, produces enough psilocybin-containing magic mushrooms annually to provide hallucinogenic trips for 80,000 people, but these mushrooms are grown exclusively for research and clinical trials, not the black market. While most psychedelic research uses synthetic psilocybin, a small group of scientists argue that the therapeutic potential of magic mushrooms may involve more than just psilocybin, as over a dozen different compounds have been identified in them. This work suggests that natural mushroom extracts could reveal missing elements in psychedelic research.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In a suburb of Vancouver, Canada, a nondescript three-story building sits alongside a strip of parking lots. From the outside, it looks like an ordinary commercial office space. But inside is something more extraordinary: rows of shelves stacked with plastic tubs full of magic mushrooms—mushrooms that contain the hallucinogenic chemical psilocybin. In a year, enough psychedelic mushrooms can be produced here to send 80,000 people on hallucinogenic trips.Psilocybin is a regulated, illicit substance in most countries, including Canada. But in this facility, run by Filament Health, the mushrooms are not grown for the black market; they are destined for research and clinical trials. These mushrooms could help determine if something important has been missing from psychedelics research.Psilocybin is a psychedelic compound that, once broken down by the body into psilocin, activates receptors in the brain to unleash a mind-altering experience. After decades of stigmatization, research on psychedelics is finally having a heyday. The research on psilocybin is unveiling its potential to treat challenging mental health conditions like depression, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and stimulant- and opioid-use disorders.To date, most scientific research on psilocybin has been done with synthetic versions of the compound, not psilocybin from magic mushrooms themselves. Psilocybin was first synthesized in 1958 and synthetic psilocybin has remained the gold standard for testing due to its consistency and cheap production. But a small group of scientists posit that the magic of these mushrooms is more than their psilocybin alone. Over a dozen different compounds have been identified in magic